It's possible to find a large amount of information, but seldom "everything" in a field or to use everyhing that you find. To cover your subject of interest best, it is therefore important that you plan and reflect on your information searching to find as much relevant information as possible. When you search in a systematic way and follow the steps of Preparation - Search/Document - Evaluate you can gain a lot. Even so, be prepared that the process of finding literature will take time and that you might have to start over several times.
Before you start your search, take the time to reflect about the following:
· What kind of material will I need?
· Where, in which databases, can I find suitable material?
· How do I search for that material?
· Which limitations should I apply?
· Which search terms can I use?
Encyclopedias can be a good start to get suggestions for keywords and main concepts. Some databases has indexes or so called subject thesauri to help you find subject terms suitable for that database. Also remember to figure out synonyms and variations for the search words. You might have to redefine your search terms as you go.
Which sources and literature may be useful? At the starting point of the material gathering process, dissertations, student theses and reference works are good starting points to learn about and get familiar with a new subject area. Reference works, as subject specific encyclopaedias and handbooks, are very useful to get an overview of a research field. You will find comprehensive articles about the research within an issue and references for further reading.
You can optimize your searches by using the most common search techniques. Most search services have a "help session" or an on-line tutorial where they explain which search techniques could be used and how to use them. Common search techniques are boolean search, phrase search and the usage of truncation and wild cards.
Always evaluate the material you found and question whether the information is correct - examine the sources critically, for example the authority and actuality of the material. Remember to save your searches and the references/material you find during the search process.
It´s easy and logic to combine search terms using the words AND, OR and NOT, also called boolean logic or boolean operators.
In databases and search engines you can often combine these by choice, in drop-down menues, but sometimes they can be pre-defined.
Boolean logic works like this:
Truncation
Truncation means that you replace the end of a word with a sign, usually the * sign, alllowing you to search everything starting with a certain stemming.
Example:
If you write socio* you get sociology, sociological, sociopath etc.
Phrase search
You use phrase search when you want specific words to appear in a specific order. Most databases mark phrases with quotation marks "" before and after the phrase.
Examples:
"climate change" gives hits for this phrase, but not for the words in other contexts like changes in the climate generally.
"Karl Marx" gives hits for this specific name in this specific order, but not for the Marx brothers or other persons named Karl.
Field search
Databases are constructed by entering data in different fields. There are author, title, year and abstract fields (and many more). You can use these fields for limiting your search.
Example:
When searching for Michel Foucault you can choose the author field for finding articles by Foucault himself, the abstract field for finding articles mentioning him or the title field for finding articles where he is a prominent figure.