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:
Documenting your search plan and process can help you:
Keeping a record of the terms you search, where you have searched, and your results will make your work more efficient. Keeping track of search terms and where you've searched can be done easily in an Excel spreadsheet. Keeping track of your references is covered in the section Managing your references.
