If you are searching for a particular topic and cannot find any resources on it, what might be the problem?
Answer
There could be a number of reasons for trouble finding resources on the topic, including:
- The keywords might be too specific. Try taking a step back from the particulars of the topic and thinking about the broader subject. For example, if you were looking for resources on border collies, try search terms like "dogs" or "pets". You may not find the perfect article or book, so you may need to extract pieces from many different sources which touch on your topic.
- The keywords may not match the terms being used in the articles. Try using synonyms, as many as you can think of, for different searches, or use subject searching. Some databases have topic finder or browse features where you can enter terms and find the accepted term used for that topic.
- Perhaps entering too much into the search box. This includes too many keywords, but also short linking words and prepositions like "is", "for", and "of". Most search engines get bogged down searching for these terms, and will either return fewer results or many irrelevant results.
- Perhaps looking in the wrong database. Most databases cover a particular subject area, and if the topic falls outside of the area (health science, business, psychology, history, etc.) of the database then you may not have much success.
- If the subject areas listed on the Library Resources page do not match the topic, try a database like OmniFile Full text Select (EBSCO) under General/Interdisciplinary.
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