A guide to searching, including: ~ How searching works ~ Boolean operators ~ Phrase searching and proximity searching ~ Truncation and wildcards ~ Field searching – how to use it ~ Using controlled vocabulary and database thesauri ~ Complementary search techniques – citation searching

This is an introduction to using keywords and controlled vocabulary for searching. It gives advice on how to generate relevant keywords - using your existing knowledge; from key textbooks, handbooks and research monographs and from published journal articles. It includes screenshots as examples. The guide introduces controlled vocabulary and its advantages in searching.