Search Tips

University of Arkansas LibrariesJanuary 2014

How to Start a Search Focus/narrow your topic

Project on the Vikings?

Do a subject search in the library catalog to get a list of subtopics for “Vikings”

You may discover you’d like to research Viking folklore, or the Viking period in Ireland.

If you like, you can click on the topic to see the books we have.

Here’s the catalog record for the book.

It’s a good idea to start with a book, especially a reference book, to get some background info and terms for your topic.

Choosing Search Terms Topic: collapse of Viking settlements in

Greenland

Pick out most important words Viking and Greenland

Find synonyms for these words Example: ????

Collapse Failure abandonment

Search Tips AND

Narrows your search results by adding more requirements Vikings and Greenland

OR Expands your search

Collapse or abandonment or failure

NOT Narrows your search

Vikings not Dublin

Search Tips Quotes

Use for phrases Brings back only occurences of the exact

phrase: “ecological collapse”

Truncation Use * to find variants of a word root Ecolog* brings back ecological, ecology,

ecologist

Combine Search Operators Use parentheses () to organize similar

terms:

Viking* and Greenland and (collapse or failure or abandon*) not Iceland