A Plan as You Start Your Research
Whether you're new to library research or experienced, it's good to have a strategy for how you'll approach searching in a library database.
The CHOP, DROP, and OR method provides a set of steps you can follow to get started, enabling you to take a description of your research topic and appropriately choose keywords to type into a database's search boxes.
- First CHOP your topic up into its individual concepts.
- Then DROP each of those concepts into a separate search box.
- And then use OR to add synonyms or related terms to each of those boxes.
CHOP, DROP, and OR method...illustrated
Start with your topic.
CHOP it up into its individual concepts.
DROP those terms into individual search boxes.
Add synonyms or related words for relevant concepts, using OR.
Look at good records for related words you can add into your search.
After you evaluate your results, and revise your search, you repeat the process...over and over!
