Planning an effective search strategy Search techniques Managing search results Finding Information for Your Dissertation

Vote Now! a. Go straight to Google b. Think carefully about the terms I want to use and where best to find the information. c. Look for a book. d. Ask my friend. e. Go to Discover More How do you go about finding information for your assignment or dissertation?

Vote Now! a. Better chance of finding what I need. b. Managing my search results more effectively. c. Better chance of finding reliable information. d. Will save me time. e. I’ll get better marks. Advantages of using a systematic approach to searching for information.

Why use a search strategy? All True! Better chance of finding what I need. Managing my search results more effectively. Better chance of finding reliable information. Saves time. Better assignment marks. Also true! Able to re-use your search strategy. Able to identify relevant databases or other information sources.

Devising a Search Strategy Step 1 What is being asked? Step 2 Key and alternative search terms Step 3 Combine search terms Step 4 Plan where to search Step 5 Execute and refine search Step 6 Manage search results

1. Understand your assignment question.  What is being asked?  Discuss your project with your supervisor / tutor  Do you understand the terminology?  Background reading  Learning services: Assignment help

2. Identify key search terms (A) “Discuss the impact of parental mental health problems on developing children” What do you think are the key terms or concepts for this question? Let’s hear or see your suggestions!

2. Identify key search terms (B) “Discuss the impact of parental mental health problems on developing children ”

2. Identify key search terms (C) Don’t stop at keywords and concepts!  Broader terms will help find more general information e.g. “Research” instead of “case study”  Narrower terms help find more specific information e.g. “Midwifery” OR “Midwives” instead of “Nurse”,  Synonyms or related terms - don’t miss any information by ignoring words that mean the same or related things. e.g. “Nutrition” OR “Diet” OR “Food”.

Search Tips Truncation * This symbol will find any ending of a word e.g. child* will find child, childhood, children etc Wildcard Characters ? This symbol is used to replace any single character, ? This symbol cannot be used to begin a word. e.g. wom?n will find woman and women Phrase Searching “quotation marks” placed around two or more words will ensure they appear together in search results. e.g “risk assessment” will retrieve more focused search results.

3. Bring your search terms together  Combining search terms using Boolean operators to broaden or narrow search results. 

4. Plan where you search  Learning Services' subjects pages  Discover More Discover More  Google Scholar Google Scholar  Books, conference proceedings, theses (take a look at the Index of Theses and EThOS) and dissertations. Index of ThesesEThOS  Blogs, Twitter and Discussion Lists

5. Execute and refine your search.  Basic and Advanced Search Options  Help pages  Keep searching  Search by types of documents (e.g. article, conference), date ranges, publication types (e.g. books, journal) and subjects.

6. Manage searches and results WHY?  reuse where necessary  ensure you have covered all relevant search terms  save searches  combining saved searches  ‘ alert’ facility

For further information or help please contact your Subject Librarian. Contact details can be found at: Help! Ask Us ehu.ac.uk/askus Ask desk – level one in the library