Search plan

4 Easy Steps

to plan a literature search

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Planning your search

STEP 1: Break your topic down

Beginning with your research question, consider how you can break this down into meaningful search words or keywords and phrases. Try to pull out keywords from the question or brief that are relevant to your search

Example: Corporate Social Responsibility and small business strategies in the UKCorporate Social Responsibility Small Business Strategies UK

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Planning your search

STEP 2: Think about related areas

This step requires you think outside the box and consider other aspects that are relevant to the topic or research question. Consider:

• What you know already about the topic
• What can you find out about the topic through an initial search

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Planning your search

STEP 3: Consider alternatives

The next step is to think of any variations of the search words or any other relevant keywords, including:

• Synonyms and phrases e.g. Corporate Social Responsibility, Business ethics
• Abbreviations e.g. CSR, SME
• Americanisms e.g. Organization
• Plural/Singular variations e.g. Strategy, Strategies

Planning your search

STEP 4: Create meaningful search strategies

The next stage is to bring some of the keywords together to create meaningful search strategies. If you are trying to focus your search down then link keywords with ‘AND’. Example: CSR AND Small Business AND UK. To create wider searches you can use ‘OR’ e.g. CSR OR Corporate Social Responsibility

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Planning your search

Next step

The next step is to test out some of your keywords and search strategies online to locate information. You may need to revisit your search plan once you have carried out an initial search or you can add to your list of keywords as you find useful information.