Search strategies and what you must know to make them effective

What Is a Search Strategy?

Most good researchers have developed their own ways to focus their searches. The habit dates back to the early days when access was far more restricted and searches cost more because only fee-based tools were available. At the time, you paid for the usage in by-the-minute charges. Consequently, researchers developed the habit of thinking things through before placing an order that would set the meter ticking.

Today, so much data is available that, without a plan, you can easily find yourself swimming in an ocean of information. The trick is to stay clearly focused on your goal while also being flexible and creative enough to revise your approach, based on the results you encounter.

One of the best approaches is the one devised by Nora Paul, a nationally recognized lecturer and now the director of the Institute for New Media Studies at the University of Minnesota. She has taken the "five Ws and H" (who - what - when - where - why - how) of reporting and devised a simple checklist that will help you formulate a search strategy by providing many avenues that can take you to the answer you are seeking. Framing your research strategy is critical to finding what you are looking for. A good, clear question will save you hours of work.

The first major step for almost any research project is to visualize your destination. Before you touch the computer, think through what you are looking for, where it might be available, and prepare a temporary roadmap. If you imagine your perfect search result - exactly what you want to find on the exact page you are looking for (if it exists) - then you can focus your search strategy to find it. If you have no idea what you are really looking for, you will not find it. One of the most important questions to ask yourself is: what is the purpose of the search?

Other Search Strategy Considerations

Here are a few more tips and things to consider as you work through your strategy for searching. When you begin searching on the computer, make sure you select words that would actually be on the page you are looking for. For example, if you are looking for the children of U.S. presidents or children who lived in the White House, do not search for words like "presidential progeny." The words are accurate, but not the kind of words you would find on a web page about the children of presidents. Instead, words like "children" and "white house" are obvious. Ask yourself, what words must be on a page about children of the White House? If you pick "Chelsea Clinton," "Amy Carter," and "John F. Kennedy, Jr.," you increase your chances of finding a page that focuses on presidents' children who lived in the White House.

You will find the pages you are looking for using keywords like "president," "children," and "white house." But you will also get a whole lot of unrelated information. When I did this search on AltaVista, I got more than 296,000 results, the top one being the White House site itself and another being a bio of President George W. Bush, but none about his kids, who do not actually live at the White House. When I put the names of presidents' kids in AltaVista, I got seven results, one of which was an ABC TV news report about the children of presidents.

A Little Perspective

Remember when you are searching, a search engine does not know what you are looking for, does not know your business, how you want the information results packaged, what to highlight, and what to leave out. It does not know what is important to you. Only you can provide that.

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