Keep track of your search and your results. Remember research is a process and you may try many things before you find what works best for your topic.
Keep track of your search terms and jot down other words you find while perusing the articles that result from your searches.
The "search history" option under the search box can also help with that.
Email, print, or save articles that might be useful for your research, even if you're not sure that you're going to use them.
If your topic is:
Discuss symmetries of differential equations.
1. Identify keywords or phrases:
symmetries differential equations
2. Explore synonyms for your keywords/phrases:
Symmetries: reflectional symmetry, symmetry, point reflection, involutive isometries
Differential Equations: ordinary differential equation, partial differential equation
3. Use these terms in your search. Combine the synonyms with the word "or".
For example: Symmetries OR Reflectional Symmetry OR Point Reflection
Combine the synonbymes with the word "and". The below example is good for advanced searches where each search bar would contain one of the "OR" strings (below in paranthess) and the "AND" would be the word linking both "OR" strings/text boxes. Parantheses can also be used to limit what the computer lumps together so in the first half it would only search those versions of symmetries and the second would search differential equations instead of searching for anything with symmetries or differential equations instead of searching for both terms. Check out the Boolean box (lower right corner of this page) for more.
(Symmetries OR Reflectional Symmetry OR Point Reflection) AND (Differential Equations OR Partial Differential Equations)
4. Make use of the Subject Headings option on the left of your screen to find appropriate subject headings for your topic and use them in a search
The more familiar you become with your topic, the better your keywords will be.
Remember to search in the advanced search mode
Enter your 1st keyword(s)/phrase(s) in the first line (here symmetries).
Your second concept in our example is differential equations. Enter that key phrase and any synonyms in the second line of the search box. Your search results should then include both concepts somewhere in the record.
You can add as many concepts as you like - all databases and the library catalog will allow you to add more than the default 3 fields when you're in advanced search.
Once you have collected some articles, take a closer look at them.
Read and review what you have. Do you have enough information to support your topic?
If you don't like what you have or you don't have enough good information, go back to your search. Try some new keywords or a different database.
Explore some of the subject headings from the articles that you do want to use.
If some of your articles have bibliographies you might want to look at some of the sources listed in those bibliographies.
If you're stuck -- ask a librarian for help.
Reading these sections of an article/book will help you determine if the item you're looking at is relevant to your research.