Would you go shopping without knowing what you are looking for?

Of course not, unless we are merely window shopping. But your research paper should not be window shopping. Before you start your research you need to know what you are looking for or you will spend useless hours just wandering around the Internet. No wonder you get frustrated.

As I always indicate in my lectures, it is all about the keywords - you need 4-6 solid nouns or adjective/noun groupings or even a verb. BUT NEVER USE words like to, for, by, etc. in your search windows. Nor do you want to use vague words like treatment or symptoms. As I often use in my examples, if you search with words such as "breast cancer" AND "African American women" AND postmenopause AND mammogram, you will have some valid documents to use in your paper in one quick search. In the words of Emeril BAM!

Never start searching for your research paper without keywords. Don't waste your time and deal with the guaranteed frustration to follow.

Second piece of advice, use the keywords and search in different databases/search engines. Just because you found nothing or little in one database, doesn't mean you will hit paydirt in the second one or third. If you don't find what you are looking for one in store, do you stop looking! Heck no!