Now that you have a better understanding of which sources are going to be useful for your topic you can start to think about where to search to find them. The 'where to find' section on individual source pages (see menu on left hand side) highlights some useful places for locating print sources (books, journal articles, newspapers). But what about online information? How can you sift through the vast quantities that are out there to find relevant and useful sources for your coursework?
The key to finding relevant information is to make sure you take time to plan your search before you actually start searching, in other words to have a search strategy!
Don't just type your question into a search engine!
Sticking the whole text of a question into a search box might get you some reasonable results in Google, and even Google Scholar, because Google and Google Scholar use search algorithms that means they are very good at 'guessing' what you need. However, computers aren't mind-readers and more often then not typing in your research question will retrieve an overwhelming amount of results only some of which will be relevant.
Therefore, the first step in your strategy, and one of the most important features of it, is to identify the key words you will use to search for information.
Have a look at the next tab to find out more.
One of the most important aspects of the planning your search stage, is developing a list of keywords that will help you to search for the information you need.
When you are searching for information, in resources such as Google Scholar, your keywords become your search terms and what you enter into the search bar to retrieve relevant books, articles etc. Therefore, you will need to choose your keywords carefully as the ones that you use can really determine the success or failure of your search. Basically, your keywords represent the main concepts of your research topic .
The steps below can be a useful method for identifying your keywords
1. Take the time to examine your topic/question and make sure you understand it.
For unfamiliar topics it is handy to use a dictionary or encyclopedia or even just a Google Search to define any terms you are unsure of.
2. Identify the most important words from your research question. These are your key concepts.
Avoid relationship words (e.g. compare, contrast), judgement words (e.g. advantages, pro, worst) and instruction words (analyse, describe, justify).
3. For each key concept, think of as many words as you can which have similar meanings also known as synonyms.
There are many ways of expressing the same idea. Something can be described using various different words so it is important to identify all.
You might find it useful to plan out your assignment on paper, in Microsoft word or a search table. Mind mapping can also be a great way of visually identifying the main concepts and topics you need to address (see example below).
It may be that you don’t come up with all the necessary keywords on your first attempt. But you can continue to add new words to your search table or mind map as you read more about the topic.
If you're unsure of ideas for keywords, you can:
The next tab has an example of a search strategy
Have a look at the following assignment title. Can you identify the key concepts?
To what extent have recent initiatives to increase the number of people who travel to work by bicycle been successful?
"To what extent..." We disagree that this is a key term to use in a search tool. The assignment is asking you to make this judgment after weighing up the evidence you find in the literature.
"Recent..." We disagree. Although you will need to find recent information to answer this question, including the term "recent" in your search is likely to exclude a large number of relevant results. Instead use date limits or order your results by date to refine your search results to the more recent information. You will find out how to do this later in the tutorial.
"Initiatives..." We agree, "initiatives" is a key term to explore.
"Increase..." We can ignore words like "increase" as it can be expected that any initiatives introduced are intended to increase the number of people cycling to work.
"Number of people..." We can ignore words like "number of people" as it can be expected that any initiatives introduced are intended to increase the number of people cycling to work..
"Bicycle..." We agree "bicycle" is a key focus of this assignment question.
"Successful..." We disagree. We wouldn't include the term "successful" as the question is asking us to consider the extent to which initiatives have been successful and so we may also want to know about unsuccessful schemes to make an informed judgment. Using the keyword 'successful' may therefore exclude any unsuccessful schemes.
The next step is to try to think of as many keywords as possible which describe them.
As mentioned in the previous section, two approaches you can use to do this are a search table or mind map.
In the examples below, you can see related keywords, for your main concepts, which can be used in a search strategy. We have made sure that plural and alternative endings for our main concepts have been included for example: commute(s), commuting. Additionally, words which have similar meanings, also known as synonyms, have been identified such as, initiative, scheme, incentive.
Having identified the key parts of our research question, and alternate ways of expressing them, how do we actually use them in a search?
Well you can just type your keywords into a search engine or resource like a library database but a more effective method is to use search techniques.
Search techniques, when used in combination with your keywords, can improve your search results by giving you more control over how your search is done.
Some search techniques are more applicable for advanced search strategies and more in depth assignments however, there are several that can be good to use when performing basic searches. .
Phrase search
If when planning your search strategy, you have a keyword/ concept that is more than one word long (i.e. a phrase), you can use quotation marks to keep the phrase together in your search. This is known as the phrase search technique. If you don't put speech marks around your keywords, the resource will retrieve search results containing your words, but they won't necessarily be next to each other.
So, for example, if you were searching for social media, without quotation marks, you may well find other, unrelated topics in your results list, such as social anxiety, or media studies.
Phrase searching not only reduces the the number of results you get but it will also, more importantly, increase the accuracy of your search results.
AND
Use AND to narrow down your search. Combining keywords with AND tells the search engine to bring up results with those keywords e.g. chocolate AND wellbeing. This will help you to narrow down your search to those results that have both your keywords in.
You can add several keywords together using AND, but try not to make the list too long as you may find this narrows down your results too much.
Filters
Lots of resources, like online databases, Google, Google Scholar, have filters that enable you to refine your results and make them more specific to what you are looking for. There are filters to refine your search to a certain time period and to a particular source for example books, or newspaper.
Once you are clear about the information you need you can move on and ask: "Where can I look to find this information?". The next few sections will explore some resources you can use to find online information as well as tips for searching them more effectively.
