Skip to Main Content

Indigenous, Tribal, and Native Peoples Research Starter: Search tips

Help with your research

On this page you will find tips and suggestions for accessing resources within our Tribal, Indigenous, and Native Peoples collection.  Scroll down the page for information tailored specifically to researching these broad topics.  In the Example searches box you will also find a list of searches that have already been performed, giving you access to scholarly search results on a variety of topics.

You can use the skills and tips presented here to access our tribal, indigenous, and native peoples collections.

 

Need a refresher on how to search within a database?  

Suggested subject terms

A subject term is a standardized word or phrase that describes a main idea in the article.

When an article is added to a database, the database will assign subject terms to it from the database's list of subjects. Most articles will have from 3 to 12 subject terms.

Each database has its own list of subject terms. They often use technical jargon and odd punctuation, so you won't be able to come up with the subject terms on your own. You will have to identify the subject terms in the database, and then use them in a search.

If you want to see all the subject terms used in a particular database, you can search the Subject Index.

 

Here are some suggested subject terms for searching within our Tribal, Indigenous, and Native Peoples collections:

Some of the following terms might also prove helpful when conducting research on tribal, indigenous, or native peoples culture or issues.


Video: Subject Terms Search

(1 min 37 sec) Recorded Feb 2016
Transcript 

Using example searches

You can adapt any of these pre-set searches by adding your own search terms.  

If you wished to focus on a health condition in a particular population, you would add your term for the health condition to a separate search box, while leaving the example population search terms in place.  This is an example search for a preset population and diabetes:

  1. Click on a preset example search from the list.
  2. On the results page, locate the search boxes at the top of the page.  Leave the example search terms in place in the first search box, in this case the population terms Indigenous OR Tribal OR Native Americans OR American Indians
  3. Enter your search term(s) in an empty search box. In this case, enter diabetes in the second search box.


  4. Once you've added your search term(s),  click the Search button and review the new results.

 

You can continue to add other search terms, apply limiters, and shape the search as often as needed to obtain new results.