Research is often an iterative process whereby the process of conducting the research will give rise to new ideas. When conducting research in library resources or a web search engine, you will need to experiment with different search strategies as you develop your searches, locate relevant resources and identify additional keywords to use that best represent the aspects of the topics you are researching.
Once you have identified the keywords and phrases that describe your topic, the next step is to connect them in a logical way that the database will understand - this is accomplished with the use of Boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT.
Databases and many search engines including Google make use of Boolean operators. Understanding how databases interpret your keywords will allow you to execute more specific searches, thereby saving you time while retrieving more relevant results. A database's Help pages will indicate how to construct Boolean searches and which wild cards the database supports.
Boolean operators connect your search words together to either narrow or broaden your set of search results.
AND - narrows a search by finding records that contain all the terms you have entered.
For example: Decolonization AND sports
OR - broadens a search by finding records that contain either or all of the terms you have entered.
For example: Olympics OR "Olympic Games"
NOT - narrows a search by finding records that contain one term but not another.
Before you start your research, consider developing a list of keywords that best describe your topic.
Thesauri, specialized dictionaries and encyclopedias are all useful resources for learning more about aspects of your topic and will give you synonyms, additional keywords and subject-specific terms that can be used in your searches.
Ensure that your keywords are kept together by surrounding phrases wtih quotation marks (" ").
If you have a keyword that is more than one word, such as human rights, you would type "sport diplomacy" into the search box to ensure the words sports and diplomacy don't get searched separately. In most databases, AND is assumed between each word, by using quotation marks you are ensuring that your keywords are kept together in their intended meaning.
Whenever you have more than one Boolean operator, such as AND and OR, in a search statement, it is necessary to separate them with parentheses. This is known as a "nested searching." Here's an example:
(Olympics OR "Olympic Games") AND sportswashing
Nested searching tells the database the proper order in which to search for the keywords. Operations enclosed in parentheses are performed first followed by the operators outside the parentheses.
An asterisk (*) may be used to specify any number of characters. It is typically used at the end of a root word, when it is referred to as "truncation." This is great when you want to search for variant endings of a root word.
For example: searching for sport* would tell the database to look for all possible endings to that root. Results will include sports, sporting, sportive. Use the truncation symbol with caution.