Research Strategies

Rule #1: Be patient!
Rule #2: Try multiple search strategies using various combinations of keywords and phrases.
Rule #3: Be patient! (Did I already say that?!)

Strategies for using the subscription databases
You must use only these database for your topic. No free Web sites allowed for this project.

A. Prepare a list of keywords and related words to use for searching the databases. Examples:

Animal testing, cosmetic testing Steroid use, blood doping, performance enhancers Global warming, climate change
Waste disposal, garbage dump, landfill Automation & unemployment, outsourcing, robotics Cloning, asexual creation
Nuclear energy, atomic energy, radiation, alternative energy sources Reproductive technologies, in vitro fertilization, artificial conception Population growth, population explosion, overpopulation, sustainable

B. Know the difference in these search options:

  1. Subject searching: Created by indexers or editors, subjects are assigned, based on controlled vocabulary, often associated with Library of Congress Subject Headings. Most useful for single topic searches and returns the most on-target results.
  2. Keyword searching: Keyword searching allows for the user to combine several topics or subjects in one search. Looks for the terms in certain parts of the article such as the title, citation, abstract, subject headings, and as in Gale databases, searches the first fifty words in the article. Returns a larger set of results than subject searching.
  3. Full-text searching: Searches all text of the document for the terms. If a choice is made to search for articles with full-text this means that the database also contains citations or abstracts; full-text searching in this case, returns only complete articles or documents.

C. Try various combinations of search terms, choosing subject, keyword, and full-text.

  1. cloning
  2. human cloning
  3. cloning, human