Good searching can shorten your research time significantly. Here are some tips from the pros:
Use quotation marks around a phrase to inform the search engine to look for exactly the phrase you enter- for example "food desert" or "youth activism".
When searching for a keyword with multiple variations (ex. "education", "educators") use the root form of the word and add an asterisk (*). This means using educat* will retrieve items that have all variations-- "education", "educators", etc.
Be specific: A search for "housing crisis" and eviction* or "rental cost" is better than one for "affordable housing"
Use the built-in database filters to focus your results- most interfaces let you limit by publication date, subject, format and more
Finally, ZSR Librarians are here to help you find the best sources for your research assignment!