Search strategies

• Information Search Strategy

Why search skills are important?

• Increasingly people are turning to the Internet to find
information.
• People often assume that they need no training to search the
Internet and that technology does all the work.
• In fact, a little time spent in formulating a search strategy will
both save your time and provide you with greatly improved
results.
• t is very tempting to rush into your search for information without
planning exactly how you are going to carry out your search. People
often make some common mistakes:
– using the wrong search tool/resource for the job
– not planning a good search strategy.

• A lack of knowledge about which resources are available, and about

how a particular resource works can waste time and produce poor
results.

• Learning how to search efficiently in databases, and how

information is structured in them, provides you with useful
transferable knowledge and skills
Search strategy a systematic plan for conducting a search:

• The process of planning a search strategy will help clarify your

thinking about your topic, and ensure that you are looking for
information appropriate to your task.

• Taking time to plan before you begin searching, will save you time
once you start exploring the resources on offer.

• You are more likely to search efficiently if you take a methodical

approach.
Step 1 - make sure you fully understand your question/topic:

• First look at the question or project specification you have chosen/been given
and make sure you fully understand it.

• Before you can find any information for your project or question you must
understand fully what is being asked.

• If you're not sure about the meaning of any word, name, place etc then look it
up before you start.

• The library has a range of subject dictionaries and encyclopaedias for you to use.

• Alternatively, discuss the project with your supervisor/friend.

Step 2 - Identify keywords and phrases:

• Once you are sure you know the meaning of the question/project
specification, work out which are the main words or phrases, known as
keywords or key phrases.

• Keywords and key phrases indicate what the project or question is really
about.

• They provide initial search terms for finding information.

• It is important to spot them all if you are going to answer questions correctly.

• Using the wrong keywords means you will get the wrong information.
• Step 3 – Identify synonyms and related terms:

Identifying the major concepts is an excellent start, but there’s

no guarantee that the database will have indexed using the
words that you have identified, even if they are on exactly the
topic you’re interested in.Therefore, to ensure you find all the
information about your topic, for each concept, you need to
identify as many different words and phrases that might be
used to describe it as you can.Think of broader terms which
will help you find more general information. Think of narrower
terms to help you find more specific information
• Step 4 – (Search Statement Development)
creating your search statement They are many
ways we use to create search statements:
• Phrase searching How to search for a exact
phrase or quote ?
Put the search phrase in quotation marks “
_”“Information literacy”How to exclude terms
from search results?Use the dash or minus
sign before the word to be excluded. EgHIV-
AIDS will retrieve articles or websites on HIV
onlyNews-cnn-bbc will remove cnn and bbc
news agency.
• Phrase searching How to search for a exact
phrase or quote ?
Put the search phrase in quotation marks “
_”“Information literacy”How to exclude terms
from search results?Use the dash or minus sign
before the word to be excluded. EgHIV-AIDS will
retrieve articles or websites on HIV onlyNews-
cnn-bbc will remove cnn and bbc news agency.
• How to search within a single site?
Type in your search phrase and the url
egApplication form:uz.ac.zwHow to search for
a particular file type? Eg ppt, exl, pdf ....search
term filetype:pdfinformation literacy
filetype:pdf
• Boolean logicSearch terms may be combined
using Boolean logic, so that the most relevant
results are returned. Most online catalogues and
databases will have a default operator, and if you
type in keywords without specifying an
operator/s, it will automatically use the
default.Three logical commands/operators are
available in most search software – OR, AND,
NOT. Some databases uses other operators, check
the Help facilities.
• Boolean operatorsIn the diagrams, below, the
box represents all the articles in the database,
whilst circles “a” and “b” represent articles
that include keyword “a” and “b”, respectively.
Retrieved results are shown in the shaded
area.
• Phrase searchingYou may also be able to
search for an exact phrase. This may done by
selecting the “exact phrase” option, or by
specifying the phrase yourself (this is usually
denoted by the use of quotation
marks).“Operating system” – returns records
that contain both operating and system
immediately adjacent to each other
• Truncation Right truncation
audit* (audit, audits, auditing,
audition….)Internal TruncationColo*r (color,
colour)(used on instances where you are not
sure if the word is a singular term)
• Question SearchingA question may be entered
in the search field of a search engine.Ask
Jeeves is a search engine that encourages the
use of question searchingSearch using Ask
Jeeves ----Why is the sky blue?
• Question SearchingA question may be entered
in the search field of a search engine.Ask
Jeeves is a search engine that encourages the
use of question searchingSearch using Ask
Jeeves ----Why is the sky blue?
• Advanced SearchingAdvanced search features are
offered on many engines by going to an “Advanced
Search” page and making selectionsThis is effective
in narrowing search returns to a specific topic or
phraseGoogle Advanced SearchGo to the Google
site and then show where to click on Advanced
Search.Discuss what to put in the fields for
researching:The similarities and differences of
grass snakes in Arizona and Iowa
• Search Statement Development
Effects of the sun on development of skin
cancer in Zimbabwe.Synonyms(Effect-
symptoms, Sun-Solar, Skin- epithelium,
Cancer-carcinoma)Final Search
Statement(effect OR symptom) AND (skin OR
epithelium) AND (cancer or carcinoma) +
ZimbabweSun Skin Cancer
• Step 5 - start searchingStep 6 – evaluate your
search resultsStep 7 - saving searches/creating
alertsStep 8 - taking referencesYou may need
to revise your search strategy once you have
surveyed the results from your first search due
to returning results that are inappropriate to
your topic