Search tips
Finding relevant literature for your work can be a complex process. Here is some advice on how to improve your information searches.
Where to search?
When you are looking for literature for a report or paper it is wise to consider where to search for suitable material for academic work. In OneSearch you can search for books and dissertations that are available at our library. You can also find articles, journals, conference publications, reports, etc. from most of the databases the library subscribes to.
If you only want to search for articles within a given subject and limit your search to academic material, we recommend our databases and subject resources.
Libris is the joint catalogue of the Swedish academic and research libraries. Here you can find books but also dissertations in full text. You may order interlibrary loans on books that we do not have in our library. In SwePub you may search for academic publications from Swedish universities.
Videos - Where to search?
How do I find search terms?
How do I find search terms?
Finding relevant search terms is essential when you search for literature about a given subject. Use your subject as a starting point and write down important words and appropriate synonyms. This approach is called a keyword search. Many databases have predetermined subject terms that are used to describe the contents of the documents. Subject terms function in approximately the same way as tags in social media. They describe contents.
Subject terms may be used for new searches. Check whether the database you are using has its own list of subject terms, a so called thesaurus. You can check your own list of terms against the database thesaurus. The thesaurus is often available in the database menu under headings such as Thesaurus, Subject Terms, CINAHL headings.
Videos - How do I find search terms?
I cannot find what I need
I cannot find what I need
Consider how the topic for your paper may be divided into different parts. Searching for a few aspects at a time increases the possibility of finding relevant literature.
Topic example:
The influence of cycling on the health of young adults
Try to search for different combinations of these concepts instead of searching for all concepts at the same time.
Examples of different search combinations:
- cycling health exercise
- ”young adults” health exercise
- ”young adults” cycling
The texts/literature you refer to in your paper show what research has already been published on the subject, but all texts do not have to cover your entire subject. Perhaps nobody has researched it. It is a strength to study what has not already been done - this is how researchers think.
Too many results?
Too many results?
Phrase search
Narrow down your search by placing your search terms within quotation marks. This means that you search for two or more words at the same time and in a certain order.
Example in OneSearch: “sustainable development”
Combination search
Use more search terms. The more words you combine the fewer results you will get because all the words must be present in the information about each publication. Often the word AND is added automatically between the terms and does not need to be written out.
Example in OneSearch: “sustainable development” environment
You may also try using more specific search terms.
See example in OneSearch: geoengineering
Field search
Narrow your search by delimiting a specific field such as title, author, abstract, keyword, or topic.
Videos - Too many results?
Not enough results?
Not enough results?
Truncation
Add an asterisk (*) to search for a word in its different forms.
Examples:
creat* can give results for create, creative, creativity, creature, etc.
employ* can give results for employer, employee, employment, etc
Combination search
You can get more results by combining similar words. By using OR between words, you search for several terms simultaneously. In that way, only one of your search terms has to be present in the result, whereas in some results, both terms can be present. This will give you more results than if you only search for one term at a time.
Example in OneSearch: "reading ability" OR "reading comprehension"
If you want more information on how to combine search terms, watch our video on combination searching.