Communications
Make a Search Plan
Use a Search Plan to approach your research strategically.
A search plan has three parts that work together to help you find your sources.
Where will you look for information?
Search tools may be open web, like Google, or "deep web" or "hidden web", like Library databases.
Some standard search tools for any topic or subject include:
- Search Everything The Library's most powerful search tool lets you search a majority of all available search tools at once.
- ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window Serves as the central resource for researchers at all levels. Covering more than 160 subjects areas, ProQuest Central is the largest aggregated database of periodical content. This award-winning online reference resource features a highly-respected, diversified mix of content including scholarly journals, trade publications, magazines, books, newspapers, reports and videos. *This is a Traveler resource. The Traveler Statewide Resource project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
This link opens in a new window
- Gale Power Search This link opens in a new window Cross-search the content of multiple Gale databases (including the content of Gale eBook titles) at one time through a streamlined, common user interface. Filter by source type easily using tabs to limit to Academic Journals, News, Images, Videos and more.
- Credo Reference This link opens in a new window Covers every major subject, from art to medicine, psychology to history, and technology to literature. The award-winning titles in Credo Reference include general and subject encyclopedias, dictionaries, biographies, bibliographies, chronologies, handbooks, atlases, and more. Credo's collections are continuously updated to reflect the most relevant, up-to-date content.
How will you look for information? What techniques or hacks will you use in the tools you choose?
Explore these helpful strategies.
Keywords 
The words you choose matter; select search terms with care. Avoid putting your search in the form of a question.
"Exact phrase"
Put 2 or more words inside quotation marks to turn them into a single word; so "black cat" looks for results with these 2 words as a phrase. Without the quotation marks, the tool will look for the words black and cat anywhere in the results.
Suggestions
Search tools usually make suggestions for keywords and search terms as you type in the search box - Use them!
3 Magic Words
- AND - combine keywords or search terms (eagles AND bears); results must have both words
- OR - include alternatives for keywords or search terms (eagles OR bears); results will have one word or the other, maybe both
- NOT - eliminates keywords or search terms (eagles NOT bears); results will exclude results that contain the keyword after NOT
Filters or Limiters
Overwhelmed by search results? Limit by picking filters such as date or source type (academic journal, ebook, etc.).
What will you do as you search and start finding results?
You need to be:
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Flexible - Be willing to change directions based on what you find, or don't find. This could mean changing your strategies, your search terms, and possibly your working thesis or even your topic.
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Persistent - Try, and then try again. Maybe switch up your strategies or change your search tool. Consider your keywords or search terms - remember, the words you choose matter and they can make or break a search.
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Willing to Ask for HELP - Freshman and sophomores in college aren't expected to know how to do college-level research. You are beginners who are learning quickly. Know when to ask for help. The Library and your instructor are great resources. Use them!
Understand Information Needs & the Information Life Cycle
Start here to get when you don’t know much about the topic to find basic information and get context.
These sources, which might be quickly created explainer about something happening now or detailed overviews created at a distance from the event, will help you find angles, search terms and approaches to your topic. Find background in:
- Websites like Wikipedia
- Books/eBooks
- Video / Audio
These sources are created during or immediately after the event - they are contemporaneous.
Use current events to help you clarify for your audience why they should care about your topic. Find current events in:
- Social media like Instagram
- News sites or feeds
- Video / Audio (YouTube, TikTok, podcasts, radio, TV, etc.)
- Popular Magazines [may be on social media, their website, or in library search tools] such as Forbes, Popular Mechanics, Wired, Consumer Reports, Time, People, Esquire, Vanity Fair, The Economist, Sports Illustrated.
Data is the raw information used to create statistics. Statistics are based on analysis of the data. While data will trickle out as events unfold, the statistics created from it improve with more data points.
Data and statistics can help you demonstrate how your topic impacts and affects others. Find data and statistics in:
- Websites
- News feeds and sites
- Scholarly/academic journals
Most everyone has opinions that tell you what they think or feel. Opinions can begin during the event and may continue for a long time after an event. These sources can be used to portray lived experience and are easy to find.
Look especially at social media, audio such as podcasts and video, for interviews, comments, and letters in all types of sources, and in both the editorial and opinion sections of news sites.
Analysis takes time and distance from the event's occurrence. Analysis is credible and reliable interpretation of events, data, or research filtered through expertise and/or education. It can be easy to confuse with opinion; anyone can have an opinion about football, but a former professional football player or coach might offer in-depth, expert analysis. Find analysis quickly in:
- Books/ebooks
- Scholarly/academic journals
- Professional/trade journals
This information usually takes time, often years, to create. In college classes, research is the platinum level source. Research can be presentations of new information or facts from studies, investigations, interviews, or scholarship done by academics, scientists, scholars, or other researchers.
Find research primarily in scholarly/academic journals or use your own empirical work, such as polls, surveys, and interviews you create and conduct.
Search Strategy Examples
Exact Phrase
Add Quotation Marks to search for an exact phrase or words in a specific or EXACT order. An exact phrase will return more accurate results because it snaps all of the words together, turning it into a phrase that must be found exactly in that order.
Example: separation anxiety vs. “separation anxiety”
3 Magic Words - AND, OR, NOT
Filters
Apply filters to limit your search results. Because they limit your results, filters might also be called limiters. The most common and helpful filters to limit your results are:
- Date: Limit to the past 5 years, or a specific date range
- Source Type: Limit to academic/scholarly sources or any other type, such as news or ebooks
- Peer Review: Limit to scholarly sources that have been peer reviewed
Keywords
Create a list of keywords associated with your topic.
What else could it be called (synonyms)? What describes it specifically (hyponyms)? What is it related to broadly (hypernyms)?
Topics can be narrowed or broadened depending on the use of search terms.
General: monkeys
Narrower: howler monkeys
Broader: primates