A search strategy is a plan for locating credible information.  Different investigations require different emphases within the search strategy, but most search strategies share these elements: 

• Formulating a thesis
• Locating background information 
• Developing a list of search terms
• Comparing Keywords & Subject Headings
• Finding articles from journals, magazines, or newspapers
• Finding books, government documents, audiovisual resources, and other items 
• Finding specific types of information such as statistics, chronologies, or financial data 
• Checking the Internet for current information from organizations or companies
• Critically evaluating the information located
• Getting help

Get help via online chat, email (Reference_Services@Shawnee.edu), or by phoning (740.351.3321).  

If you prefer face-to-face assistance, stop by the Clark Memorial Library Reference Counter or schedule a Research Consultation with a Reference Librarian. 

Before you can look for information, you must have a topic to investigate. 

If you need help selecting a topic, you might speak with your professor; browse articles in periodicals (newspapers, magazines, or journals) that interest you; check the directories of online resources like About (www.about.com), Yahoo (www.yahoo.com), or the Internet Public Library; or use a book such as 10,000 Ideas for Term Papers, Projects, Reports & Speeches.

As you become interested in a topic, consider your stance on the topic and how you want to present your ideas about it. 

In developing your thesis statement, research question, or proposal, keep in mind that you want to communicate both the problem and your point in discussing it.  As you research your topic, look for materials that will support your point, and be careful to maintain a working bibliography.  

Begin your research by locating background information in general and subject-specific encyclopedias and dictionaries and other reference resources.  Checking these first will help you

• get an overview of the subject.  
• note key concepts/developments. 
• identify significant individuals. 
• see a chronology/timeline.
• discern connections/interrelationships with other developments. 
• develop a list of search terms.
• find bibliographies -- sources for more information on your topic.

A general encyclopedia, such as Encyclopedia Britannica, covers all areas of knowledge.  

Subject-specific encyclopedias focus on a particular field of knowledge and usually offer more detailed and more technical information than general encyclopedias.  Subject-specific encyclopedias, which may use the term "dictionary" in their titles, are available for most subjects.  (In publishing, the words "dictionary" and "encyclopedia" are often used interchangeably.) 

Examples of subject-specific encyclopedias and dictionaries are AccessScience (the online version of the McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology and the McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms); Grove Art Online (the online version of the Dictionary of Art),   Conservation and Environmentalism: an Encyclopedia; Dictionary of the Middle Ages; Encyclopedia of Education; Encyclopedia of Folklore and Literature, and Encyclopedia of Life Sciences . 

Some online reference collections, such as the Oxford Reference Online or the OhioLINK Electronic Reference Books (ABC-CLIO), allow you to search across hundreds of titles simultaneously or to narrow your search to a particular title.  

CQ Researcher and Pro & Con are examples of online reference resources that provide extensive background information on controversial topics of current interest. 

An easy way to use the Library Catalog to locate subject-specific reference materials is to do a word search for your topic and when you get the results list, click the MODIFY SEARCH button and select the LOCATION = Reference Stacks.   Many electronic reference works are also accessible via our Online Reference webpage.

Develop a list of search terms, both keywords and subject headings, that find your topic. Include everyday terms, technical jargon, broader and narrower terms, and related terms. Check reference resources, LCSH (Library of Congress Subject Headings), and thesauruses to find valid subject headings or descriptors.  

In catalogs and research databases, each full record includes a field that identifies the subject(s).  When you find a record that is on point for your subject, you can move from a keyword to a subject heading search by clicking on the "best" subject heading.

Basically, a thesaurus is a list of synonyms. When using a thesaurus, check a dictionary for the meanings of terms that are not familiar. (The term you are considering may have a connotation that you do not intend. For instance, both "blab" and "discuss" can be used to describe how people talk, but their connotations are quite different.) The Random House Webster's College Thesaurus and Roget's II : the New Thesaurus are examples of thesauruses of synonyms.

Some thesauruses, such as the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors, are meant to be used with particular research databases or indexes. These thesauruses are available to assist users in selecting appropriate subject headings and descriptors. They describe the terms that catalogers or indexers use in a particular subject area, and you can use them to find the best terms for research. In addition to print versions of thesauruses (such as the BIOSIS Search Guide, Art & Architecture Thesaurus, Contemporary Thesaurus of Social Science Terms and Synonyms, ERIC Thesaurus, Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms, and LCSH: Library of Congress Subject Headings), some databases such as MEDLINE, MLA, PAIS, and ERIC have built-in electronic thesauruses.

Use research databases and periodical indexes to find citations to articles from journals, magazines, and newspapers. Be sure the database or index covers your subject during the time period you need and include your desired format of information. In addition to searching the databases by keywords and subject headings, you can also search by author or title.  

If you want popular/general interest literature in electronic full text, Academic Search Complete and MasterFILE Premier provide both magazine and journal articles on a wide range of subjects.  LexisNexis and America's Newspapers offer extensive collections of newspaper articles, and LexisNexis and Newspaper Source provide radio and TV transcripts.  CQ Researcher is an excellent resource for information on controversial social issues. 

Journal Articles

Professors often require that articles for college research be from substantive magazines or from journals.  Our Types of Periodical Literature webpage will help you distinguish between magazines and journals and also suggests sources that will help you determine if a journal is peer reviewed (also called refereed, juried, or vetted).

You will find a higher percentage of professional and scholarly journal literature in the subject-specific research databases.  From the library homepage, click on "More Databases," and then choose a database that focuses on your specific subject area.  For instance, if you need nursing information about the “diabetic foot,” click on Nursing.  CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) and ProQuest Nursing Journals would be excellent resources for scholarly and professional literature on this subject.  

Most Clark Memorial Library databases provide immediate access to full-text articles; however, not every article in every database is available in electronic full text. Click (Find It) to check.  If an article is not available in hard copy in the Library or in electronic full text, request it via InterLibrary Loan.  

Searching Multiple Databases Simultaneously

You can search multiple databases simultaneously.  OhioLINK offers multidatabase searching via its Quick Search option.  OhioLINK's  Quick Search allows users to search either pre-selected clusters of OhioLINK databases or  to self-select the databases you want to search.  EBSCOhost also offers a multiple database searching option limited to its own databases.  The disadvantages of searching across several databases simultaneously, however, are that these searches are not suited to complex searches (in which you need to combine several terms) and that they often yield superficial, not comprehensive, results.

Use library catalogs to locate catalog records for books, government documents, audiovisual resources, and other cataloged items. The "Quick Search for Books, Videos, Etc." option on our Library homepage searches our local catalog -- meaning that it identifies items here in the Clark Memorial Library.  Uplink to the OhioLINK Catalog to check holdings at, and to borrow from, all 84 OhioLINK member libraries.  In addition to keywords and subject headings, you can also search the catalog by author or title.

Almanacs, handbooks, manuals, and other specialized reference tools contain specific types of information—statistics, chronologies, biographies, lists, maps, etc..  Some of these are available in electronic full text versions.  Please ask a Reference Librarian for help in locating specific types of information. 

Use a search engine like Google or AltaVista to check the Internet for current information from organizations or companies that you located in your research.  You can also check Clark Memorial Library’s Web Resources, directories like YAHOO, and online libraries like the Internet Public Library for information on your subject.   Remember that search engines identify only a small percentage of the pages on the web and that you may need to use a specialty search engine, such as SearchEDU.com, and that you may need to delve extensively into a website on your own to find the particular information that you need. 

As you critically evaluate the information you’ve found, consider its merit in terms of its relevance, accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency, and coverage.   Be wary of information on the Web.  Virtually anyone can post anything on the Internet, and information on the Web is more likely to be questionable and/or erroneous than that found in traditionally-edited print resources.

For more information, see our webpage about critical evaluation.  

To check for authoritativeness of books, look for book reviews in resources like BooksinPrint and the subject-specific databases.  To look for critical, professional, or biographical information about the author, check resources like Literary Reference Center and Wilson Biographies Plus Illustrated.  

Although a simple web search may yield a considerable amount of information about a writer, keep in mind that information on the web may be a form of commercial advertising and/or self-promotional. 

Bibliography --A list of sources.  In MLA style, the list of sources referred to in the paper is called the "Works Cited" (see the example at the end of this section.)   APA style makes a distinction between the "reference list" (the works cited) and the bibliography, a list of materials which may provide further information.    A "working bibliography" is the list of all the sources you consult as you are investigating and gathering information about your topic; it is not limited to only those works that you specifically refer to in your paper.

Proposal --According to Research Writing in the Information Age, a proposal includes a thesis statement and a few sentences that indicate 1) what you already know about the topic; 2) what you still need to find out; and 3) how you propose to investigate the topic (Arnold 115).  It is sometimes referred to as a "prospectus" (Coyle 13).

Research Question -- Also called "controlling question" (Maimon 208), the research question articulates the focus of investigation.  Research questions may assume an argumentative position, e.g., "Is Congress more important than the Supreme Court in setting social policy?" (Troyka 573).

Thesis Statement --Also called the thesis, The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers defines the thesis statement as "a single sentence that formulates both your topic and your point of view"  (Gibaldi  35).  An example of a thesis from The Scribner Handbook for Writers follows: 

Because evidence strongly indicates that wolf populations are important to the predator-prey balance in Yellowstone and because that repopulation can be viable for both the gray wolf and its opponents, I believe we should reverse the one-sided concessions forced upon a now endangered population and restore wolves in the park.  (DiYanni 659)

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Works Cited

Arnold, Judith, Carol Poston, and Katie Witek.  Research Writing in the Information Age.  Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1999. 

Coyle, William.  Research Papers. 11th ed.  Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1999.

DiYanni, Robert and Pat C. Hoy II.  The Scribner Handbook for Writers.  Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1995.

Gibaldi, Joseph.  MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 5th ed.  New York: MLA, 1999. 

Maimon, Elaine et al.  Writing in the Arts and Sciences.  Boston: Little, 1981.  

Troyka, Lynn Quitman.  Simon & Schuster Handbook for Writers.  3rd ed.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993.