ENGL 197: Climate Fiction (Shewry, Winter 2024): Search Tips

Databases don't like sentences! They are very literal and function by matching words exactly, and, unlike Google and other search engines, research databases won't offer alternative search terms and won't correct for typos and spelling errors.

It is up to you to think of all possible ways to express your research topic, and to spell everything correctly. 

• Brainstorm all synonyms and like terms and connect these with the operator OR. Example:
  • "climate fiction" OR cli-fi OR clifi 
• Use quotation marks to retrieve an exact phrase:
  • "climate change"   "global warming"   "environmental justice"
• When you find a useful book or article, make note of the official subject headings or tags assigned to it and add these to your searches if applicable. 
• The asterisk (*) symbol will bring up alternate endings to words with a common root:
  • environment* will also retrieve environment, environments, environmental, environmentalist, environmentalism.
• Use the AND operator to combine separate concepts:
  • imagination  AND "climate fiction"
  • race AND "environmental justice" AND climate