Use this worksheet to plan a search strategy using your own area of research interest.
- You can download a print version of the worksheet from here
Starting your search
- Not all databases allow you to do a natural language search, such as “is there a link between violence in the media and crime?” You need to pick out the keywords in your topic, and then link them with operators, such as AND or OR or NOT.
Keywords
- The keywords in the topic “is there a link between violence in the media and crime?” are violence, media and crime. You then need to think of synonyms, that is words with the same meaning. In this case:
| Violence |
Media |
Crime |
| Bloodthirsty |
Television |
Criminal |
| Cruelty |
Film |
Offender |
| Aggression |
|
Offence |
|
|
|
- You will also need to think of alternate spellings or abbreviations and acronyms i.e.
- colour OR color
- USSR OR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Topic/question/problem
- Write your topic/question/problem in the box below and underline the key concepts
Synonyms
- What is a synonym? A synonym is a word that has the same meaning or implication of meaning as one or more other words
- What is an acronym? An acronym is an abbreviated form of term or phrase where words are exchanged for letters i.e. STEM for 'science, technology, engineering and mathematics'
- Write a key concept into each box in the top row, and in the column beneath, list as many synonyms/alternatives you can think of. Remember to include singular/plural, acronyms, newer/older terminology, US/UK spellings/terminology, technical terms.
Search Operators
- Look at your synonyms above and consider how you might streamline the search using truncation (e.g. therap*), wildcards (e.g. wom?n, *therapy), and phrase searching (e.g. “Cognitive behav* therap*”)
Limits
- Think about any limits that might apply to your topic/question/problem.
| Date range |
Language |
Material type |
Other |
|
|
|
|
|
Broadening/Narrowing
- Consider how you might broaden/narrow your search if you find too few/too many references
| Broadening search |
Narrowing search |
|
e.g. think of more synonyms. Remember to use truncation.
|
e.g. add more precise concepts. Apply more limits. |
You should now be ready to start entering your search on the database of your choice.
