1. Keywords, not sentences. These may need to be “tweaked” many times. Look in titles of articles for more correct/other terminology.
2. USE YOUR FILTERS (when changing your search, you might have to reset these).
3. SUMMON searches everything, choose a database collection or a specific journal if known and/or appropriate.
4. “quotation marks” turn a group of words into a single entity for the search software.
5. An asterisk (*) is a wild card…meaning it takes the place of a myriad possible word endings and looks for them all. For example: exhibit* looks for exhibits, exhibition, exhibited, etc.
6. Use “advanced search” for multiple search terms.
7. CTRL “f” allows you to skim the text on your screen.
8. Sometimes an article(s) that an author references may be an article you want. It’s worth looking at these.
Remember: you're using these tools to help make the "haystack" smaller,
so you can find those "needles" of information that you need