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Internship & Thesis Literature Research for ALE & AT: Search strategy

(Re)search questions: 5 Ws

Defining a (re)search question by using the 5 Ws:

1. Who?
Define your target group, stakeholders and clients

2. What?
What is your topic and what do you want to know about your topic?

3. Where?
Location: are you researching a country, region, city or district?

4. When?
Are you researching a particular period, analyzing trends or forecasting the future?

5. Why?
What is the motive for your research?
 

Thesauri

If you want to get ideas about what terms to use, or if you want to be complete in your search terms, you can use a thesaurus.

Thesauri are lists of keywords that display synonyms, broader terms, narrow terms, related terms, and sometimes the translation to other languages. These are fixed keyword terms editorial boards of databases apply to books and articles.

 

The CABI database has a useful thesaurus for tourism related subjects. Go to the red hamburger in the top left corner > Tools > CABI Thesaurus.

In this database, go to the side-bar on the left en click Subjects authority. Under the three top search bars is another bar with the Subjects tab highllighted. Here you can search their thesaurus.

Search terms - general

bredere zoektermen omvatten smallere zoektermen

Try several search terms. No search engine searches for variations of terms. So brainstorm on search words and try (combinations of) them all.

Try:

  • Singular/plural; women-women, tourist-tourists
  • Variations of a word:  eg.  migration  (noun), migrate (verb), migrating (adjective), migrated (verb-the past participle).
  • Break off words with *:  migrat*. will search all words starting with migrat
  • "...  ..." : terms must appear together , eg. "sustainable tourism"
  • Synonyms: dierentuin - dierenpark ;
  • Abbreviations (DMO - destination management organization)
  • Translations:: "vrije tijd", Freizeit, leisure
  • UK - US : :organization  (UK) - organisation (US) , traveller (UK) - traveler (US)
  • Broader terms:  Barcelona (narrow term) - Spain (broader term)
  • Narrow term: : theme parcs (broader term) - zoo (narrow term)
  • Specific persons or organizations.

Met dit Invulformulier voor mogelijke zoektermen kun je een helder overzicht maken van welke termen je gebruikt hebt.

Smart Search

Search Strategy: what, where, how?

A search strategy can help you efficiently find relevant information:

1. What? Determining your topic
Before you start your search, think about what it is you exactly want to know about your subject and which terms are related to it. Use synonyms and related terms, singular/plural forms and broader and narrower terms.

2. Where? Selecting sources
Then, think about sources that might contain the information you want. Start by searching for general information in for example, google, the library catalogue and encyclopaedias. Then search for more in-depth knowledge in google scholar and the library’s databases.

3. How? Search methods
Now, you have thought about your topic, collected relevant search terms, and resources. The next step is searching these resouces. There are several search methods you can use to do so:

  • Basic search options and advanced search options, that most databases and search engines contain.
  • Phrase search: " search for an exact phrase"
    Search for information containing an exact sentence or phrase rather than containing a set of keywords by placing them in between quotation marks.
  • Wildcards: finding and replacing characters.
    The two most basic wildcard characters are ? and *. These are essentially similar in use. ? is used to represent a single character (e.g. produ?t > produkt, product) and * represents any number of characters (e.g. ogani* > organic, organisation, oganization, organizational etc.)
  • Boolean search operators: combining search terms with AND, OR, NOT
    In order to increase or decrease your search results you can use boolean search operators:
    • AND decreases your results: two terms must appear
    • OR increases your results: both terms must appear: use it for synonyms or if you are not sure about the spelling of a term
    • NOT decreases your results; use ite to exclude terms that often appear together . Info about york, prevent info about new york
  • Domino - snowball search:
    • Use a good article as starting point
    • Look at the reference list for article that have been used be the author
    • Look for citations: more recent articles in which this article has been used