Identifying a well-defined research question is the first step in searching for literature. You will need to more narrowly define your question before you can begin the research process. Do a preliminary search on your topic in either Google Scholar or one of the Library's databases and see how many results you find. If you don't find any or only a few, your topic may be too narrow. If you find 500,000, it's probably too broad.
For example, the following research question is too broad.
How should governments address the effects of climate change?
A more focused research question could be:
What are the most effective policy measures for mitigating sea-level rise in coastal cities?
Start the brainstorming process:
One way to brainstorm is to use a flowchart.
Before you can begin searching for literature, you need to decide what types of resources you will be searching.
| Duke University Libraries catalog | Search for print and digital books, journals, music, movies, government documents, etc. |
| Articles | Search for articles (journal, newspaper, magazine, etc.) |
| eBooks | Search for eBooks available online |
| Digitized collections | Search for photographs, advertisements, texts, etc. |
| Online journals | Search by title |
| Film & video | Search by online access or DVDs |
| Images | A guide on resources for finding images |
| Newspapers | Search by article or newspaper title |
If you'd like to perform a search that looks across different media, start with the scholarly databases. This is a fantastic starting place as databases have collected and curated relevant resources all in one place for more efficient searching.
When conducting a literature review, it is imperative to brainstorm a list of keywords related to your topic. Examining the titles, abstracts, and author-provided keywords of pertinent literature is a great starting point.
Things to keep in mind:
One way to visually organize your thoughts is to create a table where each column represents one concept in your research question. For example, if your research question is...
What are the most effective policy measures for mitigating sea-level rise in coastal cities?
...then your table might look something like this:
| Policy measures | Sea level rise | Coastal cities |
|---|---|---|
| Mitigation | "Sea level rise" | Coast* AND inundation |
| Policy OR policies | Flood* | "Coastal vulnerability" |
| Strateg* | "Rising sea levels" | "Coastal flood*" |
| Approach* | "Coastal communities" |
Generative AI tools, such as chatbots, are actually quite helpful at this stage when it comes to brainstorming synonyms and other related terms. You can also look at author-provided keywords from benchmark articles (key papers related to your topic), databases' controlled vocabularies, or do a preliminary search and look through abstracts from relevant papers.
Generative AI tools: ChatGPT, Google Gemini (formerly Bard), Claude, Microsoft Copilot
For more information on how to incorporate AI tools into your research, check out the section on AI Tools.
Boolean searching yields more effective and precise search results. Boolean operators include AND, OR, and NOT. These are logic-based words that help search engines narrow down or broaden search results.
Using the Operators
AND
The Boolean operator AND tells a search engine that you want to find information about two (or more) search terms. For example, sustainability AND plastics. This will narrow down your search results because the search engine will only bring back results that include both search terms.
OR
The Boolean operator OR tells the search engine that you want to find information about either search term you've entered. For example, sustainability OR plastics. This will broaden your search results because the search engine will bring back any results that have either search term in them.
NOT
The Boolean operator NOT tells the search engine that you want to find information about the first search term, but nothing about the second. For example, sustainability NOT plastics. This will narrow down your research results because the search engine will bring back only resources about the first search term (sustainability), but exclude any resources that include the second search term (plastics).
Some databases offer a thesaurus, controlled vocabulary, or list of available subject headings that are assigned to each of its records, either by an indexer or by the original author. The use of controlled vocabularies is a highly effective, efficient, and deliberate way of comprehensively discovering the material within a field of study.
Web of Science's Core Collection offers a list of subject categories that are searchable by the Web of Science Categories field.
When in doubt, reach out to a librarian! We are highly skilled in effective searching and creating search strategies, from simple keyword searches to several-paragraph-long search strings.
Reach out to a Duke University Libraries librarian at asklib@duke.edu or use the chat function.
Rarely will you construct a search strategy that yields appropriate and comprehensive results in one try. Literature searching is an iterative process.
If you find that you're receiving too many results, try the following tips:
On the other hand, if you're not receiving enough results:
Check out these blog posts on super searching tips for Google:
Many of these strategies will translate to searching research databases for academic materials.
Quick tips:
