Developing a search strategy is fundamental to carrying out an efficient and effective search for information. Having a strategy (plan) for your search will guide you to find relevant, timely and quality sources of information for use in your assignment.
This module will show you ways to turn your research questions/topic into a search strategy that an academic search engine or bibliographic database can understand; it will demonstrate strategies to help you compile a set of search words; discuss ways to refine your search to take account of inclusion and exclusion criteria and explain the need to match your information need to a particular type of information source to ensure you unleash your search strategy in the ‘right’ place.
Learning Outcomes
- Express your research question/topic as a search strategy.
- Develop a set of search words for your search strategy.
- Apply established techniques to refine and improve your search strategy.
- Identify the types of sources you need to search for and where they are located.
Find out more on the next page: What is a search strategy?
To navigate through this module, please click on the links in the menu on the right-hand side or if you are using a mobile phone these links will appear below.
Author(s): Kate Davies
Last updated: August 2021
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