Finding Information for
Your Dissertation
•
Planning an effective search strategy
• Search techniques
• Managing search results
Vote Now!
How do you go about
finding information for
your assignment or
dissertation?
a.
Go straight to Google
b.
Think carefully about the terms I
want to use and where best to find
the information.
c.
Look for a book.
d.
Ask my friend.
e.
Go to Discover More
Vote Now!
Advantages of using a
systematic approach to
searching for
information.
a.
Better chance of finding what I
need.
b.
Managing my search results more
effectively.
c.
Better chance of finding reliable
information.
d.
Will save me time.
e.
I’ll get better marks.
Why use a search strategy?
All True!
Also true!
• Better chance of finding what I
need.
• Managing my search results
more effectively.
• Better chance of finding
reliable information.
• Saves time.
• Better assignment marks.
• Able to re-use your search
strategy.
• Able to identify relevant
databases or other information
sources.
Devising a Search Strategy
Step 1
What is being
asked?
Step 2
Step 6
Manage
search results
Key and
alternative
search terms
Step 5
Step 3
Combine
search terms
Execute and
refine search
Step 4
Plan where
to search
1. Understand your assignment question.

What is being asked?

Discuss your project with your supervisor / tutor

Do you understand the terminology?

Background reading

Learning services: Assignment help
2. Identify key search terms (A)
“Discuss the impact of parental mental
health problems on developing children”
What do you think are the key terms or
concepts for this question?
Let’s hear or see your suggestions!
2. Identify key search terms (B)
“Discuss the impact of parental
developing
children”
mental health problems on
2. Identify key search terms (C)
Don’t stop at keywords and concepts!

Broader terms will help find more general information e.g. “Research”
instead of “case study”

Narrower terms help find more specific information e.g. “Midwifery” OR
“Midwives” instead of “Nurse”,

Synonyms or related terms - don’t miss any information by ignoring
words that mean the same or related things. e.g. “Nutrition” OR “Diet” OR
“Food”.
Search Tips
Truncation
* This symbol will find any ending of a word
e.g. child* will find child, childhood, children etc
Wildcard Characters
? This symbol is used to replace any single character,
? This symbol cannot be used to begin a word.
e.g. wom?n will find woman and women
Phrase Searching
“quotation marks” placed around two or more words will
ensure they appear together in search results. e.g “risk
assessment” will retrieve more focused search results.
3. Bring your search terms together

Combining search terms using Boolean operators to
broaden or narrow search results.

http://goo.gl/OdjejI
4. Plan where you search

Learning Services' subjects pages www.edgehill.ac.uk/ls/subject/

Discover More

Google Scholar

Books, conference proceedings, theses (take a look at the Index of
Theses and EThOS) and dissertations.

Blogs, Twitter and Discussion Lists
5. Execute and refine your search.

Basic and Advanced Search Options

Help pages

Keep searching

Search by types of documents (e.g. article, conference), date
ranges, publication types (e.g. books, journal) and subjects.
6. Manage searches and results
WHY?
 reuse
where necessary
 ensure
 save
you have covered all relevant search terms
searches
 combining
 ‘email
saved searches
alert’ facility
Help!
For further information or help please contact your Subject Librarian.
Contact details can be found at: www.edgehill.ac.uk/ls/subject/
Ask Us
ehu.ac.uk/askus
Ask desk – level one
in the library