LibGuides: Political Science: Search Overview

FCS and Social Sciences Librarian

Doris Helfer

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Contact:

CSUN
Oviatt Library Room 468
18111 Nordhoff St.
Northridge, CA 91330-8328

818-677-2562

Subjects:Family and Consumer Sciences, Political Science, Public Administration, Urban Studies and Planning

Overview of Search Tips and Tricks

Keyword Searching

Use keyword when your term may be very new, very distinctive, or jargon, e.g. "instant messaging", "XML".
Use a variety of keywords. There may be additional items on your topic that use different terms.
Be aware that you may retrieve items not related to your topic (called false drops)
When you cannot remember the exact title of an item, do a keyword search using the title words you remember.

Narrow or Broaden Your Search

Use AND between terms to narrow your search

example: television and violence and children

Use OR and/or truncate (*, ?) words to broaden your search

example: children or youth or adolescents
example: child* (will find child, children, etc.) Note: check online help for the correct truncation symbol

Truncation

Most databases allow for a symbol to be used at the end of a word to retrieve variant endings of that word. This is known as truncation.
Using truncation will broaden your search. For example,
bank* will retrieve: bank or banks or banking or banker or bankruptcy, etc.

Databases and Internet search engines use different symbols to truncate. In general, most of the Library's databases use the asterisk (*) ; however, the exclamation point (!) is used in LexisNexis. Check the database help screen to find the correct truncation symbol.
Be careful using truncation. Truncating after too few letters will retrieve terms that are not relevant. For example:
cat* will also retrieve cataclysm, catacomb, catalepsy, catalog, etc.

It's best to use the boolean operator "or" in these instances (cat or cats).

Search Tips for Political Science Topics

To find relevant books, media, and government publications, either in print or electronic, select one of the following subject headings in the Library Catalog.

CSU + Resource Sharing

Accessing E-Books and Google Books

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators are words (or, and, not) used to connect search terms to expand (or) or narrow (and, not) a search within a database to locate relevant information. Boolean operators are also called logical operators or connectors.

It is helpful to diagram the effects of these operators:

Statement	Search Result
women or females	Or retrieves records that contain any of the search terms. It expands the search. Therefore, use "or" in between terms that have the same meaning (synonyms) or equal value to the search.
women and media	And retrieves records that contain all of the search terms. It narrows or limits the search. Therefore, use "and" in between terms that are required to make the search specific.
image not weight	Not eliminates records that contain a search term. It narrows or limits the search. Therefore, use "not" in front of a term to ensure that the search will not include that term. Warning: Some databases use "and not" instead of "not." Check the database help screen.

Statement

Search Result

Or Relationship diagram

women or females

Or retrieves records that contain any of the search terms. It expands the search. Therefore, use "or" in between terms that have the same meaning (synonyms) or equal value to the search.

And Relationship diagram

women and media

And retrieves records that contain all of the search terms. It narrows or limits the search. Therefore, use "and" in between terms that are required to make the search specific.

Not Relationship diagram

image not weight

Not eliminates records that contain a search term. It narrows or limits the search. Therefore, use "not" in front of a term to ensure that the search will not include that term. Warning: Some databases use "and not" instead of "not." Check the database help screen.

Keyword Searching Examples

Variety of terms: If you are looking for items on the "movies", use additional keywords such as "film", "films", "cinema", or "motion pictures".

An example of retrieving results unrelated to your topic (false drops): using the keyword "cricket" will retrieve items about the sport as well as the insect.

An example of using keywords to find titles when you are unsure of the exact title:

Both CAGED and BIRD are in 6 titles.
There are 6 entries with CAGED & BIRD.

You searched for the WORDS: bird caged
Found 6 items:

Caged bird medicine : selected topics / Charles V. Steiner (1981)
I know why the caged bird sings (1969)
Many voices. 8A-6B (sound recording) : for Adventures for re (1986)
Maya Angelou / Miles Shapiro (1994)
Poco / by Garry and Vesta Smith; illustrated by Fred Crump (1975)
Voices in Black & White : writings on race in America from H (1993)

Wild Card

Some databases allow for wild cards to be embedded within a word to replace a single character. For instance, in InfoTrac, you can also use the question mark (?) within a word to replace a character. For example:

wom?n will retrieve woman or women

OneSearch

Boolean Searching Video

Google Scholar

You can find items the Oviatt Library owns using Google Scholar's capabilities.

To activate the capabilities for your browser:

Select Settings in the upper right, then Library links from the left menu.
In the search box, type "CSUN" and select Find Library.
Check the box next to "CSU, Northridge (SFX Find It)"
Then select Save.

Select the SFX Find It at CSUN link (to the right of the article) or the SFX: Additional Options link (located below the article description) for access to online full text, Oviatt Library holdings information, and Interlibrary Loan.