InfoGuides: Political Science: Get Better Results

Last Updated: Nov 14, 2024 11:54 AM

Construct a successful search

Do not write an entire sentence into a database's search box. Explain your topic to someone in three words or less. Multi-word terms that are a single idea count as one word, just put them in quotation marks (e.g. "campaign finance"). These are your search terms.
Search terms that represent different aspects of your topic (e.g. "campaign finance" and presidency) should be entered into different search boxes when available. Otherwise, these terms can be combined using the word AND (e.g. "campaign finance" AND presidency).
Search terms that are synonyms or related terms (e.g. "campaign finance" or "political finance") should be entered into the same search box and combined using the word OR (e.g. "campaign finance" OR "political finance"). If multiple search boxes are not available, group related terms in parentheses and combine with the word OR.

Single search box example:

Find more relevant results

Proximity searching allows you to find results where your search terms appear close to one another (e.g. three words apart). The premise is that if your terms appear close together, the words are probably being discussed in the same context. Use proximity searching when you are getting too many results, especially ones that use your search terms, but not together.

Unfortunately there is not a universal way to construct a proximity search. Consult a database's "Help" menu to find out how to use this method in that specific database. Here are the formats for the databases listed on this guide:

Academic Search Elite This link opens in a new window
presidency N3 election
Military and Government Collection This link opens in a new window
presidency N3 election

ProQuest Social Sciences Premium Collection
presidency NEAR/3 election, presidency n/3 election

SAGE Journals Online This link opens in a new window
Not an available feature
Summon This link opens in a new window
"presidency election"~3

Note: The number 3 is used as an example and can be replaced by any number. You might try 3 then 10 then 15 then 25.