Start
- Ask: State your topic as a question to focus your search. Ask: Is my question too broad or too narrow?
- Define need: Define your information need. Ask: what sort and how much information do I need?
- Identify main concepts from your question. Ask: What are the most important terms in my question?
- Select unique words, synonyms, spellings, plurals, broader topic. Ask: What are some discipline specific thesauri?
- Select appropriate professional sources. Ask: Should I use tertiary, secondary or primary sources? What is the best place to start?
- Search: Construct a search with appropriate commands for the system selected. Ask: Am I searching efficiently?
- Revise: Be prepared to revise and refine your search. Ask: Did I retrieve all information that I need?
- Manage results: Retrieve records, full text, save, print, cite, email. Ask: How do I get full text? How will I use this information in the future?
- Evaluate: Find out how good the information is. Ask: Can I trust this information? Is this a highly cited article?
- Apply: Answer your question. Ask: Did I answer my question? Do I still need more information?
Remember: Your question drives the search strategy. There is no one best way to search. Avoid one stop searching (examples would be relying on one author or a single source) to prevent bias.
