I have incororated an active learning exercise in my Writing 160 Library Instruction.

1. Keyword Search Concepts
Keyword Terms – are words or phrases that identify major concepts within the topic.
Boolean Operators – keyword terms may be combined with AND, OR, and NOT to broaden or
narrow a search.
 AND – Narrows your search by connecting two or more keywords.
Example: global warming AND recycling – retrieves results containing both global
warming AND recycling.
Truncation – use an asterisk (use ? in the library catalog) to search for multiple endings of a word.
 For example – recyc* retrieves recyclable, recycler, and recycled.
Phrase Searching – use quotation marks around keywords to find the exact phrase.
 For example – “global warming” will retrieve results with the phrase global warming.
Brainstorming Activity
Research Topic _____________________________
1. Keywords: Identify major concepts with this topic (brainstorm!) and write down 3-4 keywords.
1. ________________________ 2. _______________________
3. ________________________ 4. ______________________
2. Combine your keywords with a Boolean operator. EXAMPLE: global warming
AND recycling
3. Combine a Boolean operator to your keyword search. EXAMPLE: global warming AND recyc*
4. Place quotation marks around your keywords to turn it into a phrase. EXAMPLE: “global warming”