Beginning your search with the LibrarySearch with two of your keywords is a good way to get started. It's often best to start simple and cast a wider net so you don't miss out on a good resource because you started with a super specific search!
For example, if you're interested in how schooners were built in the 1800's in Bath, Maine, you might first search "wooden shipbuilding AND Maine." You can always add the time period, type of ship, and more specific location into your search later.
Then you probably already know how to use filters (also known as limiters) to refine your search results!
On the left-hand side of your search results page, you'll see a bunch of filter options. If you need peer-reviewed articles, you can select the "Peer Reviewed Journals" option and you will only see peer-reviewed articles in your results. If you need resources published in the last 5 years, refine your date range. Explore the different filters to see how they change your results!
If you are seeing too much of one type of source, you can also exclude things from your search by selecting the exclude item box icon to the right of the term:
Connecting one term to another, such as "lobster industry" AND "Maine" means that instead of searching for anything on the lobster industry, or anything that mentions Maine, you're only searching sources that discuss both of these topics.
Using "OR" broadens your search. This is often helpful when you're researching a topic that has different terms with similar meanings.
In the example below, the advanced search in LibrarySearch has been selected and the search is for "lobster populations AND (climate change) OR (global warming) OR (ocean temperatures). So this search will look for any sources that discuss lobster populations and use the terms climate change, global warming, or ocean temperatures. Using the parenthesis between your OR words enables LibrarySearch to search each of those terms at once.
