Latinos on Film (HISP 193B)  

• Remember to enclose search phrases in quotes:

"motion pictures"

This ensures that the database will return results that include the entire phrase

"motion pictures"

rather than records that contain both of these words, but not your search phrase:

records that include the word "motion" and the word "pictures" but not the phrase "motion pictures"

Doing this will help you avoid sifting through irrelevant results.

• Begin with a keyword search of your topic:

latinos and film

and note the related subject headings that come up in relevant results:

Hispanic Americans in motion pictures; Hispanic American motion picture actors and actresses; Hispanic American women in mass media; Mexican Americans in motion pictures

• To search for more than one variant of a term, use truncation:

latin* will search for

latin and latina and latino and latinas and latinas

The database searches for any word that begins with the letters that precede the truncation symbol (in this case, an asterisk). Some databases use other symbols, such as a question mark, for truncation.

• You can also expand your search by including related terms in an "or" search with your first term:

ex. film or "motion pictures" or cinema

See the box on Boolean Logic for more about this search technique.