Developing a search strategy

» Defining the topic
» Considering the scope of your topic
» Identifying the main or important aspects
» Compiling a list of keywords
→ Developing your search strategy

Developing your search strategy

The terms OR, AND, NOT define the relationship between your keywords and concepts.  These terms are called Boolean operators.  All databases and most web search engines use Boolean operators.

• When you are looking for references that contain the word "university" or alternative terms like "higher education", you use the word " OR " to define the relationship between the words you are typing.
  
  OR  is used for alternative or synonymous terms.
  
  Using the " OR " operator increases the number of references you would retrieve; the more alternative terms you use, the larger the number of references you retrieve.

• When you are looking for references about "media ownership" and "Australia", you are specifying that both terms/ aspects must appear in the references, therefore you use the word " AND " to indicate both must appear.
  
  When you join two words (or aspects) together with AND, the computer will retrieve only those records which contain both words.  This narrows your search.

• You can also exclude terms by saying "greenhouse" NOT "glass houses".  WARNING - use NOT with care, it is very easy to exclude relevant references where aspects of both words are considered or compared.

Creating a search statement using Boolean operators and truncation

Here again is the list of keywords for each aspect:

The keywords chosen for each aspect can be connected using the OR OPERATOR.

Now we need to combine the aspects. The different aspects can be combined using the AND OPERATOR.

For example:

All keywords and their synonyms that are connected using the OR operator are enclosed in brackets, so when we write out our search properly, it will look like this:

(global warming OR greenhouse effect) AND (rainfall OR climate OR weather) AND (cereals OR rice OR wheat OR grain)

Truncation
Truncation is a very useful technique to use in identifying all the necessary search terms. The symbol used may vary between databases, but don't panic as you can use the help screen to determine the appropriate symbol. Examples of truncation for our topic are:

• greenhouse gas*
• cereal?
• climat+

The most commonly used truncation symbol is an asterix * (always check the help pages of the database to see which truncation symbol you need to use) so our final search would look like this:

(global warming OR greenhouse effect) AND (rainfall * OR climat * OR weather*) AND (cereal* OR rice* OR wheat* OR grain*)

Next : Searching Summons→

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