Database Tips
I'm not finding many relevant resources, how can I find more?
To increase your search results you can apply some of the strategies outlined below:
Join similar terms with OR, for example:
university OR higher education to ensure either term appears in your results
Use a ? to replace a character in a word to find different spellings or endings, for example:
organi?ation will find both organisation and organization
Use the truncation symbol at the end of your terms to find variant endings. The truncation symbol is usually the asterisk * for example:
- account* will find account, accounts, accountant, accounting
- teach* will find teach, teacher, teaching
- Australia* will find Australia, Australian, Australians
I'm finding too many resources, how can I narrow my search?
To narrow your search results you can apply some of the strategies outlined below:
Join different concepts or ideas with AND, for example:
primary students and mathematics skills to ensure both terms appear in your results.
Tip: Keep track of what you find
Keep track of all the great resources you find in the library by using the Permalink, Cite and Email tools. These are found in the Tools column, located on the right-hand side of a library record in Library Search. Most databases will have similar options to save your resources.