With your research question to guide you, you're ready to develop a search strategy.
Look back at your assignment: do you have a requirement to find a certain number of scholarly, peer-reviewed articles?
Think back to your background research: what kind of resources did you see represented? News or magazines? Scholarly journal articles? Blogs?
These questions will help you think about what kind of information resources you'd like to seek out.
Different types of information are best for different needs. For example, you sought out encyclopedic resources in Step 2, because those topical overviews help you build a good foundation of understanding in your subject area. Now that you're digging into your research, you might want to start expanding into scholarly journal articles or book chapters, which may contain richer data and important findings related to your research question.
Identifying the types of information resources that you're looking for is important because it will help you identify what kind of databases you will use, as well as the filters you will apply within those databases. It can also help your evaluate the resources that do come back, and re-route when you hit a wall.
Just like you did in Step 1, you'll want to brainstorm a good list of search terms and phrases before diving into a search.
A good place to start brainstorming search terms is with your research question: start by picking it apart, focusing on the words that represent the main idea. For example:
Research Question: Do college students who listen to classical music while they study have better test scores?
Main Idea Words: "college students", "classical music", "test scores", studying
When you have a search term/phrase that contains more than one word, you will need to put it inside quotation marks. This is to ensure that all of the words appear in the search results in their intended order and not individually or out of context.
Potential searches might look like:
"college students" AND "classical music"
"test scores" AND "classical music"
If you made a Miro mind map (or a mind map on paper) in Step 1, make another! This time with your research question at the center. The more search terms and phrases you have to play around with, the less frustrating a difficult search will be.
As a Babson student, you have access to just over 200 databases! Choosing the right database to start in is entirely dependent on the nature of your subject and research question. You can browse our database list by subject, but it may also be helpful for you to consult one of our curated subject-area research guides, or reach out to a librarian to get some advice on where to begin.
Source: Vanderbilt University