INQ: Theories of Color (2024)

Create a list of key words from different categories, and try different key words in your searches:

Topics, names and places are all good key words, so are titles, events or historical periods, genres/styles/other categories, expert terms.

• Who - artists' names, types of artists, groups
• When - era, century, date, other time periods
• Where - city, country, region, continent
• What - product, material, style, movement, purpose

These categories help create searches that combine concepts, for example:

• search for impressionist women painters (who)
• search for African-American artists from the 20th century (where + who + when)
• search for German color theory (where + what)

Add to your list by reading more about your topic, and by looking for:

• related terms (painting - artwork)
• synonyms (woman - female)
• Subject terms in OneSearch and other databases.

Too few results? Search more broadly: 

Try your search using fewer words, or change to a broader category: for example, use the term artists (broad), instead of just painters (narrow).

Too many results? Narrow down by adding something:

Try combining  search words or ideas.

AND, OR, & NOT (also known as "Boolean operators") help you combine search words, to find what you are looking for. Watch this video to find out how it works:

Adapted from the materials created by The University of Auckland Library, NZ. This video is covered by a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license.