Get quick research help over chat, the phone, email, or visiting the Research Help Desk in person in the library. You can also schedule a research consultation with a librarian for in-depth help.
(414) 229-4659
Research Help Desk (Research Help Desk hours)
Start to build a search strategy by determining search terms. Search terms or keywords can be job titles, career categories, outcomes, qualifications, concepts, theories, events, places, techniques, etc. You can consult google or a reference text, such as an encyclopedia, for additional background information and to identify additional terms.
For example, if you are interested in researching nursing shortage, in addition to "nursing shortage" some additional key words might be "burnout," "aging population", "education pipeline", and "supply demand."
You may have to test a few terms to see which terms retrieve the most relevant results. You can look at the subjects or keywords listed in the "details" section of your results for additional terms to try.
These are various terms that you could use in your search strategy. A simple word change can drastically change the search results that you see.
| career path | career exploration | career possibilities | career education path |
| career pathway | career options | career choice | job satisfaction |
| burnout | work life balance | career guide | job guidance |
Use this subset of Search@UW to search for books, videos and DVDs at the UWM Libraries.
Search Tips:
* enter one or more words relating to your topic
* use quotes to search phrases: "capital punishment"
* use * to truncate: child* retrieves child childish children etc.
Example: nursing "vocational guidance"
