Literature Reviews: Planning and developing your search strategy

Planning your search carefully will not only save you time but ensure you find the relevant literature for your review. By taking a structured approach to the search process, you will not only be extremely efficient, but also highly effective.

There are a number of key steps in the search process.

• Begin with your research question(s) – what you are going to research? If you haven’t clearly defined your question(s) at this point, a preliminary search of the literature will help and is advised.
• Identify the main concepts, the key terms you will use in your search. Identify and list synonyms and subject headings that you will use when searching particular library databases. Your preliminary search will help with this!
• Devise your search statement by combining terms using appropriate Boolean operations and other search techniques. Use our search table to do this, it includes an example.
• Identify the main sources that will be relevant to your research, for example, peer-reviewed journal articles, books, conference papers, research reports, statistics and so forth.
• Identify the appropriate databases and tools to use in your search. More information here.

Begin your search, review and evaluate your results, revise your search statement as necessary.

This video will show you how to develop a search strategy in practice. For the purposes of this demonstration we will use the topic social media use, teenagers and their body image.

Use Boolean Operators (AND, OR and NOT) to combine your search terms.

AND
Use AND to combine multiple concepts
i.e. all words joined with AND must be found in each result

OR
Use OR when you have similar words to describe a concept or topic
i.e. At least one of the words connected with OR should be found in each result

NOT
Use NOT to exclude results containing terms
i.e. don’t return results with the term that is followed by NOT

Search operators such as wildcards, truncation and parenthesis can help you expand/limit your search. 

NOTE:  Search operators may vary depending on the database you are using. Check the help section of your chosen database for more information.

Identify the key concepts in your research question and use this template to note down all the terms associated with each concept.