Plan your search

Planning your search is key to getting the most out of your search results. The following video will help you get started.

Video length: 2 min 26 sec

Key points from the video

• Identify the key concepts (main ideas) in your assignment
• Check other ways key concepts are described in the literature
• Create a search by connecting concepts using AND and OR
• Alter your search strategy as you find more keywords

More help

The rest of this page will outline the three key steps for planning your search as discussed in this video: identify keywords, consider alternative keywords, and connect your keywords.

Typing your question into Google or the Library Website is not the best way to search.

Mapping out your search can be a good place to start:

• Identify the keywords (also known as key concepts) in the assignment question - these are the words which give meaning to the question, the main ideas
• Remove task words (also known as instruction words) from your assignment question - these are the words telling you what to do with the key concepts (e.g. analyse, compare, discuss)

Check the Assignment Support page in this guide for more information on instruction words and assignments.

Test your knowledge

Can you find the keywords in the two activities below? 

To cover the range of terminology used in the literature, identify any synonyms or similar keywords for each concept. Consider:

• Plurals and different word forms ( architect vs architects vs architecture)
• Different spellings (labour vs labor)
• Hyphenated words (site-specific vs site specific)
• Acronyms or abbreviations  (18th-century vs eighteenth-century)

Try the following to help you understand your keywords and and to find similar or alternative keywords:

Do some basic initial searching using the keywords you've already identified to see what other words are used in the papers you find.

You can also create a mindmap or table to help you brainstorm alternative keywords.

Once you have identified your keywords and found alternative keywords, you need to connect these to put your search together.

Use the following operator words, which most search tools will have, to indicate how you want the tool to search for your keywords:

• OR: Combines similar keywords
• AND: Combines different keywords
• NOT: Excludes words from the search (use cautiously and only when necessary or you might exclude results you actually want)

Remember to use "quotation marks" to keep phrases together.

For example:

entrepreneurship AND ethics

entrepreneurship AND "venture capital"

entrepreneurship AND "risk management"

"social entrepreneurship" OR "social enterprise"