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Fire Protection

Basic Search Tips

Unlike Google, library databases can't understand an entire sentence. So you'll need to break your topic down into the most important ideas - the KEYWORDS.

Example Topic: What are the benefits of organic livestock farming?

The Specifics of your topic will matter when selecting sources, but for searching you only need the most essential topics.

Keywords: requirements, fire, safety

 Image of a man on a beach looking in the distance with binoculars, with word "Search" on top of image.

GIF of the sentence, "What are the requirements of fire safety?", with a green box around the words, "requirements", "fire", and "safety".

Most words have synonyms that mean the same or very similar, things. For each keyword in your topic, try to come up with at least one synonym. Not all keywords will have synonyms, but many do!

Example:

Keyword: safety       Synonym: protection

Keep and Eye Out

Sometimes scholars use terms that you might not be familiar with, or which might mean something very specific within the discipline. While searching, look for unfamiliar terms or words that show up a lot. Try searching for those and see if you find more relevant sources.

Many library databases have search tools built in. Try some of these:

  • Subject: Think of subjects as official hashtags. Use them to find sources about that subject.
  • Date Rance: Limit your search to sources published between specific years.
  • Peer Reviewed: Limit your search to scholarly journal articles.
  • Full Text: Make sure all of the results are available to read in full.

Look on left and right of your search results, or for an "advanced search" page to find these tools - and more!

 Image of a search in Summons, with the fliters on the left side of the screen highlighted in white with a green arrow pointing toward it.

You can evaluate any source using the 5 W's:

  • Who: ...wrote it? Are they an expert?
  • What: ...is the purpose of this resource?
  • Where: ...was this information published? ...does the information come from?
  • When: ...was this published or last updated?
  • Why: ...is this resource useful? ...is this resource better than other ones?
 Image of a person highlighting on a text document witht he word "Evaluate" in big dark blue letters over the image.

Advanced Search Tips

Use the operator AND to find only sources that mention both keywords.

Requirements AND fire safety

This search will bring back fewer results than searching either keyword on its own.

 Image of a blue circle with the word "Requirements" and a green cirlce with the words "Fire Safety" overlap to make a darker green area with the word "And".

Use the OR operator to expand your search with additional keywords.

Requirements OR Fire Safety

This will find sources that include either word, so you'll see more results than by searching for just one keyword.

 Image of two blue circles overlapping each other, the first circle has the word "Requirements", the second has the words "Fire Safety" and in the middle is the word "Or".

Use the "QUOTES" strategy to search for several words in a phrase.

"Fire Safety"

This will bring back results that only use that exact phrase.

 

Image of a Summon Advanced Search box, with the words, "fire safety" or farming, in the first search filed and the words, "requirements", in the second field.