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ELC2014 - Advanced English for University Studies

Tips for using OneSearch

Once you've gathered a handful of keywords related to your research topic, you're ready to initiate the quest for relevant studies. The foundation of a successful search strategy lies in the selection of appropriate terms. The journey from "search terms" to a comprehensive 'Search Strategy' is crucial.

Here are some valuable search strategies to make the best use of OneSearch.

5 Effective Search Strategies

Mastering search strategies is key. Here are some tips to craft an effective one:

 

#1 - Boolean operators

You might use Boolean operators to combine your search terms.

Boolean Operators* Description
AND Tells the search engine to give you results that contain all of the words you have entered.
OR Tells the search engine to give you results that contain either words you have entered.
NOT Tells the search engine to give you results that contain the word(s) you entered except the word following NOT.

*Remember to capitalize your Boolean commands. Some databases only accept these operators when they are capitalized.

 

#2 - Phrase Search and Truncation

Search Technique Description Example
Phrase Search (“ ”) To specify adjacent words to be searched as a phrase e.g. "Urban density"
Truncation (*) For root words that have multiple endings e.g. use improv* to search for improve, improved, improving and improvement

 

#3 - Concepts and Nesting

Here are examples if I am doing a research regarding "Wellbeing":

Example A: (Mental) Wellbeing AND Density

(wellbeing OR well-being OR "mental health" OR "mental stress" OR anxiety OR happiness OR meditation)
AND
("Urban density" OR "residential density" OR "crowded home" OR "crowded dwellings")

 

Example B: If you picked up the topic, say, "(Physical) Wellbeing AND Density  instead, consider

(exercise OR "healthy eating" OR "healthy bone" OR nutrients OR "healthy diet")
AND
("Urban density" OR "residential density" OR "crowded home" OR "crowded dwellings")

 

#4 - Advanced Search

Advanced Search is a useful tool for specialized and focused search. It allows you to use different operators to combine multiple keywords. And, It can help limit search results by specified search scope, material types, multiple key phrases, etc.

 

#5 – Use the filters

Refine large result sets with filters like peer-reviewed journals, publication years, and subjects.

 

Steps to Build a Search Statement

Build search statement - Steps

1. Identify keywords

From the preliminary search, you may have identified a few keywords and related terms from your research question. Pick 2-4 core keywords that represent different concepts. The keywords are usually nouns or noun phrases. Watch this video to learn a few more tips about picking keywords. 

Example topic: ""The Impact of Urban Crowding on Mental Wellbeing in Hong Kong.".

The keywords picked could be:  Urban Crowding, Mental Wellbeing, Hong Kong

2. Add keywords & combine them with "AND"

Go to OneSearch Advanced Search or an article database (e.g. Web of Science, Scopus) to build your search statement.

Use AND to combine the keywords so that the search results will include all these keywords.

To make your search more precise, you may:

  • Use quotation marks " " to enclose the phrase to search the terms as a phrase. This is known as a phrase search.
  • Specify search field, e.g. search within article title, subject, journal title. 


In our case: 

Advanced Search
  Any Fields "Urban Crowding"
AND Subject "Mental Wellbeing"
AND Any Fields Hong Kong
 ✚ Add a New Line   Search

If you run this search in OneSearch, you will notice there are very few results. This shows that the keywords you used may not be the keywords used in research papers. To make sure we do not miss out those studies, we need to expand our search by adding alternative keywords. 

3. Add synonyms/alternative terms & combine them with "OR"

Use OR to combine the alternative keywords (or synonyms) so that articles containing at least one of the keywords will be included in the results.

You may also:

  • Use truncations * to include variants of a word, e.g. travel* searches travel, travels, traveling, etc.
  • Use parentheses ( ) to enclose the phrase to specify the order (terms within parentheses will be executed first). 


In our case: 

Advanced Search
  Any Fields "urban crowding" OR "urban density" OR "crowded home"
AND Subject wellbeing OR "mental wellbeing" OR "mental health" OR happ*
AND Title Hong Kong
 ✚ Add a New Line   Search

Check search results in OneSearch and see the difference. Note that we changed the search field of "Hong Kong" to "Title" so that only articles with "Hong Kong" in their title will be retrieved. This again makes our search more specific.

4. Refine search results by applying filters

The last step is to refine your search results using filters, e.g.

  • Peer-reviewed journals only
  • Publication year range
  • Subject category
  • and more

You can find similar filter options in OneSearch and many other article databases. 

Don't target for a perfect search statement on your first try! It is very common to refine your search statement until you retrieve a manageable number of relevant results. You may discover new keywords or even refine your research topic during the searching process.

Read More Search Tips to learn more about Boolean Operators, Truncations, and Phrase search.

Subjects: Course Guides
Tags: ELC