Research Process: Combine Terms

Now you'll need to combine some terms. Use the terms AND, OR, NOT between your search terms.

OR

• Either A or B
• Expands your search
• Retrieves more results
• Use for synonyms

AND

• Narrows your search
• Refines your results - fewer results
• Use when each term represents a separate concept

Remember our topic from the tab Visualize Your Topic:

"What are therapists' attitudes towards Alcoholics Anonymous and spirituality?"

Anything within a bubble should be combined with OR because each bubble should contain only similar terms.

Any combination between bubbles should be combined with AND to see the intersection of the various terms.

You might start by only combining the top terms you like a database, and then only expanding to other, related, terms, if needed.

There might not be any articles written on your particular topic, though! Remember, your topic is the very tiny intersection between all the bubbles! So, if you combine all terms and get zero useful results, try looking at the combination of just 2 or 3 of the bubbles.Then do a separate search for another 2 of the bubbles, etc. 

NOTE: You do not have find every part of your topic in each resource. You can make the connections between the resources in your paper.