A vast majority of the web (90%!) cannot be accessed via search engines like Google. (2.26 minutes) From Mashable.
Searching By Keywords:
Whether you are searching for books in the Five College Library Catalog, or searching for scholarly articles in a library database, it pays to be organized as you start your search. Break down searching into a three step process.
STEP 1
Write down as much information about your topic as possible. Answer the following questions:
Then, try to summarize what you are looking for in one or two sentences.
EXAMPLE: I would like to learn about the research being done on Shakespeare's "The Tempest," and, in particular, the character Caliban and post-colonialism.
STEP 2
Using the information in Step 1, list the main concepts of your topic.
EXAMPLE: Tempest, Caliban, post-colonialism
STEP 3
Now create a list of synonyms of your key concepts. Think broadly, think narrowly! This step is helping you expand your search by expressing your query in a variety of ways. If you get too many results, then you can work on focusing your search.
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[Shakespeare] tempest
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caliban
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Add other term(s) to further narrow search post-colonial* OR "post colonialism" *=wildcard; will find variations at the end of a word. ""=quotes will search for exact term,
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You will use the word lists you developed in Step 3 to create search strategies. Use "OR" between synonyms and "AND" between concepts. For instance:
(tempest) AND (caliban) AND (post colonial*)