Analyse your topic: to help you to understand the topic, try imagining the title of the 'perfect' article.

Example: You are required to find research articles which shows a link between brain adaptations and motor learning. The 'perfect' title could be:
"Adaptations in the brain caused by motor learning"

Identify key concepts: highlight two or more important concepts in the topic.

brain

motor learning

Consider alternative terms: SPORTDiscus has a thesaurus (containing subject headings). Using subject headings from the thesaurus will result in more relevant articles. But not all concepts may have a subject heading, so begin to also think about alternative terms.

motor learning OR motor skills development

Shortcut for keyword search:
To search alternative word endings, use the truncation symbol : $ (equals zero, one or more characters). eg. infection$ will find infection or infections

Identify word combinations:  consider how you might use the Boolean operators AND and OR to combine search terms.

Boolean operator	Demo
AND requires all search terms to be included in the record. AND is generally used to combine different concepts.
OR requires that one or more of the search terms are included in the record. OR is generally used to combine alternative terms for the one concept.