1. Research question or statement
What is it exactly that you are trying to find? Think of a way to state your topic in 1-2 sentences.
2. Search terms
Pull words (and/or synonyms of those words) from your statement/question to use as KEYWORDS to craft your search...
- international management
- culture
- business strategy
...and use BOOLEAN OPERATORS to broaden or narrow your search, or create relationships between keywords...
- management AND culture
- Searches for resources using BOTH of these keywords
- (business OR management) AND culture
- Searches for resources that use EITHER business OR management, in addition to searching for mention of culture
- (business OR management) AND cultur*
- Same search as above, but expands the meaning of cuture. Using an asterisk* to truncate a word tells the search engine to find all possible endings of that truncated word (cultur* = cultural, culture, cultures...)
- (business OR management) AND cultur* NOT "United States"
- Use NOT to eliminate keywords or phrases from your search results. This is especially useful if, after trying a search phrase, you receive too many results that pertain to an area that is not relevant to you.
More Tips
- Use Search Options or Filters to further narrow your search to a specific type of resource, date range, etc.
- String together relevant synonyms or words with similar meanings to broaden your search results. ---> strategy OR plan OR method OR practice
- Avoid inputting your entire research statement into the catalog or a database's search engine. Break it up into keywords as shown above