What do you need to find out or verify about your topic?
List research questions (big or small!), your thesis statement, and key words or phrases.
So...what's the difference between KEYWORD v. SUBJECT searching?
Keyword search = to combine key words or for more specific search; finds items that contain your keywords 
Subject search = for broad search or when you know terminology; finds items that are about that topic Which search statement would give you the FEWEST number of hits?
Which search statement would give you the FEWEST number of hits?
Visitors leave via a boat ramp after looking over remains of the old Gold Rush settlement of Mormon Island which has resurfaced due to the historic low water levels of Folsom Lake, in Folsom, California, on January 19, 2014. California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state wide drought last Friday.
Develop a search strategy
1. Search operators may be used to create relationships between keywords.
There are three search operators:
a. and specifies that both words must occur in a record.
Example: vegetarian* and diet*
b. or specifies that one or the other (or both) words must occur in a record.
Example: vegetarian* or diet*
c. not specifies that the word after not must not occur in a record.
2. Truncation is the use of a symbol, such as an asterisk (*), to replace one or more letters in a search term.
This can be used to retrieve:
a. both the singular and plural forms of a word.
Example: vegetarian* matches vegetarian and vegetarians
b. words that begin with the same root.
Example: diet* includes diet, diets, dietetics, dietician, and dieticians
Truncation is the use of an asterisk (*) to replace one or more letters in a search term.
Pilings from a long-gone pier rise last July 7 from California's disappearing Salton Sea, a symbol of the water-scarcity problems affecting California and the Southwest. (Getty Images/David McNew
The keyword search vegetarian* AND diet* will retrieve fewer hits than vegitarian* OR diet*
