When you are beginning to search for information it is important to develop a search strategy that will assist you to find relevant information. A search strategy is a plan for how to search for information.
You will need to:
Once you have read generally about your topic, you should have a better idea of the keywords under which you will probably find information about your topic. So, before you can start your search, you should make a list of all the possible keywords that you can use when you start searching for information.
This can help you to define your focus and it will be a useful tool once you start searching, especially if your first search attempts don’t find much that’s useful.
Your initial keywords can be found in your assignment topic. While you were doing background reading you should have encountered other possible keywords under which you will probably find information about your topic.
Identify the central essential concepts in your topic as your keywords. Avoid words that are vague or have multiple meanings.
Example
The assignment topic: "Is memory loss related to aging?" has two main concepts:
You may lose a lot of useful information if you do not search for the alternative terms of your keywords. Using different words will retrieve different information; therefore use all possible words when you search for information.
Example
In this chart you will see an example of a topic where keywords are identified as well as possible alternatives to the initial keywords.
The topic is:"Discuss the therapy for TB"
We use search techniques with the identified keywords to make the search for information more focused with more relevant search results.
You can use more than one search technique at a time.
Basic search techniques include:
|
(including or avoiding specific terms) |
|
(using part of a keyword) |
|
(using exact strings of words) |
You use the AND operator to combine two or more keywords/terms. When using AND, you will only retrieve information that includes both these keywords/terms. The use of this operator will give you fewer results.
Databases differ in how they use the AND operator and can indicate it in any of the following ways:
Look at the"Help" function of each database to see how you should indicate the AND operator for that particular database.
The OR operator is used to broaden your search and to give more results. This is useful when you have identified synonyms or alternative terms to use in your search, e.g. woman or female.
Databases differ in how they indicate the OR operator and can indicate it in
any of the following ways:
Look at the "Help" function of each database to see how you should indicate the OR operator for that particular database.
You use the NOT operator to exclude certain information from your results. This operator will give you fewer results.
Databases differ in how they indicate the NOT operator and can indicate it in any of the following ways:
NOT in capital letters before keyword(s) to be excluded, e.g. virus NOT computer
not in small letters before keyword(s) to be excluded, e.g. virus not computer
and not is used by some databases to exclude keywords, e.g. virus and not computer
Look at the "Help" function of each database to see how you should indicate the NOT operator for that particular database.
Truncation means to cut off a point or to shorten. When used with keywords, it means to keep the stem of the keywords and "cut" everything else away, leaving it out. Truncation uses a symbol to represent all possible endings of a keyword.
Truncation can increase the number of results found, by finding variations of a keyword. Some results you find may not be relevant to your topic.
There is no standard symbol; a range of symbols can be used.
Common truncation symbols include the symbol * or the symbol ?
Look at the "Help" function of each database to see which symbol you should use to indicate truncation in that particular database.
When you type politi* (stem + truncation symbol) you will retrieve all documents with the following words:
BE CAREFUL not to truncate a keyword too soon, otherwise you will receive many unwanted results. For example: if you truncated the above example at polit* in stead of politi*, you would also receive search results on polite, politesse, polity, etc.
Truncation can also be very useful if you are not sure how to spell a word. Type all the letters that you are sure of and add the truncation symbol.
Phrase searching allows you to search for particular words in a particular order. A phrase search retrieves two or more words only when they appear next to each other as a phrase, e.g. “higher education”, “South Africa”.
Using the phrase search option will narrow your search and the records retrieved should be more relevant. Phrase searching can reduce the number of results you find. It can also increase the relevancy of your results.
Databases differ in how they indicate phrase searching and can indicate it in any of the following ways:
Look at the "Help" function of each database to see how you should indicate phrase searching for that particular database.
NB: Use phrase searching with care: searching for a phrase could also eliminate useful records. For example, a phrase search for "language teaching" would not find the words "teaching of language".
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