Library - Successful Searching for Starters

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Try these steps. An example is given for each

1.  Analyse your topic

• Questions you could ask yourself:
• What is aggression and how do you define it?
• What types of programmes might promote aggression in young people?
• Are younger children likely to be more affected than older? males more than females?
• Do other media have the same effect?
• What kinds of information do I need? Academic research? Examples from the news? International? New Zealand?

• Highlight the main words in your assignment question
• Think of other words that have a very similar meaning; you may need to use a dictionary or a thesaurus to find these alternative keywords and synonyms
• Think of alternative spellings as well. Remember that American spelling can be different from New Zealand

televison	aggression	young people
TV programmes programs	aggressive aggressively anti social behaviour antisocial behavior violence	child children youth adolescent adolescence teenager teen

Other common spelling differences between New Zealand and America include:

colour organisation globalisation

color organization globalization

Different expressions may also be used in New Zealand from in America:

physiotherapy

physical therapy

Phrases
Use "..." so that words that form a phrase will not be separated in your search
Example "young people"

Truncation
Search different word endings, including plurals, by adding a truncation symbol *
Examples aggress* child*
( Note: most databases use*  The Library Catalogue uses ? )

Synonyms with OR
Example child or adolescent or teenager

Boolean
Think about how your search terms fit together. How many will you use?
Most databases provide boxes for you to fill in. These boxes are linked by AND, OR, NOT

Example
	fruit AND vegetables AND narrows your search	fruit OR vegetables OR broadens your search