Step 1: Think about your research topic.
Step 2: Identify the main keywords and concepts
Step 3: Locate and Access Resources
Step 4: Search for:
- Print & Online Books & Encyclopedias
- Online databases for articles
Step 4: Make use of Boolean Techniques (AND, OR, NOT) when conducting a search
Step 5: Write your report. Ensure that you acknowledge your Resources (Cite & Reference)
When identifying search terms, pay attention to the following aspects: Topic: How does social media influence the communication of today’s college students?
Boolean operators are used to string keywords. These operators are AND, OR and NOT.
Narrowing the search by using AND will give you a specific result: both words will be present in the record, e.g. democracy AND Zimbabwe
Widening the search by using the Boolean operator OR is useful when you wish to combine alternative forms (synonyms) of the same term. Either or both of the words will be present in the record, e.g. (state OR country) (leader OR ruler).
Excluding references from the search by using the Boolean operator NOT will help you if you want to exclude references, e.g. pollution NOT oil; aids NOT children.
Phrase Searching: To do phrase searching, you enclose terms to be searched as a phrase in quotation marks. This holds the terms together as you have keyed them in, e.g. “South Africa”, “affirmative action”, “African National Congress”.
Truncation: This is allows you to search the “root” form of a word with all its different endings – it broadens your search, e.g. employ* will retrieve employ, employment, employee, employer, employees, employers, etc.
Wildcard: The wildcard is represented by a question mark (?). Enter your search terms and replace each unknown character with a ?, e.g. globali?ation. It then searches for globalisation and globalization, wom?n (women and woman)
