This page has some useful tips and tricks on how to find and evaluate your information.
Subject-specific guides will have more information and guidance on searching, with some useful interactive forms such as the Search Builder. The Search Builder steps you through constructing a search with keywords, synonyms and Boolean operators (which are explained just below).
If you need more help you can call us, email us, chat with us, call us on the phone, or just drop in to see us.
Follow the step by step process below to build an effective search strategy to find resources.
Click on each drop-down to learn more:
When searching in a database identify keywords to use rather than using full sentences.
Once you have identified your keywords try to find synonyms or related terms to include in your search.
Be aware that using too many search terms at once may return very few results. Similarly, using too few search terms may retrieve too many irrelevant results.
For example: if your topic is, discuss the integration of the arts into primary school classrooms. The keywords would be arts and primary school.
Then, you would need to look at the synonyms that you could use in your search.
For example: as well as primary school you could use the terms elementary school, grade school, or junior school.
Placing AND between words instructs the database to find result where both words appear. This will narrow your search.
For example: Health AND Youth
Placing OR between words instructs the database to find results where either, or all, words maybe appear. Typically, OR is placed between similar or related terms. This will broaden your search.
For example: Legal OR Law
Placing NOT between words instructs the database to only find results that do not contain the second word. This will narrow your search.
For example: Cloning NOT Sheep
Search for variations of a word by shortening it to its root using an asterisk.
For example: teach* searches for teach, teacher, teaching, teaches.
Form a single concept made up of multiple words using quotation marks – very effective when searching the Internet.
For example: "Australian Institute of Sport" will have very different results to Australian and institute and sport.
Many databases allow you to limit your results to find more relevant resources based on options such as:
• Publication date
• Finding full-text sources
• Peer-reviewed journals
• Published in specific journals
Finally, you want to put your search strategy together.
Decide on your topic
Discuss the integration of the maths into primary school classrooms.
Find your keywords
maths AND Primary School
Find synonyms for your keywords
maths AND (primary school OR elementary school OR grade school OR junior school)
Add truncation where necessary. Here math* will find math, maths, or mathematics.
math* AND (primary school OR elementary school OR grade school OR junior school)
Add “quotation marks” to include phrase searching to your strategy.
math* AND (“primary school” OR “elementary school” OR “grade school” OR “junior school”)
Critically evaluating information that you find to use for your assignments is essential for academic success, as well as a useful life skill.
The CRAAP Test was developed by Sarah Blakeslee of California State University as an easy to remember acronym to help judge if a source is worth using.
When was the article published? Check the assessment instructions to see if a date range has been given. Generally for nursing, more recent articles are preferred because new and updated information may have come out.
How old are the references? Has the article referred to other fairly recent articles?
How old is the data used? Check to see if the data was collected a long time before the study was published. If it has been, do the authors explain why this was?
Is this information relevant to your assignment? Is there likely to be better information? This will depend on what you are trying to find out. Often you will need to read the abstract to find out.
Is this aimed at the correct audience? Articles for this assessment should be peer reviewed. If you are not sure, you can copy and paste the title into Quicksearch to see if the purple peer review icon shows in the result:
Alternatively, you can check the journal title in Ulrichs. If it has a small black icon that looks like a book next to the title, it is peer reviewed (called refereed in Ulrichs).
Who wrote it? What are their qualifications? Are the qualifications relevant to the topic? Most peer reviewed articles will have information about the authors, often at the end or hyperlinked, with their qualifications listed.
Where do they work? Who do they work for? Generally, authors should be working for a university or a research centre of some kind.
Are they likely to have a good understanding of this field?
What is the study population size and characteristics? Keep in mind this is dependent on the study type, for example qualitative studies usually have smaller study populations than quantitative. The population does need to be fairly similar however, to enable accurate results and to make sure any effects reported are due to the treatment. For example, a treatment for back pain may look more effective if the group receiving the treatment is much younger than the group that doesn't.
Is there a control group? This is a group that does not receive the treatment, and allows the researchers to compare them to the group getting the treatment to see if it works.
Is there blinding? This is where the control and treatment groups do not know whether they are getting the intervention or not. Remember though that this might not be possible for some interventions, for example researchers testing a new vaccine can give the control group a saline solution instead of the vaccine, but if they are testing a new massage technique it is almost impossible for the participants to be unaware if they received a massage or not!
Do the statistics make sense and match the authors' claims?
For more information on evaluating specific study types, please see the Appraise tab on the Evidence Based Practice page of this guide.
Who funded the study? Is it a company, university or research organisation? If it is a company, do they manufacture a product being tested? If you are not sure, can always search for them on the internet. If the URL ends in .com, it is a company.
Is there any obvious bias where the authors or their employers are likely to benefit from the study recommendations? For example, if the authors work for a particular company and recommend the use of one of their products, this could indicate a risk of bias.
Does it state what the authors' were trying to find out? The research aims or questions should be clearly stated in the beginning of the article, and the conclusions should describe what they found out.