1. Once you have chosen a topic, write it down in the form of a question or brief statement:
Can behavior problems in preschool children be analyzed using developmental psychology?
2. Underline the key words and phrases that are most specific to your topic.
Can behavior problems in preschool children be analyzed using developmental psychology?
3. Write down each key word or phrase, and underneath it, list synonyms or related terms.
behavior problems preschool children developmental psychology
behavior disorders Head Start
transitional kindergarten
4. Use a dictionary or thesaurus to find additional keywords. For example:
behavior=conduct
5. Use these search tips to formulate your search strategy:
Boolean search: Use AND to narrow your search; Use OR to broaden your search
Truncation/Wildcards: Use * to search for plural or variant endings, such as preschool* or behavior*
Phrase Searches: combine two or more words into a phrase by inserting quotation marks "conduct disorder*"
6. Now you can use this search strategy to locate resources in a database.
Example of a search strategy:
"developmental psycholog*" AND ("behavior problem*" OR "behavior disorder*" OR "conduct problem*" OR "conduct disorder*) AND (preschool* OR "head start" OR "transitional kindergarten*")
