Searching for resources about global topics related to food and agriculture can be challenging. Consider constructing search strings that make use of Boolean operators (AND, OR), wildcards (divers* = diversity, diverse), and synonyms. The example below demonstrates how to refine your search strategy.
Example: Searching a database for articles about
Cuba's urban gardening revolution in the 1990's
To recreate the example searches, click on the link to CAB Abstracts, a database for agricultural literature, below.
Search 1: |
Search 2: |
| (urban garden* AND Cuba) |
(urban (garden* OR agriculture) AND Cuba)
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This search looks for the terms: urban gardens, gardening, etc. AND Cuba. 27 is not too many results. Are they all relevant? How would you expand your search? |
What is different about this search? Note: In this example we limited by date as well as topic. Now you have more results (105), but still a manageable number. |
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Let's take a look at one of the results, "Urban agriculture in the city of Havana: a popular response to a crisis"
Questions and thoughts:
1. This work has been cited 18 times. Click on the 18 to find related articles that have referred to this article.
2. This work is about Havana--how would you find more material about different Cuban cities?
3. Can you tell what type of work this is? Article? Book? Report? Click here to learn more.
4. How could you find non-English materials on this topic?
