This page offers information on the only really creative aspect of searching: thinking of terms to describe your topic and use in your searches.
Here you'll find info on:
You might try:
The most important advice we can give you on generating search terms is try to think of the terms likely to be used in the document. This so-called 'thinking in terms of the document you are looking for' helps you to avoid looking for information with the help of terms that you would use, but encourages you to use terms the author has probably used.
This means, rather paradoxically, that you try to imagine beforehand the content of the document you are hoping to find. Try to consider:
Thinking in terms of the document is easier once you have seen more relevant articles, thus know more about the subject and are more familiar with the jargon used.
This advice applies to classical documents such as books and articles, but also to web pages, reports, blogs and tweets.
Based on a first search term, you can generate more search terms by filling in the diagram below as far as possible. By word variations is meant single/plural, nouns/adjectives and verb conjugations, for instance: migration, migrations, migrate, migrating, migrated. And also think of acronyms (e.g. CAD for Computer Aided Design). There are no search engines which search automatically for these word variations. However, many professional systems support truncation on the root of the word shared by all variations, often with the help of an asterisk. So in this case"migrat*
type of term |
specialist terms
in the main language of the discipline
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translations of specialist terms into other language
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popular
terms in the main language of the discipline
Dutch
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translation of popular
terms in other languages
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synonyms
+ word variations
and their spelling variations
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broader terms
+ word variations
and their spelling variations
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narrower terms
+ word variations
and their spelling variations
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related terms
+ word variations
and their spelling variations
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antonyms
+ word variations
and their spelling variations
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In addition to English and Dutch other languages may also matter: in the case of some disciplines (Languages of course, but also for Philosophy and Theology) and for some subjects and areas (Latin America, French Africa). For some disciplines (Biology, Medicine) Latin terms are also of importance.
Apart from all these terms related to your main search term you can also think of terms which frame your subject further:
You can also construct a query by making a string of several search terms and to indicate with the help of operators what the search engine should do.
For instance, you are looking for information about the reproduction of praying mantis. You could make a string like this:
reproduction AND ("praying mantis" OR cricket*) NOT sport*
The most frequently used operators are:
AND: both terms must occur. Example: Fashion AND The Netherlands
OR: at least one of the terms must occur. Example: fashion OR trend OR hype
NOT: the term must be exluded. Example: fashion NOT clothes
"... ...": terms must occur in this exact order. Example: "French revolution"
(... ...) In the case of complicated queries you must indicate by brackets how the search engine should manage your search terms.
*: by putting an asterisk behind the 'root' of a word, you search for all possible endings. For instance: govern* to search in one go for government, governments, governed, governing, governance, govermental, governs. Please note: this is not possible in Google search engines!
You don't have to think of every search term all by yourself. Especially in the case of foreign languages, your active vocabulary is smaller than your receptive vocabulary: you do know or recognize the words, but you cannot think of them yourself. So make good use of anything that suggests good search terms:
Subject related sources:
Language thesauruses: lists of synonyms and related concepts in a particular language which you know receptively but not actively:
Translation dictionaries
more about dictionaries in the LibGuide woordenboeken (in Dutch)
For scientific terms:
For geographic names:
many more Geo gazetteers and databases of place names via UNGEGN