Before you build your search strategy, identify some databases for your search based on your topic or subject area. For example, if you are interested in school social work, education, psychology, or social services databases would be more relevant than PubMed. See databases by subject or ask a librarian for help.
Start to build a search strategy by determining search terms. Search terms or keywords can be people, events, theories, concepts, ideas, periods etc. Use terms that describe the concepts in the research question and their synonyms. You can consult a reference text, such as an encyclopedia, for additional background information and to identify additional terms.
For example, if you are interested in researching the impact of childcare responsibilities on the gender wage gap, in addition to "wage gap" some additional key words might be "pay gap" or "income inequality."
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.
AND includes both terms
Example: "childcare" AND "wage gap"
OR includes either term
Example: "wage gap" OR "income inequality"
NOT excludes term*
Example: "childcare" NOT "paid leave"
*Note that NOT may exclude results with the term even if a result contains a search term you want included
Using database syntax can help you refine your search. For example using "double quotations" will narrow searches by searching only for that specific phrase rather than each individual term. Using truncation (*) or wildcard (?) can expand your search by expanding the scope of a single term. Note the wildcard (?) symbol doesn't work in Search@UW.
| Symbol | Use | Function | Example |
| "..." | Double quotation marks | Searches exact phrase | "prison release" |
| * | truncation | Adds none or more characters | sentence* searches sentence, sentenced, sentences, sentencing, etc |
Different database platforms (i.e. EBSCO, ProQuest) may use different syntax. Review a more complete list of database syntax.
A search strategy (or search string) are the keywords, terms, and syntax used in your search. A typical search strategy includes 2-4 concepts, but may include more keywords.
For example, an initial search for information on childcare and income inequality:
childcare AND "income inequality"
But you may want to expand your search to include variations or synonyms for income inequality, but also narrow results to articles that discuss income inequality related to gender. So instead you might try one of the following search strings:
childcare AND ("pay gap" OR "wage gap" OR "income inequality") AND (gender OR women)
childcare AND (pay OR wage OR income) AND (gap OR inequality) AND (gender OR women)
User the search filters to narrow your search. Common limiters are resource type (scholarly article, book, etc), date, and subject. In Search@UW there are also filters for peer-reviewed articles only, or available online only.
What if my search produces