2. Plan your research
Take a moment before you start researching to think about what you are trying to find.
Are you researching for an essay or trying to determine the best forensic method to use for a particular scenario.
Your Task
Work through this checklist below
Planning your search
Before you begin looking for resources for your assessment or project, focus on planning your search strategy. A little time spent on this now will save you time and frustration later. Approach your search with these simple steps.
Tip
Before you start researching for an assessment it is a good idea to plan out your search strategy. Use this downloadable search planner to get started.
Combine your Keywords with some Database Search Techniques
Once you’ve chosen your keywords, join them together using search techniques to create a search strategy. Use the tabs below to learn about some common database search techniques.
Phrase searching narrows a search to show results that contain an exact phrase.
This is useful when you want to search for a certain string of words.
To conduct a phrase search, add double quotation marks around two or more words you want to search for.
For example: searching for "latent fingerprints" will only return records that contain this exact term. The search will not return results where the word 'latent' or 'fingerprints' appear alone.
Truncation searching broadens a search to show results that include words with variation.
To conduct a truncation search, use an asterisk character * to signify where the variation should exist.
Use this when you want to show results that include words with different endings. For example, searching for impact* will return records that contain any of these words: 'impact', 'impacts', 'impactful', 'impacting' etc.
Truncation searching is sometimes referred to as wildcard searching or stemming.
Boolean searching is a type of search that allows users to combine keywords with operators (such as AND, OR, NOT) to produce more relevant results
Using the word AND between two search terms narrows a search to show results containing both terms.
Conversely, using the word OR between two terms broadens a search to show results containing either term.
Video: Database Search Techniques
Conduct the Search
Below is an example of an advanced search option you’ll find in most databases. It has multiple search boxes with the Boolean operator, AND, listed on the left-hand side. Each concept has been entered into a search box and joined by AND.
Click on the plus icons to learn about each search technique demonstrated.
Activity overview
This interactive activity shows an image of the Library advanced search bars filled in with an example search as follows:
(technique OR method)
AND "latent fingerprints"
AND visual*
There are 3 selectable icons that explain each of the search techniques used in this advanced search.
Technique 1: Grouping your words (Brackets)
Brackets can be used to group keywords together, so they are searched first.
Technique 2: Grouping your words (Quote marks)
Use Quotation marks to search for words in an exact order. This is called phrase searching.
Technique 3: Using symbols
Add an asterisk to the end of a keyword to find variant word endings. This is called truncation. This example of visual* will find visualised, visualized, visualising, visualizing, visualisation and visualization.