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    INT-460 Christianity & Culture: Cultural Research

    Researching in Library Databases

    The resources found on this page are intended to give you a good start on discovering resources for your cultural analysis.

    Tips for Using the Library Databases:

    The most effective searches will include specific keywords.  You may not find an article about the specific cultural text you have selected, but about the broader context or genre.

    • Keywordsmeans just the main terms you are looking for.
      • Do:
        • Stick to nouns or terms,
        • check your spelling,
        • start with one and then add more if you get too many results.
      • Don't:
        • Enter questions or whole sentences.
    • Boolean Logicis a way of combining terms and telling the database how you want them to be related to each other.

    Boolean Operators in Action

    Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) can be typed into the search line with your search terms, like this: cat AND dog, cat OR dog, cat NOT dog.
    This image shows what it looks like in the database search box:

    You can also use the dropdown box the database has provided, and type a term (cat) in the first line, change the dropdown box to the Boolean term you want to use ( AND, OR, NOT ), and put your second term (dog) in the box beside the dropdown menu. This image shows what this technique looks like in the database search box:

     You can also combine the truncation technique with the Boolean operator. This image shows cat* AND dog* (truncated with the asterisk at the end of the root of your search term to include all possible endings for cat and dog).

    To broaden our search even more we can include synonyms, truncation, and Boolean operators. In this search we have searched for: [cat* or feline or kitten*] AND [dog or canine or pup*].

    Truncation In Action

    When you break your topic down to keywords, it's likely that there are many versions of that word. Including all of the possible versions will help make sure you find articles on that topic. This example shows multiple forms of the word leader (leader, leaders, leadership):

    Truncation means you shorten the word to the root, and replace the endings with an asterisk. In this example we have only the word leader*, and we will get the same results as before when we included all forms of that term.

    In this example, we are starting with multiple forms of the word nurse (nurse, nurses, nursing):

    And we can truncate the word to nurs* and get the same results:

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