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Search Strategy Tutorial: Search Strategy Example for Assignment 1

Assignment 1 Example

Here is an example of how you would complete Assignment 1 if your research topic was:

Does eating fast food cause children to become overweight?

Your key ideas (often called "concepts") would be:

fast food
children
overweight

 

Words you should not include as search words:

Do not include:

  • question words, e.g. does, how, why, what
  • words that indicate a relationship between two concepts, e.g. cause, impact, effect
  • words or phrases that are broader or more general than the key idea (e.g. you would not include restaurants in the same search box as "fast food" because restaurants is a broader idea than "fast food" )


NOTE
: The word: eating was not included because when we include the concept: fast food, the word eating is understood or assumed.

Use quote marks (“ ”) around search phrases (multiple words that should be searched together), e.g. "fast food"

So for question 2, your first search on OneSearch might look like this:

Assignment1-Model-Search1.jpg


Then, for your answer for question 2, you would copy:

"fast food" into the box that says: "Search words you entered for first search box:"
children in the box that says:: "Search words you entered for second search box:"
overweight in the box that says: "Search words you entered for third search box:", and
1134 into the box that says: "Total number of results in OneSearch for this search:"


It is often (although not always) effective to include more than one search word or phrase for each key idea in a research topic. Type an OR between different words used for the same concept. Different search words or phrases used for the same idea can be words that are synonymous (have more or less the same meaning, e.g. "young adults" OR adolescents) or they can be more specific examples of a concept (e.g. "Burger King" OR McDonalds are examples of "fast food".)

For question 3, you might revise your search on OneSearch so your second search might look like this:

SearchBoxesExample2.png

NOTE
:
  In some cases, there will only be one word or phrase that is commonly used for a concept, so there is no reason to add additional search words or phrases with ORs. This is the case when searching for a specific name or when there is a unique word that has no common synonyms or more specific examples. (For example, if you were researching: "Does eating food from McDonalds cause children to become overweight?", then you would only include: McDonalds  in the first box without any other words.)
 

So, for your answer for question 3, you would copy:

"fast food" OR "Burger King" OR McDonalds into the box that says: "Search words you entered for first search box:"
children OR teens OR "young adults" into the box that says: "Search words you entered for second search box:"
overweight OR obesity into the box that says: "Search words you entered for third search box:", and
3949 into the box that says: "Total number of results in OneSearch for this search:"

 

For questions 4 and 5, you would select one magazine article and one academic journal article from the results list.  (Remember that you can use the Source Types limit option on the left column to limit your results to either magazine or journal articles.) For example, you might select the following academic journal article from the results list:

OneSearchResult1.png

If you click on the article title from the result list, you would see the detailed information for the article, like this:

OneSearchResult2.png

Then, you would answer question 5 as shown below:

Journal article title: A $15 U.S. Minimum Wage: How the Fast-Food Industry Could Adjust Without Shedding Jobs

Name of the journal (source): Journal of Economic Issues

Date of the journal:  Sept. 2016

Name(s) of the author(s): (if no author listed, write NA): Robert Pollin and Jeannette Wicks-Lim