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How To Search Relevant Literature

The document provides guidance on identifying key terms to search for relevant literature on a research topic. It explains how to break down the research topic into main concepts, expand key terms with synonyms and related phrases, combine terms using Boolean operators to create search strings, search relevant databases and refine searches. Boolean operators like AND, OR and NOT are also explained to combine or exclude keywords in searches.

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16 views1 page

How To Search Relevant Literature

The document provides guidance on identifying key terms to search for relevant literature on a research topic. It explains how to break down the research topic into main concepts, expand key terms with synonyms and related phrases, combine terms using Boolean operators to create search strings, search relevant databases and refine searches. Boolean operators like AND, OR and NOT are also explained to combine or exclude keywords in searches.

Uploaded by

zk984975
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Searching Relevant Literature

Key Terms
Key terms are words or phrases that represent the main ideas or concepts in your research topic. They
are important because they help you identify relevant literature and focus your research efforts.
Here's a step-by-step process for writing key terms and searching for relevant literature:
1. Identify Main Concepts: Break down your research topic into its main concepts or keywords. For
example, if your research topic is "The impact of social media on consumer behavior in Pakistan,"
the main concepts are "social media," "consumer behavior," and "Pakistan."
2. Expand Key Terms: Think of synonyms, related terms, or alternative phrases for each main
concept. For example, for "social media," you might include "social networking sites," "online
platforms," or specific platforms like "Facebook" and "Twitter."
3. Combine Terms: Combine the key terms and their variations using Boolean operators (AND, OR,
NOT) to create search strings. For example, your search string might look like this: "social media"
AND "consumer behavior" AND "Pakistan."
4. Search in Relevant Databases: Use academic databases like Google Scholar, Jstor, SpringerLink, in
general HEC digital Library. Enter your search string (A search string is a sequence of words and
operators used to define a search query) in the search bar and explore the results.
5. Refine Your Search: Use filters, such as publication date, document type, or language, to narrow
down your search results to the most relevant literature.
6. Review and Select Literature: Review the abstracts or summaries of the literature to determine
their relevance to your research. Select the most relevant articles for further reading.
7. Use Citation Mining: Look at the reference lists of relevant articles to find additional sources that
may be useful for your research.

Use of Boolean Operators


Boolean operators are words or symbols used to combine or exclude keywords in a search, narrowing
or broadening the results.
1. AND: Provides results that contain both or all keywords. Example: "climate change" AND "impact"
2. OR: Provides results that contain either keyword. Example: "climate change" OR "global warming"
3. NOT or AND NOT: Provides results that contain the first keyword but not the second. Example:
"climate change" NOT "politics"
4. Quotation marks “ ”: Provides results with the exact phrase. Example: "climate change impact"
5. Parentheses ( ): Allows you to group together keywords and control the order in which the terms
will be searched. Example: ("climate change" OR "global warming") AND impact
6. Asterisk *: Provides results that contain a variation of the keyword. Use this when you want
results that contain the keyword you entered or other words that begin with those letters.
Example: develop* will return results including variations of the chosen word such as
"development," "developer," and "developing."

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