Once you have begun your research and found some articles, you'll discover that searching the citations in articles you've already found is immensely helpful. This allows you to easily find research that relates directly to your topic. There are a couple ways to do this. Let's say you've found article X, and it is perfect for your topic.
Looking at the bibliography or works cited or references of article X, you skim to see what titles seem to also match your topic. Picking a title, you then search in our databases/library catalog Primo/Google Scholar for the title
Using a citation indexing service like Scopus, Web of Science or Google Scholar, you type in article X's information and find research that cites a specific article or work
Using citation searching also allows your to find out who the "big names"/big articles in your topic are (you'll find some cited in every article) and who the research you're finding relates to, both of which are extremely useful, especially when conduction a literature review.
In each record you find, you'll discover subject terms. Subject terms are a type of keyword for each article/book entry. This is true in the library catalog and in databases (see images below). These terms can assist you in finding new keywords for your search, as well as giving you an idea of what the article is about before you read the abstract (AKA summary/description).
In the Primo example, subject terms are called "Subjects" in the record. In EBSCOhost databases, they are both "subject terms" and "author supplied keywords". In the images below you can see partial record views of where subject terms are displayed in the item records.
Library Catalog Primo:
From an EBSCOhost Database Article:
Stuck with your keywords?
Neil Patel made a fantastic list of 5 ways over on Quicksprout of how to develop a ton more keywords fast - keep in mind databases do not work the same way Google does, but these can help you when synonym.com, thesaurus.com, subject searches, looking at the record, and brainstorming fail you.
What is truncation? Truncation is removing the end of a word and replacing it with a symbol. So why would you do that? Because it will search multiple versions of a single word without you having to type them all in.
To truncate a search term, do a keyword search in a database but add an asterisk (*) to the end of the word after you've cut off part of it. Confused? See the examples below.
For example: biolog* will search: biology, biological, biologist, biologics, etc.
If you searched bio* it would bring back all the results from above, but would also bring back terms like biomass, biosphere, bioluminescence, etc.
The database (you can also do this in the library catalog or in Google or other search engines) will retrieve results that include every word that begins with the letters you entered. So if you wanted information on Spain/Spanish would you truncate? Probably not. You would have to truncate to SPA which will bring back much more than just Spain or Spanish.
Spa* - this will of course bring up other results like actual spas, space, Sparta, etc.
The asterisk is usually the symbol used for truncation, but it may be something else. If the asterisk doesn't work somewhere, do a Google search for the program name, truncation, and symbol. So if it didn't work in JSTOR you would search: JSTOR truncation symbol. (For the record the asterisk is the truncation symbol in JSTOR.) In Kemp Library's catalog you can use an * or a ? to truncate.
Once you get the hang of it, truncation is a huge time saver.
Boolean Searching is searching using and, or, not to clarify your search.
AND = helps limit a search by only showing results that include both topics
OR = expands a search by showing results about each individual topic and where the topics meat
NOT = excludes parts of a search
Google Scholar can be a great help, as sometimes it will allow you to get more information (or the item in question) when the library doesn't have it. However, it doesn't replace library resources, particularly because it doesn't tell you if an item is peer reviewed, popular, etc. But knowing when to use it can make you a research master.