This guide is designed to help you with your research and writing assignments for IND503. 

First, let's look at an example search strategy for finding descriptive data about the opioid crisis. 

• In most research databases, including OneSearch, the advanced search screen provides two or three search boxes. Use these search boxes to divide your topic into its main ideas. For example:
  • First search box:
    • "opioid crisis" OR "opioid epidemic" OR "opioid abuse"
  • Second search box:
    • pvalue* OR "statistical significance"
      • Note: If you are using a database other than OneSearch, such as ProQuest Central or one of the ProQuest databases listed under your subject area in the Research Database Recommendations by Discipline box, below, then add OR "p-value*" to the pvalue* search box. The search term "p-value*" (with the hyphen) does not currently work in OneSearch and other EBSCO databases. We have reported the issue.
  • Third Search box:
    • police OR "law enforcement"
  • Click Search
  • Later, try removing what was in the second search box and replacing it with:
    • DE ("p-value" OR "p value")
      • Note: DE is the field code for "Descriptors" (subjects and keywords) in citations that are phrase-indexed, which means all characters are indexed, including spaces, hyphens, and punctuation. When searching a phrase-indexed field, every character matters. It's all or nothing in terms of matching. Some publishers use the term "p-value" with a hyphen, others use "p value" without a hyphen, so we need to include both versions.
  • Click Search to see how changing the second search box changes your search results

Search terms in the first box are about the opioid crisis, search terms in the second box are about finding data, and search terms in the third search box should relate to your field of study and/or the role you've been assigned for this paper (i.e. prospective business owner, city manager, chief of police, or director of the county hospital). 

Notice the four advanced search strategies used in the sample search:

1. Divide your topic into its main ideas and place each idea into a separate search box. Most advanced search interfaces start with two or three search boxes, but you can always add more for more complex topics. In both EBSCO and ProQuest, click the plus sign symbol to add additional search boxes.
2. Use quotation marks around phrases of two or more words to tell the database to search for those words right next to one another.
   Examples, "opioid crisis", "statistical significance", etc.
3. Use the word OR between synonyms and like-terms to tell the database to search for either term.
   Examples, "opioid crisis" OR "opioid epidemic" OR "opioid abuse"
4. Use an asterisk (*) at the end of a root word to tell the database to search for all relevant endings to the word. For example, a search for pvalue* will find results that mention pvalue (singular) and pvalues (plural)

Start by trying your search in a few of the research databases listed for your field in the Research Database Recommendations by Discipline box, below. Using databases with a subject focus will help you narrow your search to more relevant results. Click on the tab for your field and then click a database name to search. Alternatively, OneSearch searches most of the library's databases using a single search interface.

Click on a database name to search: