Exercise 1-3A: Comparing and Narrowing Searches
Complete the following tasks, then answer the reflection questions.
- Brainstorm and jot down a list of keywords related to your topic Choose one of the keywords and use it in a search on Google
- Use the same keyword in a “TX All Text” search on Academic Search Premier (library.unc.edu > E-Research by Discipline > Academic Search Premier)
- Within these search results, use the “Subject: Thesaurus” and “Subject” options under “Refine Results” to further narrow your search
Reflection Questions:
- What are the key differences between the results returned in these searches? Which yielded more results? Which yielded results more relevant to your topic?
- Based on the list search results from Google, what will be the next steps in your research plan? How will you refine your topic?
- Click on an entry from among the Academic Search Premier search results: What did you learn about the source from this page? How do the keywords listed there compare to the keywords you generated in Step 1 above?