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USD Information Literacy Lessons: Page 8

The broad focus of these lessons is understanding sources of information, including examples that can help you learn how to access information sources at USD. Each lesson is dedicated to a specific element of information competency.

Keyword Searching

A keyword search in a database will retrieve any items that contain the search term(s) in the locations you specify (title, abstract, author, full text, etc.). This search technique can produce a large number of articles, but some of the results may not be about the topic you are trying to locate information on.

You may use a single search term or several search terms in a keyword search. Using multiple search terms will narrow your search results because you are asking the database to find items that match more specific criteria. Keep in mind that most databases will not search a sentence or question that is typed in so you MUST break your topic down into search terms.

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