The library databases work best if you eliminate "stop" words from your query. Stop words are words such as: a, of, the, in, on.  Natural language usually doesn't produce favorable results in database searches.  Instead choose one or two words or brief phrases and separate them by the word "and" to narrow your search.

Tip: Using AND, OR, and NOT in your searches. AND, OR, and NOT are Boolean Operators that can be used in most databases and search engines.

AND - Include the word AND between each search term, so that the database will return only results that contain every one of the key terms. By including AND between each search term, I have limited my search results and will receive fewer but more relevant articles in my results list. 

OR - you can use OR between terms that have similar meanings, to expand your search results and receive results that contain either of the terms or both of the terms separated by OR. For example, the search query, "emergency management or disaster recovery" will return all results that contain either emergency management or disaster recovery and those that contain both terms. 

NOT - Put NOT between two terms to specify that you want to receive results that contain the first term and not the term following the NOT. For example, the search query, "emergency management NOT medical" will bring back results that contain the term, emergency management but that do not contain the term, medical.

If you use a combination of AND and OR operators in a search, enclose the words to be "ORed" together in parentheses. For example: 

"Emergency Management" NOT (medical OR health)

Surrounding a phrase with quotation marks ensures that the database will return results that contain that phrase with the words in that exact order.