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UNIV 1152: University Experience

This guide is designed to introduce new students to RSU Libraries and the research process. The required library module for UNIV 1152 is also housed here.

Searching Strategies

Did you know that when you enter an entire sentence into Google it searches each.. word.. individually? That's why you get millions of results back! Luckily Google does a decent job of returning relevant results from a sentence. Unlike Google, databases can't understand an entire sentence. You will need to break your topic down into the most important ideas, or keywords. Even Google will give you better results if you use relevant keywords!

Let's try with an example topic: How does playing video games as a child affect reading comprehension?

Keywords: video games, child, reading comprehension 

Once you've broken down your research topic into keywords you can start searching more in-depth using filters and other search tools. The boolean operators and, or, & not can help you combine keywords to retrieve results directly related to your topic. Boolean operators are like a type of filter and can be used in just about any search bar, including databases and Google! 

  • Use the word "and" between two key words or phrases to narrow results to only include items with both/all terms.
  • Use the word "or" between two key words or phrases to expand results to include items with either/or terms.
  • Use the word "not" to eliminate items that contain a specific term or phrase.

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Most library databases have built in search tools such as filters.

Here are some useful filters:

  • Peer-Review - Limits your search to scholarly journal articles
  • Publication Date - Limit your search to resources published within a specific time frame
  • Full Text Online - This ensures all results are available to read in full. 
  • Content Type - Limits your search to just one content type such as journal articles or books
  • Subject Terms - These are like official hashtags. Select them to find sources about that subject.

You can also view the Advanced Search for more filters and tools!

See it in Action!

Not sure how to start searching the library's resources? Watch this tutorial for a step-by-step demonstration!