Building a stronger search strategy can save you time searching deep in hundreds of thousands of results. Being more strategic from the start gets you relevant sources faster. 

When creating your strategy, consider:

• Keywords: You should have a sense of your keywords on your topic and potential synonyms (for in-depth advice, see "Getting Started with Research" in this guide)
• Phrase Searching - Adding " " around a key concept made up of two or more words will tell the database to search for those words exactly as they are arranged, ensuring more relevant results.
• Boolean Operators AND OR NOT - These are database symbols that tell the database how to search for your words
  • AND - when you want the results of your search to include keyword 1 AND keyword 2, this narrows your results
  • OR - when you want the results of your search to include keyword 1 OR synonym for keyword 1, this broadens your results
  • NOT - when you want the results of your search to exclude keyword 1, this removes pesky results that are out of your interest