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Developing Research Skills for Evidence and Enquiry for Practice (HWLS): Recording Your Search Strategy

What will I learn in this section?

You need to keep a record of your search strategy to demonstrate how you have searched in your chosen database. This is really important as it allows your reader to see how you have found your two primary articles. You are expected to include this table with your assessment.

Keeping a record of your search strategy also allows you to track back to how you found your articles. It is important to do this as part of your research as it is an academic convention for publications too.

From your assessment brief:

  • Use the “Keeping a record of your search” table to demonstrate your search and include this in the Appendix.
  • Justification of your how you ran the search is important. You must discuss your search parameters and explain how you ran your search and how your narrowed/widened your search as appropriate.

It also shows off your skills in searching the academic resources. More information and a downloadable table for you to use is provided below.

Keeping a Record of Your Search Strategy - Use a table

It's really important, once you start your search process, to keep a record of what you are doing. Otherwise, you may find you cannot remember where you found your articles from, or how you found them. You may need to evidence how you found your articles as part of your assignment, so having a record is going to be a big benefit. Plus, it is good practice when you are researching to keep a note of where and how you found it!

For this assessment you are expected to use a table to record your search strategy. Below is a template you can download and use to do this.

Here is an example of how you might format a record table.

Database Keywords/Phrases Alternative Keywords/Database Headings Limits or filters (eg Date, Language, Peer Review) Number of results Notes/Reflections
Medline anxiety AND fast heartbeat 3 try other key terms
(anxiety OR worry OR panic) AND (fast heartbeat OR tachycardia) [tachycardia - database heading]

2010-2020

English

 327

Saving Searches in a Database

You can also save your searches in a database itself, which is a good idea if you want to revisit them. You'd do this if you were working on a search strategy over a period of time. This short video shows you how to do this (remember, you still need to produce the search strategy table in your assessment!).

Where Can I Get Help?

There is lots more help in the 'Searching for and Accessing Literature' folder in your module Blackboard site. This may be in the Learning Materials folder for the week containing your timetabled session on literature searching. This folder contains a comprehensive set of resources to help you with starting your search for your papers. 

You can get help with quick questions using Library chat, or you can get in touch with the Library through the student portal or Hallam Help points. Here are some useful help links:

  • Get to grips with APA referencing and using our software, RefWorks. Referencing and RefWorks workshops: Library Referencing Guide
  • Got a quick query? Get in touch 24/7/365 using Library Chat.
  • Need more detailed or specialist help (such as questions about using Library resources / specialist resources)? Contact Hallam Help - this will get your enquiry to the most appropriate team.