HLTH 235: Food Systems

When you are beginning your research use Omni to search for journal articles. Omni includes content from the various research databases to which Queen's Library subscribes but not everything is included. 

If you are looking for information on a very specific topic, or a topic that is subject specific, it is recommended that you search databases that specialize in that subject area for more thorough results. Please refer to the Using a Subject Index or Database section of this guide for information on how to search and find information in a subject-specific database or another multidisciplinary database besides Omni.

The default search in Omni is simple or Basic Search.

• To find information about a topic, use a keyword search.
• Enter one or more of your topic keywords into the Omni search box. 
• Basic search supports the use of Boolean operators: AND, OR or NOT. They must be entered in uppercase.

AND is used to combine keywords representing different concepts. Using AND ensures that all search terms are present in the results. 

• For example: "Covid-19" AND "food systems" 

OR is used to combine related/synonymous keywords. 

• For example: agroecology OR agri-environmental

To search for a specific phrase, type quotation marks around the phrase.  

• For example: "food systems"

Truncation is the process of adding an asterisk '*' to the end of a root word to get different variations on the word.

• For example: environment* for environments, environmental

Use brackets to group terms. When you have more than on Boolean operator in a search statement, it is necessary to separate them with brackets. Operators enclosed in the brackets are performed first followed by the operators outside of the brackets.

• For example: ("climate change" OR "climate crisis" OR "climate chaos") AND "food systems"

Once you have your initial search results, you may want to narrow or broaden your search. 

Narrow or refine your search by:

• Adding other terms using AND
• Adding a geographic region, date, population group
• For example: Indigenous AND "food sovereignty" AND "northern Ontario"

Broaden your search results by using OR between similar terms.

• For example: Covid-19 OR coronavirus OR pandemic

Search Example:

*Please note that the default search in Omni includes the holdings of Queen's University Library AND the physical holdings of our Omni partner libraries in Ontario.

You can Modify your search results by using the filters on the left side of the screen. You can refine your search by Availability.  For example, limit your search to only Peer-reviewed Journals.

You can also modify your results by Resource Type. For example, limit your search to Articles.

Use the Advanced Search option for more precise searching.

Using the drop-down options within the Advanced Search screen you can limit your search to specific fields and/or a combination of fields (Author, Title, Subject, Call number). You can also specify that your search words must be contained in the search field ("contains", "contains exact phrase" or "starts with."  Modify by Resource Type.

For example: