Search Planning Worksheet
Topic:
File(s):
Important
Ideas:
Commands to Use:
| You guessed it …
I borrowed this one as well. It’s not
a bad worksheet! We have to identify
and describe our topic, we have to consider where we need to look for
information. Then, it helps to break
up our search strategy into concepts.
For concept 1, you would list the synonymous terms below (next to the
OR diamond). You would do the same for
concept 2 and then a third concept if necessary. If you use more concepts than that, well …
your resultant set might miss a lot of pertinent literature. You may wish to invest more time into
exploring your topic with general reference resources to see if you can
change the way you’re thinking about your concepts. Sometimes database searchers will use a
totally unnecessary concept. Why use the term library or libraries when
you’re searching the Library Literature and Information Abstracts
Database? … or the LISA database? Why use the term education when searching
ERIC? These databases should … by
their nature … contain records that already deal with the topic. |
|
| Finally, it’s
always wise to actually write out the commands that you plan to use. Sometimes things go awry in mid-search, but
it still helps to have the rest of your train of though to follow. |
|
| The only advice
that I would give for a search worksheet would come in an intermediated
search situation. I’d have a checklist
of things like … What languages are okay to retrieve in the results? Note that an English abstract is usually
available. |
|
| How do you want
me to deliver the results to you? E-mail?
Printed Copy? Diskette? CD?
Ready to import into bibliographic management software? |
|
| Does the search
need to be comprehensive or do you only need some literature to get you going
for now? |
|
| What types of
literature do you think would be relevant? Journal articles? Patents? Theses?
Conference Papers? Only the latest
market research? Books? |