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Relevance
If your carefully
chosen search terms are not retrieving the kind of information you
need, here's some troubleshooting advice:
1.
Are you using the best database for your subject? If you're
not sure there may be a subject guide
that covers your discipline that will tell you the best databases
to search. [What's a subject
guide?] If there isn't an appropriate subject guide, you can
always ask a reference librarian or your instructor for suggestions.
2.
Quickly scroll through all the titles in your result list even
if the first few titles aren't on topic. Even if the database ranks
your results by relevance, useful articles may be at the end of
your list. If you do find a relevant item, scan it for search terms,
then do another search.
3.
Examine one of the irrelevant records and try to see why your
search terms retrieved it. It may give you an idea about which search
terms aren't working for you and need to be replaced or eliminated.
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