SPORTDiscus: Keyword searching

To find articles on a topic, enter keywords (search terms) into the database's search boxes. The database then searches for documents that include your keywords in their titles, abstracts (summaries) and other major fields. The following will help you carefully identify and organise your keywords so that you're more likely to find the best results:

1. Identify the words/keywords in your assignment/research question that are most relevant to your topic (i.e. words that distinguish the title from any other title). For an example, let's consider this question: "To what extent is motivation a key component to effective participation in long distance running". 
   
   Generally, it's best to ignore generic words such as "facilitate". Using our example, you might select the following keywords: motivation, distance running.
    
2. Think of each of the above keywords as an individual "concept". For each concept, identify any alternative words that have the same/similar meaning (or opposite meanings e.g. inequality, equality). Different authors use different words to describe the same concept and if your keywords don't reflect this, you may miss important articles. Here's our search example, organised by concept and corresponding keywords:
    

• Plural versions: the database automatically searches for both the singular and plural versions of a word in singular form, so if you enter corporation it also searches for corporations. 
   
• Truncation: sometimes you can increase the number of your results by entering an asterisk at the end of the stem of a word e.g. if you just enter motivat*, the database searches for these:
  motivate
  motivates 
  motivated 
  motivating 
  motivator 
  motivators
  motivational 
   
• US spellings: the database searches for both the UK and US variant spellings of some, but not all words. For example, If you enter behaviour, it also searches for behavior.  However, if you search for analyse, it doesn't find analyze as well. 
  
  If you're uncertain as to how the database handles an English spelling, replace the relevant letter with a question mark. For example, analy?e retrieves both versions of the word (though note, it also retrieves the word analyte).

• Multiple search boxes: note the screenshot above. If your topic contains multiple concepts (e.g. microfinance, empowerment, women), enter your set of keywords for each individual concept in a separate search box. To add further boxes (if required), click the + button just below. Don't change the AND setting between boxes (this ensures that each search result covers all the concepts combined).
   
• Entering keywords: If you've identified a range of keywords for the same concept, enter OR between each one e.g. motivat* or self-efficacy or self-determin*. Otherwise, the database retrieves fewer results (i.e. only those results where each record includes all of these alternative terms).
   
• Entering phrases: it's generally a good idea to enter these in "speech marks" (e.g. "human rights") so that the database only searches for the exact phrase. Otherwise, it also searches separately for each individual word in the phrase, which can produce too many irrelevant search results.

• Below the search boxes, you can use various optional filters for limiting the range of your search. These include, for example:
  
  Date: be careful as some older documents might still be relevant and cited in more up-to-date literature. 
  
  Publication type (academic journal, conference paper, industry profile, report, review and others).
  
  Document type (article, book, chapter, case study, industry report, advert and others). 
  
  Peer-reviewed filter: select this if you want to limit your results to those from peer-reviewed journals. These journals require submitted articles to be evaluated by other researchers (peers) in the same field. Articles are accepted for publication only if they meet certain quality criteria, such as presenting a coherent and robust argument.