HIST UN2978. Science and Pseudoscience: Alchemy to AI

Welcome to the research guide for Science and Pseudoscience. This guide features links to the library catalog, databases, and other resources covered during the library research workshop on October 15, 2024. 

Please reach out to the librarian with any further questions or to request a 1:1 consultation.

Erin Anthony

eanthony@barnard.edu

Use Keywords

Break down your search into the basic concepts, usually nouns:

So if you are searching "The relationship between popular conspiracy theories about the moon landing, and Nasa, and distrust of other government agencies" 

Break it down into some main concepts before searching in CLIO or a database:

conspiracy theories NASA "moon landing" (Using quotation marks to keep the phrase "moon landing" together. This is explained later.)

Try Synonyms

conspiracy theories NASA "moon landing" = 22 articles in CLIO

Try using different words to get different results. Hoax, space exploration, fake, false, etc could be used instead of different words. 

Use keywords or subject terms referenced in an exemplary article. 

Boolean Operators/Logic

Using AND, OR, and NOT can help make your search more specific. 

AND indicates you want all the words in an article. 

OR indicates you want at least one of the words in the article.

(cat OR feline)

(Apollo OR moon landing)

NOT--do not include a certain word or phrase in results. 

Using the Asterisk (Wildcard!)

Using the asterisk at the end of the word can help increase results by allowing for all variations of a word to be found.

Using an asterisk at the end of adolescen* will return results with the words adolescent, adolescents and adolescence 

Using Quotation Marks 

Using quotation marks can keep phrases of more than one word together so they are searched as a phrase. 

"Community college" will search for articles with the phrase instead of returning all results with the words community and college somewhere in the abstract or title. Without the quotation the results could include articles on how a new college has impacted a community or anything that mentions both the words community and college. Using quotations to search as a phrase is more likely to return results related specifically to community college.