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Westchester Community College Harold L. Drimmer Library

COMM 101 Prof. Stephens; SPRING 2023: Database Searching and Articles

Developing a Search Strategy

Use keywords and synonyms:

Start by taking keywords directly from your thesis statement.

Use synonyms and related concepts by thinking of other words that mean the same thing as the keywords in your question. Examples:

film or cinema or motion pictures

social media or Facebook or TikTok

gaming or video games or online gaming         

Look at the subject terms in your search results and see if you can use any of those.

Use truncation:

You can broaden your search results by typing an asterisk symbol  *  at the end of the root of a word. When you do this, the computer will search for alternative endings for the word you have typed.

For example:      

televis* 

     televise(d)     televising       television     television broadcasting

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