Search strategy, PhD Course Alnarp Library 2012

1. Search Strategy
PhD Course SLU Library, Alnarp
March 2012

2. Interest area
Biodiversity in urban areas …

3. Specific question
What is the impact of green spaces
on biodiversity in urban areas?

4. Search tools 1
Phrase search
”urban areas”
”green spaces”

5. Search tools 2
Truncation
area* = area, areas
space* = space, spaces

6. Recall versus Precison
R P

7. Find synonyms
”Quick and dirty” 

8. Find synonyms
• biodiversity/urban ecosystem
• urban areas/urban landscapes/urban floras
• green areas/green corridors

9. Define search terms
What is the impact of green areas
on biodiversity in urban landscapes?

10. Search tools 3
OR = broadens the search
Opens up for alternatives!
”green area*” OR ”green space*” OR park*

11. Search tools 4
AND = narrows the search
More conditions to be met!
biodiversity AND ”urban green area*”

12. Search query scheme
x AND (x OR x) AND (x OR x)

13. Specific search query
biodiversity AND urb* AND (”green corridor*” OR
”green space*”)

14. Refine = specify search
• Subject
• Year
• Language
• Document type
• Journal
• …

15. References and Citations
• Look back Cited References
• …. and look forward! Times Cited/Cited by

16. Get it!
Get it @ SLU Library