A search strategy is the plan you use to search for relevant information. The strategy provides you with both a structure for your search and also a record of your search history. As your research develops and your search is refined, your search history can be extremely useful. It can also improve the relevance of the results you obtained as you uncover how your search terms are related to each other.
To develop a search strategy you will need to:
- define your research question - what you are going to research?
- identify keywords, terms, and phrases related to your research question
- identify keyword synonyms - this can also be done in some databases
- Identify the time period you will be searching
- what types of material you will include (books, journals, conference proceedings, etc.) and why?
- identify where you will search for the information