Locating Evidence in the Agricultural Sciences: Research Strategies

Start

1. Ask: State your topic as a question to focus your search. Ask: Is my question too broad or too narrow?
2. Define need: Define your information need. Ask: what sort and how much information do I need?
3. Identify main concepts from your question. Ask: What are the most important terms in my question?
4. Select unique words, synonyms, spellings, plurals, broader topic. Ask: What are some discipline specific thesauri?
5. Select appropriate professional sources. Ask: Should I use tertiary, secondary or primary sources? What is the best place to start?
6. Search: Construct a search with appropriate commands for the system selected. Ask: Am I searching efficiently?
7. Revise: Be prepared to revise and refine your search. Ask: Did I retrieve all information that I need?
8. Manage results: Retrieve records, full text, save, print, cite, email. Ask: How do I get full text? How will I use this information in teh future?
9. Evaluate: Find out how good the information is. Ask: Can i trust this information? Is this a highly cited article?
10. Apply: Answer your question. Ask: Did I answer my question? Do I still need more information?

Remember: Your question drives your the search strategy. There is no one best way to search. Avoid the one stop searching to prevent bias.

An outline serves as a road map as you write your paper and ultimately saves you time.  These resources provide tips on writing an effective outline: