Skills Guides:
Study & learning
Writing & assessment
Research
Technology & software

Integrated sessions : Use search techniques - social work

Truncation

Use truncation to ensure all relevant articles are retrieved. This is often denoted by an asterisk * which is placed at the stem of the word. Truncating a term will look for variant endings and plurals.

Example 1: teen* would include results for: teen, teens, teenager, teenagers
Example 2: educat* would include results for: educate, educates, education, educating, educationally, educator
Example 3: manag* would include results for: manage, manages, management, manager, managers, managerial

Phrase searching

Enclose your search terms within double quotation marks, i.e “social work”. This will avoid databases automatically inserting an “AND” between your search terms.

Example: If you enter social work teenagers it will include all the search terms (i.e.social AND work AND teenagers) but the terms will not necessarily appear near each other. Using double quotation marks around "social work" will ensure only these terms in this specific order are included in results.

Examples

See the following examples of the use of truncation and phrase searching. 

Example 1: teenagers and social work

 (teen* OR adolescen*  OR "young person" OR youth*  OR juvenile*) AND ("social work*") 

Example 2: teenagers and social media

 (teen* OR adolescen*  OR "young person" OR youth*  OR juvenile*) AND ("social media*" OR facebook OR tiktok* OR instagram)