Tips and Tricks for Literature Searches
Effective online searching is critical to academic success. Relevant academic literature is
required to support essays and posts. Academic integrity often requires an acknowledgement of existing
literature (Frances Luce, McGill, & Peracchio, 2012). Navigating electronic databases may be time
consuming without proven strategies. My two suggestions are in the application of searching techniques
of broadening or narrowing to derive my search results.
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Tips and Tricks for Literature Searches
As a doctorate student, it is imperative that one possesses superior skills in researching
the literature, since it is from this source that one can develop a solid thesis, as well as project
work. While this aspect of studies might be very significant, many students face hurdles in
navigating through the numerous sources and search results that are usually generated in search
engines (Sharma, 2013). This post provides a few tips and tricks of ensuring that one
successfully completes this task.
First, one needs to identify the keywords. These are the common phrases or words with
which an article is identified by search engines. It is very important that search terms contain
only main words, while eliminating others like prepositions, conjunctions, and other unnecessary
words. Once the keywords are identified, the best place to search is in online databases, which
contain authentic and peer-reviewed sources. These databases can also generate very many
results, some of which may not be helpful. In this case, one is required to specify a few search
limits, such as the year of publication, peer review, and journals. In addition, narrowing the
search terms to more specific phrases might just be the trick.
While using search engines, it is important that one ignore inauthentic websites and
online collaborative platforms such as wikis and blogs. (Sharma, 2013). However, using the
advanced search option in engines like Google, and specifying the search results to PDF only can
help generate relevant and very authoritative sources.
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References
Sharma, P. (2013). Reflections on medical literature searches. Transfusion, 53(8), 1858-1861.
