Try the following techniques to make your searches even better.
Phrase Searches
Often keywords are more than one word. Databases let you put quotation marks around these so that only results with the exact phrase are listed.
"food security"
"child development"
Truncation
Shortening a keyword to its basic root and adding a special character (usually an asterisk "*" or "?") at the end will tell the database to search for variations of the root word.
For example, searching for politic* will find:
POLITICS, POLITICAL, POLITICIAN
Note: Check the database's help screens to see which truncation symbol it recognizes. (Most library databases use the asterisk as the truncation symbol.)
Parentheses
Parentheses are used to combine concepts and techniques. The database will search for what's grouped or nested inside the parentheses first.
(education OR learning) AND inequality
To evaluate internet sources:
The internet is a great place to find both scholarly and popular sources, but it's especially important to ask questions about authorship and publication when you're evaluating online resources. If it's unclear who exactly created or published certain works online, look for About pages on the site for more information, or search for exact quotations from the text in Google (using quotation marks) to see if you can find other places where the work has been published.
When you encounter any kind of source, consider:
Carlyle Campbell Library
Meredith College
3800 Hillsborough St.
Raleigh, NC 27607
919-760-8532