Assignment #3: Creating Search Statements

UL100

Samantha Jacob
1. Revise your research question to include at least two key concepts if it doesnt already. Your
question shouldnt be too broad or too narrow. Write your revised research statement below:
Inorganic and Processed Foods and the Effects on your Health and Well Being
2. What are the key terms/concepts from your research topic (at least two)?
Concept 1: Processed Foods
Concept 2: Health
Concept 3: Well Being
3. What are some synonyms or related terms for your key concepts? (Try to think of at least 2
synonyms per concept.)
Concepts
Synonym 1
1
Processed Foods Artificial Fillers
2
Health
Cholesterol
3
Well Being
Emotional Stability

Synonym 2
Convenience Foods
Obesity
Happiness

Synonym 3
Handled Foods
Diseases
Wholesomeness

4. Pretend the boxes below are search boxes in a database. Enter your search in a way that will
return good results, using at least three of the Boolean operators listed below:
Use NOT to exclude terms
Use "OR" to link synonyms and related terms. Use "AND" to link different concepts.
Put quotes (" ") around multi-word concepts.
Use the asterisk (*) to "truncate"
Processed Foods
Concept 1
Processed Foods OR Artificial Fillers AND Effect on Body
Health
Concept 2
Health OR Diseases AND Fast Food OR Artificial Fillers
Well Being

Assignment #3: Creating Search Statements

UL100

Concept 3
Processed Food AND Effect on Well Being OR Emotional Well-Being OR Happiness

5. Now run your search in Academic Search Complete, using the following limiters. Clear each
previous limiter before applying the next.
Limiter Applied
No limiters applied, just the
keywords.

No. of Results
2,251

Relevance/Quality of First 10 Results

A couple relevant not desired articles

Limit to "scholarly journals"

1,434

Very Relevant Could use over half the

articles

Limit to articles published in

last 10 years

1,787

Moderately Relevant A Few good articles

Limit to articles published in

last 5 years

1,090

High Relevance Topic is a more modern

day issue, this could be why I have better
luck with the articles that are recent as
compared to older.

Limit by selecting a term from 302

"Subject Terms" list

Low Relevance Too Broad

Assignment #3: Creating Search Statements

Apply any two from above

UL100

Scholarly Journals BEST RELEVANCE my topic required

and limit to 5 years new articles

Which did you choose?

Apply any three from above

Which did you choose?

Scholarly journals Moderate Relevance Good selection in

and 10 years
articles, but finding that the newer articles
have more of the information I am looking
for.

6. Which limiter or combination of limiters seems to give you the best results?
Clicking on Scholarly and within the past 5 years gave me the most relevant articles that would
be useful for my research project. My topic is an issue that is just recently being studied and
researched for evidence that the processed foods we are created are causing health issues. With it
being new, older topics are almost completely irrelevant seeing as some even disprove the point I
was wanting to research.

7. Now, use the search strategy that gives you the best results. Run the search, and look through
the first few pages of results. Find three articles that answer your research question. How does
the quality of these articles compare to articles you found previously?
They are much more on point. They have the information I need, and they have the information
very easy to find. A lot of the articles I had previously found has just mentioned one of my
keywords in the article, therefore giving it relevance, but the article not actually being over the
topic I am wanting to research. The articles I had found today are much more specific to the one
topic I am wanting to read about rather than a broad story that I have to search the information
for.