Sample Topic: Group Therapy for kids struggling with a death in their family.
Step 1 - Identify the main ideas - Group Therapy for kids struggling with a death in their family
Step 2 - Brainstorm other possible search terms. Consider broader, related, and narrower terms, especially those that an expert might use.
| Group Therapy | Kids | Death |
| Group Counseling | Children | Grief |
| Group Psychotherapy | Adolescents | Loss |
| Family Counseling | Primary education | Bereavement |
Terms that might help find group work will vary by topic. Broadly applicable terms include group work, support group, group intervention, group therapy, group psychotherapy, and group counseling.
Use the Boolean Operators AND, OR and NOT to create search statements to enter in databases, Spartan Search, Google, etc.
Examples:
Wildcards allows you to search for multiple terms with the same root at once by using an asterisk.
Examples:
Search for exact phrases using quotation marks.
Example:
Use advanced search to construct an effective search with your search terms.
This example search asks the database for material that mentions all three of the key concepts from our sample topic -- children, grief, and group therapy. Using OR in between words on a single line tells the database any of those options would be useful.
This example uses quotation marks around keywords with multiple words. This ensures the database finds that exact phrase and thus returns relevant results.
There is also an unexpected character. The word child with an asterisk at the end asks the database for the word child or a word that starts that way. This includes a lot of possibly useful terms: child, children, childhood, and childcare. It could also be too broad -- pulling in words like childless or childbirth. This can always be removed if it's not working as intended.
Adding additional keywords to your search can help to further narrow your topic.
Example: college AND first-generation students AND academic performance
Look on the left side for ways you can filter your materials. Here are a few to consider, depending on your needs.
What other words could you use to describe this concept? Brainstorm related terms, synonyms, and slightly different forms of your word or phrase. Also brainstorm broader categories or concepts it belongs to, as well as narrower elements or examples.
It may also be useful to consider the official, academic, or formal way to write that term. This is more likely to be used in academic writing.
Sometimes less is more! The more words, phrases, or subjects you ask the database to find, the fewer sources will meet the criteria.
Broaden your search by using the boolean operator OR to link your terms.
Example: (college OR higher education OR university) AND first-generation students AND (academic performance OR student success)
Finding one article on your topic can often lead to a lot more! Browse the references of the article to find sources cited in their literature review. The authors are likely experts on the topic and have already done the searching for you! Some tools can also help you find sources that have cited the one you are reading since it was published. By nature, these will be more recent!
There is often a feature built into library databases that provides a linked list of references. In Spartan Search, click the red arrows next to the article's title to find the article's References (the downward-facing arrow), and articles that have cited this title (the upward-facing arrow).
Don't see that option? You can manually copy that title into Spartan Search, ideally in quotation marks, to look for the full text. If you don't find your article, you can try searching on Google Scholar to see if there is a free copy available. Free copies are linked to the right of the article title.
Still can't find it? Create a request in your TIPASA Interlibrary Loan Account.