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Making a search plan

A 'search plan' is your plan for how you are going to find the information that you need. You can develop this plan in your head, or it may help to jot it down on paper. Before you start, you must first decide what you need to know.

Suppose you have the following assignment:

What do you need to do?

You can follow these steps:

1. Analyse your topic
2. Define your search terms
3. Combine your search terms using operators
4. Find out where to search

1. Analyse your topic

• Identify directive words that tell you what to do
  e.g. "discuss", "compare", "describe"
• Look for constraints, i.e. words that limit the scope of your assignment
  e.g. "during the last ten years", "in the Netherlands"
• Determine the key concepts, i.e. the aspects that describe the subject of your assignment
  e.g.: "household appliances", "energy-saving", "government measures/policy"

2. Define your search terms

In order to get as many relevant results as possible, you need to identify more search terms for each of your key concepts.

For example, you might list:

• synonyms
• different spellings
• singular or plural
• similar and related terms
• opposites
• translations

You can use resources such as dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and Internet sources such as Wikipedia and Google to find as many terms as possible.

3. Combining search terms

Use Boolean operators to combine your search terms.

• Use AND between terms for different key concepts
• Use OR between different terms for the same key concept

4. Where to search

Your assignment will determine the type of information that you need. You can use different kinds of resources to find different types of information.
For example: