Advanced Search
On the previous page of this guide, we saw how a simple, general search like "Asian Americans in film" could lead you to some very helpful sources. In most cases, however, as you get deeper into searching for sources for your college research papers, you'll end up performing what's called an advanced search.
Take a look at our Advanced Search page to learn more about this process and how it can be very beneficial in your research. Once you've gone over that page, come back here for some specific search tips for your Cinema 103 paper.
If you decide to try out an advanced search for this assignment, we recommend breaking it up into at least 3 parts (and entering each part into its own search box, see example below): 1. the name of a specific racial group; 2. imagery (or a synonym, see "Try Alternate Keywords" below); 3. television or film
How do we choose what specific words to search for? More on Keywords below.
Try Alternate Keywords
Keywords -- the words or phrases that you enter into your search -- play a big role in determining the kinds of sources you'll find. You may start with a very specific search in mind, but no matter what your topic is, there are probably dozens of different ways to put it into writing and into a search.
For example, I used the word "imagery" in the advanced search example above because that was the specific word that Prof. Beal used in her assignment prompt. Imagery isn't the only word I could use there, though. Can you think of any others? It's OK if you can't think of any alternate keywords at the start of the research process--as you start to read more and more about your topic, you'll start to come across more and more words that you can use in future searches.
For this particular assignment, here are some useful alternate keywords...
instead of imagery, try out: portrayal or representation or stereotype
instead of film, try out: motion pictures or cinema or Hollywood
Eventually, you may also want to try adding the titles of specific films and shows into your advanced search.
Part of doing a thorough job of research is trying out lots of different combinations of keywords in different searches to see which ones bring you the best results. If your initial searches aren't bringing back great results, try out some of the alternate keywords above, where appropriate. Yes, it can be time consuming, but that's what it takes to write a quality, college-level research paper!
Play the game. It might be helpful to view keyword searching as a kind of "game" where you're trying to figure out the right combination of terms to give you the best results. When you use alternate keywords, you might see some of the same books/articles popping up again and again, but you will also see lots of completely new things that you never would have found if you hadn't tried out some new searches.
Video (2:08): One Perfect Source?
Having trouble finding sources? One common mistake that students make is trying to find the "perfect" all-encompassing book/article that covers every aspect of their topic. In most cases, it simply doesn't exist! As the video below points out, you'll most likely end up using several books/articles -- each one covering a portion of your topic; then, you'll do the work of synthesizing them all into a coherent argument/paper. After watching the video, move on to the next portion of this guide for more help with finding sources.
Source: NCSU Libraries
