Create an effective search strategyThe Library can offer a wealth of resources but if you do not know how to search for these effectively you may be missing out on key materials.
The key points to remember are:
If your search isn't working & you can't find anything relevant - make an appointment with your Academic Liaison Librarian to get help formulating your search strategy.
The following example shows how a search topic ('the representation of women in fairy tales') can be broken down into keywords and grouped by concept. It shows how they relate to one other.
| Concept 1 | AND | Concept 2 | AND | Concept 3 |
| construction | femininity/feminine | fairy tales | ||
| OR | OR | OR | ||
| representation | women/woman | fables | ||
| OR | OR | OR | ||
| depiction | gender | folk tales |
You can either search for one option from each concept box, then repeat your search swapping the options in and out to get different combinations of keywords, or combine all your possibilities in one Boolean search. AN example of how a Boolean search could look in Gale Literature is below - see the videos on this page for an explanation of how this works.
Alternatively try out the Boolean Search Statement Generator below - type in your keywords and it will generate your Boolean search for you.
This playlist of two videos shows you how to prepare for and perform a literature search. The first video introduces literature searches and their role. The second video covers using the search operators AND and OR to create a search statement, and explains the role of wildcards and truncation in constructing a comprehensive search. This information is also available in written guides - see the links below.
Our Study Advice team have put together a comprehensive guide to doing dissertations and major projects. It includes guidance on planning your dissertation, researching and doing a literature review, writing up and much more. There are also links to brief video tutorials on these topics.