I'm getting few or no results when I do a database search. Any suggestions?
Answer
Here are some suggestions for searching:
- Did you search an entire question or long phrase? Databases don't search the same way as search engines like Google. Break your question into topics or key concepts, and search just those words.
- Do you have suitable keywords and are they spelled correctly? Look up synonyms associated with your topic and try various combinations. For example: instead of old, use elderly, aged or senior.
- Did you try searching subject terms? Learn more here about using a database thesaurus to find search terms.
- Are you connected to the appropriate database(s)? Find subject-specific database by filtering the A-Z databases page by subject,
- Did you limit to full-text sources? If so, remove that limiter. You may find after reading an article's abstract it has the potential to work well with your assignment. If the full-text is not available through the database, search for it on Google Scholar or try requesting it through interlibrary loan.
Watch the short YouTube video below for some good database search tips.