Civil engineering
Environmental engineering
Failure analysis
Failure analysis (engineering)
Structural failures
Building failures
Engineering design
Forensic engineering
Disasters
Accidents
Collapse
236210 Industrial Building Construction
236220 Commercial and Institutional Building Construction
236110 Residential building construction
237310 Highway, Street, and Bridge Construction
237990 Other Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction
541614 Process, Physical Distribution, and Logistics Consulting Services
Unlike Google, library databases can't understand an entire sentence. So you'll need to break your topic down into the most important ideas - the KEYWORDS.
Example Topic: What miscalculations, materials, and policies contributed to levees breaching during Hurricane Katrina in 2005?
The specifics of your topic will matter when selecting sources, but for searching you only need the most essential components.
Keywords: miscalculations, materials, levees, breaching, Hurricane Katrina
Most words have synonyms that mean the same, or very similar, things. For each keyword in your topic, try to come up with at least one synonym. Not all keywords will have synonyms, but many do!
Example:
Keep an Eye Out
Sometimes scholars use terms that you might not be familiar with, or which might mean something very specific within the discipline. While searching, look for unfamiliar terms or words that show up a lot. Try searching for those and see if you find more relevant sources.
Library databases have built in search tools. Try some of these:
Look on the left of your search results, or for an "advanced search" page to find these tools - and more!
Use the operator AND to find only sources that mention both keywords.
This search will bring back fewer results than searching either keyword on its own.
Use the OR operator to expand your search with additional keywords.
This will find sources that include either word, so you'll see more results than by searching for just one keyword.
Use the “QUOTES” strategy to search for several words in a phrase.
This will bring back results that only use that exact phrase.