To begin your research, you want to come up with an effective search strategy. This is the starting point of your search process. To do this, you have to consider a few different things.
First, develop your research question: What are you trying to answer?
This will serve as the foundation for your search strategy.
In order to develop keywords, look at the nouns within you research questions - persons, places, and things. You can also think about the 5Ws:
List keywords that relate each concept in your research. Boil your topic down to the most important words. Ignore superfluous words like in, the, of, with, against, affect, impact. Begin with a keyword search!
Boolean Operators are words and symbols, such as AND or NOT, that let you expand or narrow your search parameters when using a database or search engine. Knowing how to use Boolean Operators effectively can save you a lot of time and help you to find useful sources, determine the relevance of your research topic, and create strong research questions.
| AND | Contains all the search terms; Narrows a search | Florida AND tourism |
|---|---|---|
| OR | Contains one option or the other of the search terms; Expands the search | soda OR pop OR coke |
| NOT | Excludes items from the search; Narrows a search | java NOT coffee |
Search strategies can help refine your search. It takes time to consider how you're creating a search, how the database you're using can help create a stronger search, and how to consider different aspects of a search.
| Synonymous/Similar Words or Phrases |
Think of all the key terms associate with your topic and any words that are similar. They can be perfectly synonyms or not. This can be a helpful way to use the "OR" operator. It will let you look for all these terms in a single search string. These can be adjusted and changed or added to as your do your searching. |
| Limiters |
Limiters are often built in to databases. These can often help your limit your results by publication dates, topics, source type, and more. Consider what is most relevant to your searching needs and adjust your limiters as needed. For example, if you are starting with OneSearch you can choose to limit things to "Physical Items in Library" or to "Peer Reviewed" which are popular when students are beginning their searches. However, these might not be the most useful to your unique needs. |
| Adjusting Your Strategy | Write your search string as you use it. Some will work better than others and making note of that can help future you! Don't reinvent the wheel if you don't have to. Utilize the search strings that worked in different databases, don't reuse search strings that didn't work. Make note of what limiters were especially helpful. Take a look at the Subject Terms to see if you can add to your synonyms. These are all ways you can easily adjust your search strategy as you go. Searching is an ongoing process. |
There are many different types of sources. Each is characterized by different elements and audiences.
Popular sources, or non-scholarly sources, inform and possibly entertain their audiences. They allow authors to share knowledge in a more informal context. They are usually meant to be more easily consumed and accessible sources of information.
Examples: Newspapers, magazines, trade journals, popular books.
Scholarly sources disseminate research within specific disciplines. If an article is peer-reviewed it is usually considered scholarly. However, this term only really applies to journal articles. Books can be scholarly too. Scholarly sources are typically intended for academic research. Often they are written by PhD's for other PhD's.
Examples: Journals and books.
Often, non-scholarly sources do not contain the same level of references as scholarly sources. They are written to broadly inform. It doesn't mean they can't be authorities on any given topic, but how you use them in your research needs to be considered. There are pros and cons to each type of source.