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Plan your search

Study help: Plan your search video

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.

Step 1: Identify 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? 

Step 2: Consider alternative keywords

Now you've identified the keywords in your assignment question, try doing the following to help you understand your keywords and 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 or related terms.

Here is an example table:

Keywords Alternative or related terms 
Human Resources HR, people operation, employee experience, workforce, staff member, worker
Talent Management Talent pool, workforce management, personnel management
Demographic Age demographic, gender demographic, population statistics, demographic analysis
Ethics Ethical principles, values, intrinsic value, well-being, equity
Organisational behaviour Employee conduct, corporate ethics, corporate culture, staff morale

This table is a sample only and not specific to your assessments.

Test your knowledge

Step 3: Connect your 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)

Some more search tips:

  • Remember to use "quotation marks" to keep phrases together
  • Use parentheses to group keywords and their alternatives together, e.g. (customer OR consumer OR purchaser)
  • Use truncation (the asterisk *) to search words with various endings e.g. stress* = stresses, stressor, stressors etc.

For example:

This is what your search can look like in the library collection: 

 

Remember: Don't forget to refine your search as you continue to read and discover new and more relevant keywords. Your first search will not be your last.

Test your knowledge