In order to get the most out of your searches it's necessary to have a good strategy. Generally it's a good idea to look for two-three really good articles rather than trying to find a whole bunch. You don't want to overwhelm yourself. Too much information can be as difficult as too little.
First, write one sentence that lays out what exactly it is you are going to be looking for. What specifically do you want to know? Do you need a basic overview of the subject or something in depth? Are you interested in a sub-area of your topic? How much information do you want?
Next, make a list of what you know about the topic; key words and phrases, dates, people, places. Look at this and see if any obvious questions pop up. What don't you know? This will be the information you're looking for.
Next do your pre-research. Get a better grasp of the topic, pick out more pertinent words to use in your search. Wikipedia, The Merck Manual, and MedlinePlus are good places to start. Now, write down the words you are going to be searching with and in what combination. Remember the different fields on the Google Scholar advanced search page? What words would you put in the AND, OR, NOT, and proximity boxes? What limiters might you use? Maybe you only need one field but it's important to know which one you need.
If you think about all of this and write down what you're going to do before hand it makes the actual search less chaotic and frustrating.
Next it's time for the search. Go to a reliable database that's likely to have information on your subject. PubMed, Medscape, American Journal of Nursing, or any of the other journals listed on the catalog links page are useful resources for articles. Google Scholar is also a good place to go for any subject.
Start with a simple search just to see how many results you get and what sorts of articles you're getting. If you find what you want right away then congratulations! If not, and you don't feel like paging through 5,000 results then move on to the advanced search page.
Were there any subjects in your results that you aren't interested in? Write those words down and use them in the NOT field. (I know it might feel a little silly to write all this stuff down but it gives you a clearer idea of what you're doing and lets you keep track of what you've already tried. Plus, if you need to repeat a successful search you'll already have all the steps written down.) Make your search using the fields and limiters and see what you get.
If you're still getting a lot of irrelevant results, look through the hits that look useful and use the words in them to create a new search. Certain areas of study use buzz words for particular topics. These will appear in more than a few articles and are good search terms. Keep narrowing things down by using the new words you find with the words you were using. Keep note of which ones got you the best results and in what combination.
When you find something you want to use write down the citation information, where it's located, and what search you used to find it. The most frustrating thing is to find something and then lose it and be unable to remember how you found it to begin with.
After conducting a few successful searches you'll get the hang of spotting the terms best used and the whole process will be a lot quicker.
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