Too many or too few search results?

Too many search results? Try:

• Narrower, more specific concepts.
  • If your topic is broad ("federal funding of the arts"), try to focus on a specific aspect of that topic ("federal funding of painters through New Deal programs and the Works Progress Administration") *
• Use additional search terms to make your search more focused.
  • Searching "radioactive waste disposal AND Yucca Mountain" will find fewer, and more specific, results than "radioactive waste disposal"
• Leave out any synonyms and choose only the term you really want.
  • If you're really interested in the effects of aspirin, then you can drop " ... OR pain relievers OR analgesics".
• Use subject headings or descriptors to focus your result set.
  • Your initial search might be "KW=drug resistance," with many hundreds of hits -- but finding the appropriate subject heading, and searching that as a subject term, "SU=drug resistance," narrows and focuses your results
• Limit your search by year, or by language, as appropriate.
  • If you only read English, then limit to English. If your topic deals with contemporary attitudes towards spousal abuse in the 1940s, then consider limiting your search to those years (tip: be careful not to overlook later material that may be relevant, however).

*example drawn from Duke University Library's Guide to Library Research, http://www.lib.duke.edu/libguide/home.htm, viewed 05/22/2004

No results, or only a few? Try:

• Broader or more general concepts
  • For example, "water use AND conflict*" instead of "the tension between urban water demands and agricultural water use"
• Check to see that you've constructed your search query correctly.
  • Many article indexes require logical operators: "Architecture AND Caribbean Basin AND 1970s" rather than the natural-language query, "Architecture of the Caribbean Basin in the 1970s."
  • Some indexes allow you to string words together (like Google) "Architecture Caribbean Basin 1970s," while others would interpret that as an exact phrase search, and you'd probably get no results.
• Take out search terms that are not essential to your topic.
  • If your topic is property damage resulting from the New Madrid earthquake of 1811-1812, you may not need to include the term "1811-1812." You may not even need to include the term "earthquake" -- try searching "New Madrid" and "property damage."
• Try thinking of synonyms for your search terms.
  • For example, you might search for "education OR teaching OR instruction OR study" rather than "education."

• Use wildcards and truncation symbols to improve your results
  • In the example above, you might search "educ* OR teach* OR instruct* or stud*" to catch all plurals and variations of those words.
• Widen the scope of your search - from title/abstract to full-text, for example. Make sure your year range is set appropriately.
• Consider using a different article index - there may be one that is better suited to your subject area (... need more specialized or in-depth articles?) or that is larger or more general in scope. See Help with Finding Articles