Although the topic's unrelated to yours, the search strategies/concepts are extremely useful. Guaranteed to make you laugh and teach you valuable search skills.
How to Search Effectively
Boil your topic down to the most important words. Ignore superfluous words like in, the, of, with, against, affect, impact. Begin with a keyword search, that is, a search on the very most important words of your topic.
Put each "different piece" of your topic in a separate search box. Using the topic of "how does the digestive system of a worm affect soil?" as an example below, note how each different piece of the topic is entered on a separate line. Leave the AND off to the left as it is. Synonyms for the pieces are connected by OR--and kept on the same line--as seen below...
Too many results? Focus your search by searching for your keywords in the ABSTRACT field or the TITLE field. Click on the Select a Field Optional pull down bar to select the abstract or title field. Or...add another concept--perhaps, in this case, looking at one particular worm species.
Too few results? Think of synonyms. Add synonyms to your search--using OR--and keep your synonyms all on the same line.
Increase your results by removing the least important "piece" of your search while still retaining the "essence" of your search--in the example above, you could remove the soil piece.
Still no results? Broaden your search slightly. Still no luck? Try searching a different journal article database.
When reviewing your results, look for relevant "subject" or "descriptor" words. Find subject terms either on the results page, or at the end of individual records. Write down relevant subject terms that you find.
Go back to the search screen and using the subject terms you discovered, search your subject terms in the subject or descriptor field. Subject terms are gold threads--they will almost always lead you to the most relevant results.
Be sure to take advantage of:
Boolean connectors (AND, OR, NOT)
Exact phrase searching -- "digestive enzymes" or "Lumbricus terrestris"
Field searches (search within the title, abstract, or subject fields)
When you find an article you want, choose PDF full-text or HTML full-text links. Or...use the link to find full-text.
No full-text? Use the Interlibrary Loan link to receive a copy of the article or book from another library.
link to find full-text.