When you have brainstormed keywords for your topic, you can start to build a search strategy to use in a database.
Databases
An academic database allows you to search for resources like journal articles.
- Searching in databases ensures you are finding scholarly information.
- Subject-specific databases are designed to efficiently find papers in a particular field.
- Explore the Subject guides for relevant databases. You may find more than one guide helpful for your topic.
Combining keywords
In a database, you can create a search strategy that will target the articles you are looking for. You can do this by combining your keywords using AND and OR.
Let's learn more using our example keywords:
- OR is used to combine similar keywords.
- For example, "Mental health" OR Wellbeing will find articles with either of these terms.
- Use OR to capture the varied ways a concept can be described in an article.
- AND is used to combine different keywords.
- For example, "Mental health" AND "Green space" will find articles with both of these terms.
- Use AND to make sure all of your concepts are present in the articles found.
Building a search strategy
When all keywords are combined, a search in a database may look something like this:
| "Green space*" OR Landscape | |
| AND | "Mental health" OR Wellbeing OR "Well-being" |
| AND | "University students" OR "College students" |
- Similar terms are combined with OR, and different concepts are combined with AND.
- Your search results will be relevant to your topic, as each article will include all three key concepts.
Bonus tips
Double quotation marks ( " " ) are used when searching for a phrase.
- For example, "Green spaces" will capture these two words next to each other.
Asterisks ( * ) are used to capture letters after a word.
- For example, space* will search for 'space' or 'spaces'
Finding relevant results?
After you have run your search in a database, next, review your results to see if they are relevant. You may decide to refine your search based on what you see.
For example, this article would be found with our search, because of the highlighted keywords:
Title: How university blue and green space affect students' mental health: A scoping review
Abstract: University students frequently experience high levels of stress, depression, anxiety, and a variety of other mental health challenges. There is growing evidence that university campus landscapes may offer tangible benefits for mental health and overall well-being but to date this has not been brought together and synthesised.
Refining a search
Looking at the title and abstract of this article, we could consider adding to our search:
- The related term depression
- The plural landscapes
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