HIS/E&E 318: Environmental History of Latin America

Keywords

• Remember that you need to use keywords to search library resources, not natural language. 
• Think about various different terms that are or could be used to describe your topic, including synonyms. 
• Use "quotes" around multiple terms that you'd like to use as a phrase.
• For example:
  • "natural environment" AND business
  • "feminist theory" OR feminism

Boolean Operators

• AND, OR, NOT are used between your keywords to broaden or narrow your search. 
• AND will search for both terms. 
• OR will search for either one term or the other, but not both. 
• NOT will search for one term but not the other.
• For example:
  • business AND ("natural environment" OR sustainability) 
  • "feminist theory" NOT economy

Subject Headings/Terms

• Subject Headings/Terms are controlled phrases assigned to library materials to organize them. 
• Use Subject Headings/Terms to find similar items when searching the library catalog and databases.
• For example:
  • Sustainable development
  • Business enterprises -- environmental aspects
  • SOCIAL SCIENCE Feminism & Feminist Theory 

Limiters/Filters

• Many databases provide ways for you to limit your search results.
• If your initial search is too large, consider limiting by date, type of publication, subject, etc. 

Strategies for library database search statement language:

• Use an * to search for multiple forms of a word in a single search:​
  • coloni* = will search for: colonial, colonization, colonists, colonialist(s), etc.
  • environment* = will search for: environment, environmental, environmentalist(s), etc.

• Use "quotation marks" to have multiple words searched together as a phrase:
  • "el salvador"
  • "republican period"
  • "drug trade"

​

• ​Use the word OR (in capital letters) to search for words with similar meaning -- always place within (  ):
  • (18th OR eighteenth)
  • (urban OR city)

​

• Use the word AND (in capital letters) to combine different topics/concepts:
  • gold AND brazil AND environmental
  • peru AND ("post colonial" OR republic*)
  • "land reform" AND (19th OR nineteenth) AND "latin america"

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