Welcome to the Search Term Challenge!
When we see a search box, we often enter the first words that come to mind. But changing those words just a little bit can make a big difference in the results we see.
This Challenge includes tools and strategies to help you take your search terms to the next level. The activities are presented as daily "challenges" that participants might accomplish over the course of one week. Alternatively, some or all of the tasks that follow can be assigned in a course as a regular exercise not tied to the 5 day schedule.
Each day, for five days, you will engage with brief tasks designed to help you get the best results from your search engines and databases by entering the best search terms, including identifying key concepts, finding search terms you couldn't think of on your own, generating broader or narrower search terms, recognizing bias in search terms, and combining search terms.
If you are an instructor who wishes to assign this challenge in your course, direct your students to download and complete the Search Term Challenge Worksheet. They can submit this to you as proof of completing the challenge.
Please don't hesitate to reach out to Christin Wixson with any questions.
The Day 5 reading is adapted from Iowa State University's Pressbook, Library 160: Introduction to College Level Research and is used uncer a CC BY-NC-SA license.