English 102
Searching with Sources
When you are searching for sources, one of the best tools you can use is the sources you have already found. Say you have found only 2 or 3 sources on your topic that seem useful. Those sources can help you find more. Here are some ways to use promising sources to find more, similar sources.
- Look at the list of references. Their sources can be your sources. This is the most concentrated list of useful sources you will find because an expert has already sorted out the most relevant sources and listed them for you. Go down the list and search for every source that looks useful. Often this will be enough to get you all the sources you need.
- Use their terms as search terms.
- For example, say you are looking at an article on agriculture and the environment. The article talks about erosion and runoff. Add "erosion" and "runoff" to your list of search terms, and start thinking of synonyms and related terms.
- Look at the subject headings in the database entry and search for other articles with the same subject headings.
- For example, a search for "agriculture" and "erosion" might turn up an article that has "soil conservation" as one of its subject headings. Do a subject search for "soil conservation" by clicking on that heading.
- ProQuest and EBSCOHost give you a way to select multiple subject headings at the same time from a list of all the subject headings in the current article, and search for all articles that have that combination. Here is what it looks like in ProQuest:
- ProQuest offers a “Suggested Topics” search, which presents possible topics and topic combinations based on your search terms. Click on the ones that seem most like what you are looking for to see a list of additional articles on your topic.
