Search strategies help you find quality academic sources efficiently instead of getting lost in irrelevant results from general search engines. A systematic approach saves time, improves source quality, and ensures comprehensive coverage of your topic.
- A search strategy is a systematic approach to finding information that aligns with your specific research question.
- Start by identifying main concepts, then use targeted search techniques and specialized databases rather than relying on popular search engines.
- Good strategies help you focus research, find quality sources, save time, and discover comprehensive resources.
- Don't hesitate to ask librarians for help—they're experts at navigating research resources and developing tailored search strategies.
- Develop a specific, focused, and clear research question before planning your search—you can't search effectively without knowing what you're looking for.
- Make your question specific (narrow from broad topics), focused (single issue, not multiple), and clear (unambiguous terms).
- Understand what types of sources you need: primary vs. secondary, popular vs. scholarly, peer-reviewed vs. non-peer-reviewed.
- Match source types to your research goals—use primary sources for firsthand data, secondary for analysis and interpretation.
- Break your research question into 2-4 core concepts—the fundamental building blocks that represent distinct, standalone ideas.
- Good concepts are specific, searchable, concrete (not abstract), and central to your research question.
- Focus on the "what" of your research, not relationship words like "effect," "impact," "influence," "advantages," or "benefits."
- Example: "How does social media usage affect teenage mental health?" → Concepts: Social media, Teenagers, Mental health.
- Choose search locations based on information type: research databases for peer-reviewed sources, library catalogs for books, preprint databases for cutting-edge research.
- For scholarly sources: use research databases (Articles and Research Papers) and library search for books.
- For current research: try preprint databases and academic social networks like ResearchGate.
- For business info: use specialized business databases and company websites.
- Always check assignment requirements—professors often specify which databases or source types to use.
- Transform your concepts into searchable keywords and use separate search boxes for each concept in databases.
- Connect concepts with "AND" to find articles discussing the intersection of all your topics.
- Don't put all keywords in one box—databases will search it as a phrase instead of overlapping concepts.
- Leave off quotation marks to catch variants (plurals, alternate spellings) unless your concept is very specific.
- Use "All Fields" setting to search titles, subjects, keywords, and authors simultaneously.
- Expand searches using "OR" with synonyms: "women OR woman OR girl OR female" increases relevant results.
- Add subject terms (controlled vocabulary) from database thesauruses to catch articles that use different terminology.
- Apply limiters: check "Scholarly/Peer Reviewed" box and set publication date ranges (5 years for sciences, 10 for social sciences).
- Mine relevant articles for more sources: check bibliographies for older sources, use "cited by" links for newer ones.
- Use search shortcuts: asterisk () for truncation (depress finds depression, depressive), question mark (?) for single character replacement (wom?n finds woman, women). CAUTION! the exact format or characters used varies for different search tools. Always check the help feature to see what your search tool is expecting!
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