Creating your search strategy
Create your search strategy based on your thesis statement.
- Think about the concepts, keywords and synonyms that describe your topic.
- Sample topic: Novel Psychoactive substances: what are they and how can we analyze them?
- Category: Psychoactive drug, ex. cannabinoids
- Pharmacological effect : hallucinogens, stimulants, depressants
- origin: natural, synthetic, semisynthetic
- Can't think of anything besides the words in your research statement? Start with those you have.
- Searching for articles? Most databases have a Thesaurus. You can view recommended and/or alternate terms.
What type of information do you want?
- Books, articles, websites?
- Some tools contain a mix of resources like books, articles, and websites. Some search more narrowly.
- Current or historical? Scholarly? Qualitative or Quantitative? Statistics? Primary or secondary?
- Depending on the tool, you may be able to include this aspect within the search statement.
- Does the tool have Limit or Refine options? Does it allow you to sort by publication year?