Review and improve your search

Databases don’t automatically look for plurals or different word endings, so truncation helps you catch them all in one search.

e.g. if one of your search terms is engagement, truncate this to engag* - this will find engagement, engaging, engaged.

Think of other ways the phrase might be expressed. 

e.g. if you searched for "online learning" you may miss resources that refer to "learning online" or "learning in an online environment".

You can split the phrase into individual components and connect them with AND.
e.g. online AND learning.

You can be more precise as well and tell the database to find the words within a certain number of words of each other. You can do this by using a proximity connector. Different databases do this differently - refer to this database syntax guide for more information.
e.g. online w/4 learning.

You may be getting too few results because you are not using the same terminology that different authors use. Remember, most databases simply look for the exact words you enter - they do not interpret your request and automatically look for synonyms or related terms. 

Pick a couple of results that look on topic. Look at the abstract and tags for ideas of other terminology to use. You can also open the full text and scan for useful terminology.

You can add these to your search, using OR.
e.g. university OR "higher education"

Look at the aspects you have searched for - do you know of any specific examples?  Some authors might write about these without mentioning the broader terminology.

You can add these to your search, using OR. 
e.g. "online learning" OR "online discussion forums"

Try searching for just one or two of the main concepts you are interested in. Once you see what results you get, you can add or change concepts to focus your search.

You can also try different combinations of the concepts. For example, student engagement and university, then online learning and student engagement. 

It is normal It’s normal to find articles that only cover part of your question. You can use information from different sources and connect the main ideas yourself. 

This could include dates, subject, resource type (e.g. book or article). Try removing these for now. This will likely increase the number of results and you will have more to explore.

You can always re-apply filters later as your search evolves.  

Where are you searching? Would another database find better results?  

Explore the list of databases on the Library website. Maybe a more discipline focused database would be better.  

Or maybe you need a broader, more interdisciplinary database. These capture a wider range of sources than Try searching findit@flinders or Google Scholar first to get a sense of what’s out there.  

One way to reduce the number of results is to narrow the focus of your topic. 

Common options include:

• Location: country or region, urban or rural
• Demographics: age, gender, socio-economic group

You can then add these as extra concepts to your search, using AND.

You can also narrow the focus of your topic by choosing just one specific theory or issue or example. 

For example, instead of looking for the broad topic of online learning, you could focus on one or two examples such as the use of online discussion boards or welcome videos. 

Using limits or filters intentionally is an effective way to narrow your results.  

If you need peer reviewed articles for example, some databases will have an option for you to filter to only peer reviewed articles.  

You could also refine by “publication date” or “creation date”, particularly if you require recent literature or are exploring a rapidly evolving topic 

Some databases have the option to search within specific fields, such as the title or abstract.

If a resource mentions your search terms in these sections, it is more likely that it focuses on these concepts.

Try a more discipline specific database. These capture more specialised resources, which may help increase the focus and relevance of the results. 

Check the list of databases from the Library website. Look through the list of subjects and check the descriptions of the databases to identify those capture the scope and type of resources you need.