Education Search

• The items in discovery databases are NOT individually examined by humans and no standard vocabulary is applied to describe the contents of the database
• When searching discovery databases, you are responsible for being alert and attentive to the vocabulary used by others to describe the topics you are investigating
• Your search strategy--
  If you started by searching in a traditional academic database, make a list of the database subject vocabulary used to describe your topic, as well as any other synonymous words/phrases you saw being used by the authors of the items in the database results list

Example:

Articulate the subject you want to investigate:

Does being overweight impact academic performance

Identify the words/phrases that constitute the main topics:

Does being overweight impact academic performance

Some relevant search terms

If the discovery database offers an Advanced search screen similar to those found in traditional academic databases, as does EMU's Esearch, use that screen to enter your search as you would in a traditional academic database. [NOTE: Esearch requires that the OR connector used to separate synonyms in the same search box must be capitalized]

The discovery database Google Scholar does NOT offer such an Advanced search screen at this time. In Google Scholar and Google you would follow a different search-term entry strategy: pick one word or phrase for EACH of your main topics and type them into the single search box of the discovery tool, one following the other, without any additional punctuation

overweight academic performance

Review your results

NOTE: If the results do not look very relevant, try putting quotes around each of your topics that is a multi-word phrase, e.g.,  overweight "academic performance"

If you found enough material to answer your question, you are done

If you did not find enough, replace one topical word/phrase at a time in the search box and review the result list after each change

overweight "scholastic achievement"
overweight "student achievement"
overweight "academic achievement"
.
.
.
"body mass index" "academic performance"
"body mass index" "scholastic achievement"
"body mass index" "student achievement"