French Research
French Keywords
Tip: If you are researching in advance French courses, you should translate your keywords or key terms into French and search databases uses both English and French keywords.
Your Librarian
MSIS, Information Science
The University of Texas at Austin
BA, History
Southwestern University
Brainstorming keywords
Library databases are organized around concepts. In order to effectively search a database you should first identify key concepts. Once you know what those are you can begin brainstorming keywords that you will use to search. Be sure to think of some keywords that are broader than you topic and some that are more narrow.
Example Topic "How have popular representations of France changed in the past century?"
Concepts: popular representation AND France AND past century
Boolean Operators
Boolean operators help you when searching. The most popular operators are: AND, OR, NOT.
AND narrows your search, OR expands your search, NOT limits your search
.
Use the asterisk * to truncate a word and search for all forms.
Ex. Invent* will give you: Invent, Invents, Inventor, Invention
Use the question mark ? as a wildcard symbol.
Ex. Wom?n will search: woman & women
Use quotes to search for a specific phrase rather than just keywords
Ex. "Frog King" will search for the phrase rather than pulling every result that has "frog" and "king" somewhere in the record.