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Search Strategies to Improve Your Research

Throughout this guide, you will find different search strategies that you can use to get better results with your research.

Proximity Searching

Proximity Searching allows you to keep words or phrases together within your search. To use proximity searching, put quotation marks around your search term or phrase.

For example,

  • Searching Mechanical Engineering can bring up results about mechanics, engineering, or mechanical engineering.
  •  Searching "Mechanical Engineering" with quotation marks ensures that you only get results that include the words mechanical engineering beside each other. 

Truncation

Truncation allows you to search for words with multiple different endings. To use truncation, you can put an asterisk at the end of a search term. For example,

  • Searching engin* will pull up all possible endings to this word such as engine, engineer, and engineering. 
  • Searching bio* will pull up results for biology, biography, biochemistry, or biologists. 

Truncation allows you to broaden your search by searching all possible endings. Make sure that you do not shorten your word too much or you may get more results than you are anticipating.