Database Search Tips

Bibliographic records/citations in library databases are comprised of fields containing specific pieces of bibliographic information. Common fields include:

• author

• title

• journal title

• abstract

• publisher

• date/ year of publication

• subject/ descriptor

• Limiting your search to specific database fields can yield more precise results.

• For instance, if you are looking for books by Hannah Arendt instead of about her, it is more efficient to limit your search to the author field.

• To find various fields within a database, look for drop down boxes or menus to select the field you want to search.

• Then combine words and fields together with boolean operators, depending on how precise you want to be. See this example from the Web of Science database.

• If you do not choose a specific field, the database usually reverts to a keyword search, where your words will be searched throughout the bibliographic data of the article or the book.

• If your keyword search retrieves too many records, try narrowing your search to retrieve a more manageable result.

• Information overload - too many results - can be a worse situation than finding only 10 very relevant results.

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The record belows shows the field names on the left: Authors, Source, Document type, Subject Terms, Author-Supplied keywords, NAICS/Industry codes, Abstract.