Before you begin your search in the International Security and Counter Terrorism Reference Center, here are a few tips that should help you get started:

1. Start simple - try starting with just one or two keys to search on the broadest aspects of your research topic.
2. Scroll through your results - what are you noticing? Certain terms the sources in the database seem to use that you should use? Common issues? Are there sources on aspects of the topic you are not interested in?
3. Refine and add more keywords - with your new knowledge, add additional keywords into your search to refine it and make it more specific.
4. Geographic - sometimes your topics are focusing on certain geographic regions or how a certain issue is affecting the United States. Because International Security and Counter Terrorism Reference Center looks at global issues, sometimes you may need to add in an additional keyword to narrow your results to just that geographic region. This is as simple as entering "United States," for example, into one of the search boxes.