Techniques for common search strategy problems.

1. Troubleshooting your Search Strategy
 too FEW articles
 too MANY articles
 need more Canadian content
 mostly OFF-TOPIC articles

2. too FEW articles
• Use broader keywords for your topic
• Check for typos and spelling errors
• Remove long phrases and ‘stop words’
• Try using other synonyms and alternate words joined by the
Boolean Operator 'OR'
• (e.g. aboriginal OR indigenous OR First Nations)

3. too MANY articles
• Use keywords more specific to your topic
• Add another concept to your search using the Boolean
operator ‘AND’
• Refine your Results (Peer Reviewed, Date, Subject, etc.)
• Try Keyword searching just in the Abstract or Title field
• Use quotation marks to keep words together as a phrase
• e.g. “attachment theory”
• Use an individual database that is subject specific

4. Canadian Content
• Use Canad* as a keyword
• Refine results by Country if available (also province and city)
• not for newspapers
• Refine by Journal Title and select Canadian publications
• eg. specific newspapers
• Search within individual Canadian journals
• eg. Maclean’s or Canadian Medical Association Journal
• Use a Canadian database from our list of individual databases

5. mostly OFF-TOPIC articles
• Brainstorm synonyms to use as alternate keywords
• Use quotation marks to keep words together as a phrase
• eg. “Great Lakes”
• Try keyword searching just in the Abstract field
• If your irrelevant hits are related to a certain word, use the
Boolean operator ‘NOT’ to filter them out
• eg. cloning NOT humans
• Use an individual database that is subject-specific

6. Find One Good Article, then…
{
Find the articles cited,
and articles that have
cited this one
Follow linked Subject
Headings
Related
Reading
suggests
similar
articles

7. See Also: Advanced Search Tools
Contact us for more help: Library.flemingcollege.ca