Before you start searching for information, take time to plan your search strategy. This is a crucial stage of the research process as:
When you start out, you may feel overwhelmed by the breadth of information available. However, by planning your searches in advance and applying effective search techniques, you will find the most relevant content for your needs.
This worksheet will help you create your search plan. Break your topic into it's key concepts, brainstorm alternative search terms, and identify the best databases for research on this topic.
You've selected your topic and done some background research, now it's time to think about searching. Before you jump into a database and run searches, take some time to build a searching plan. The first step of building a search plan is to identify potential search terms.
This short video introduces you to keyword searching.
| Type | Information | Use | Example |
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| Website | Websites provide access to information, images, videos, and audio. |
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| Newspaper | A collection of articles written by journalists about current events. Typically published daily. |
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| Magazine | A collection of articles and images about a variety of popular topics and current events. Articles are written by journalists for the general population. |
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| Scholarly Article / Peer Reviewed | A collection of articles written by scholars or experts in the field. Scholarly articles, also called academic articles, can be found using databases and cover a wide range of topics and can either be original research or analysis of an issue or topic. |
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| Book | Provide in-depth coverage of a subject. Often include historical or contextual information regarding a topic. |
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Brookens Library Catalog |
| Reference Material | Materials such as dictionaries, encyclopedias and handbooks are considered reference materials. Reference materials can be found both in print and online. |
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Watch this introductory video on searching for articles in the databases provided by EBSCOhost such as Academic Search Complete and Political Science Complete. Academic Search Complete covers a broad array of topics and Political Science Complete is a discipline specific resource. Either of these databases would be a good place to start your research.