Quotation Marks/Phrase Searching
Use quotation marks to search for a specific phrase, this narrows a search. Example: "displaced persons"
Boolean Operators: AND, OR, NOT
And—narrows a search by inclusion. Example: Rwanda and genocide
Or—expands a search. Example: refugees or "displaced persons"
Not—narrows a search by exclusion. Example: refugees not Syria*
Truncation
Truncation, usually using an asterisk*, increases the number of results you'll retrieve by searching for variant endings of a word root.
Example: immigra* will find: immigrant, immigration, immigrated
Your search strategy will combine keywords related to your topic using the search techniques described above. Here are a couple examples:
1. Vietnam* and (refugees or "displaced persons")
2. migra* and "civil war"
This search strategy is what you will type into the search box in a library database or Google to find sources about your topic.