COM 107: Public Speaking for Change: Successful Searching

1. Start by writing a short description of the question you want to answer through your database search, such as:

   Do feelings of loneliness increase or decrease during social media use?

2. Next, identify the key concepts of your topic, and brainstorm alternate terms:
   • Loneliness: Isolation, Alienation
   • Social Media: Social Networking

    

3. Put an asterisk (*) in the right spot to find all possible endings to the search term:
   • lonel* will find lonely, loneliness....
   • isolat* will find isolation, isolated....

    

4. In many databases you can put phrases in quotes:
• "social media"

Below is an example of a search that does not use Natural Language. This type of search is often called "Boolean."

In this type of search you put each concept of your search into a separate search box (this will find articles that include all of your concepts).

In each search box, enter all the terms you brainstormed for that concept. Enter OR between each search term to find articles that include any of those terms.