The most effective searches are arrived at by giving forethought to the direction of your research. Here are some ideas that will help you become more effective at finding information.

• Narrow your topic: If you are looking for information on health care, you might narrow your topic by looking at gender, a particular age group (e.g., teens, adults, children), socioeconomic status, race, etc.

• Develop initial search strategy. Don't write your search strategy like a question; use Boolean operators instead:
  (teens or teenagers) and healthcare and (united states or U.S.)

• Choose an information resource that suits your needs:

  • research database for finding articles from popular magazines, trade publications, scholarly journals, and newsletters. I.D. Weeks subscribes to over 100 databases. To find out which databases would best suit your needs, return to "Before beginning research" and follow the guidelines in "How to select a database appropriate to your research."
  • library catalog for finding books, videos, and government documents in the I.D. Weeks Library.
  • World Wide Web for finding sources in addition to those found through the I.D. Weeks Library.

• Revise your search strategy based on your search results. You might need to use adolescents as a synonym for teens in our sample search, so add that to your search. You might find a word that defines your topic perfectly, so key it in the search box.

• Get the material. If you find an article that is full-text in a database, then print it, download it, or email it. If you find only a citation, print it. Then check the library catalog to ensure that I.D. Weeks subscribes to the journal you need. If we own the journal, then you'll be able to find it on the 2nd floor of the library in alphabetical order. If we do not own the journal, then you may request the article through the Interlibrary Loan Dept.