Research Tips
Keeping track of your research will make things a lot easier in the long run. Figure out a way that works for you, maybe a notebook, maybe an online document, perhaps sending emails to a particular folder - something that makes sense to you.
Things to track:
- Which databases you are using and what keywords you use in each one. You will get different results with specific keywords depending on the database. Tracking this makes sure you won't keep going back to the same place and putting in the same keywords and not getting any new or better results.
- Citation information (refer to the Citing Sources tab for information on formatting citations) - there's nothing more frustrating than being in the middle of writing a paper and discovering that you can't remember where you found a certain article. If you can't find the full citation, you won't be able to use it in your paper.
- Dates that you conduct searches. If you're working on a longer-term project, you may have gaps of time between research sessions. Databases are constantly adding new material, so you may want to repeat a particularly successful search if some time has passed to see what's new.
Brainstorm Keywords
Building a bank of keywords will make the rest of your research much simpler.
1. Gather background information, which will give you some key words to start with, and make your research a little easier.
2. Brainstorm other search terms: think of synonyms, or more technical terms, or official language vs. colloquial language
3. Think of some narrower search terms to get even more specific and some broader words in case you aren't finding much.
4. Think about what ideas and terms are related to your subject that might also be helpful.
Even when you've got a good keyword bank started, keep adding to it!
If you find a good article or book, look at the data record to see what other terms and subjects are used to describe it.
Remember that with library resources especially, it pays to search smart:
use AND in between search terms to group them together
use OR for more results
use NOT if you want to exempt a word from your results
use quotation marks "_" to isolate phrases
use the wildcard * to get all versions of a word
Subject Headings
Subject headings are predetermined terms that describe the topic of a particular resource, such as a book or article. Although most people will begin their search with keywords, the use of subject headings can sometimes help narrow your search by eliminating irrelevant results. If your keyword searches haven't proven too successful, subject headings can sometimes provide additional vocabulary terms that might improve your search results.
It is best to enclose phrases of two or more words in quotation marks so that the search engine looks for that exact phrase.
Examples of subject headings in performance and performance studies include:
- Artists and theater
- Circus--Social aspects
- Dance studies
- Experimental theater
- Folklore--Performance
- Feminism and Dance
- Performance [see NOTE below]
- Performance art
- Performance artists
- Performance theory
- Performative [see NOTE below]
- Protest theater
- Sound studies
- Theater of the oppressed
NOTE: Performance and Performative are very broad subject headings. It will often be possible to narrow the results by using subheadings based on your topic. Examples might be: Performance--Social aspects; Performance--Political aspects; Performative--Philosophy; Performative--Gender. You will have to experiment with different combinations.
Sometimes you may need to break up a phrase and use AND to connect the various words and phrases. For example, instead of "Performance--critical race theory", which brings up no results, try Performance and "Critical race theory".
Remember, if a search pulls up some relevant results, look at the subject headings assigned to those titles to help build up your bank of possible search terms.