Mechanical & Mechatronic Engineering: Plan Your Search

Why plan your search?

At university you are expected to find and use scholarly information:

• in your assignments
• to prepare for class
• to explore new theories and ideas

However, to find scholarly information you need to search in a particular way to get good results.

Use this page to learn how to plan your search and find the best scholarly information sources to use. 

Unpacking your assignment

Your first step before you find any information is figuring out what your assignment is asking you and what your topic is about.

The following video shows you how to break down your assessment and get started brainstorming keywords you can use.

Step 1: Identify your key concepts

Before you find any information, identify the main ideas (or key concepts) in your assignment question or research topic

Step 2: Identify synonyms

Researchers will not refer to concepts using the same terms, so it's important you think of what other terms could be used. For example, when researchers are talking about medical applications, they could also use the terms clinical applications or biomedical applications, or a specific application such as prosthetic application. Track any terms you can think of in a table like this:

Step 3: Build your search

Boolean Operators are a way of telling a database or search engine how to do your search. Watch the video to learn how.

Use Boolean Operators to combine your keywords & synonyms into a search. You can build multiple searches using different synonyms & keywords.

Example: 

• Use OR to combine synonyms & similar words:

• Use AND to combine your key concepts together: 

(3D-printing OR three-dimensional printing OR additive manufacturing) AND (customisation OR personalisation)  AND (medical OR clinical OR biomedical)

• The truncation symbol (usually an asterisk *) is useful for finding different endings of a word, e.g. custom* will search for custom, customisation, customization, custom-designed, custom-built, customize
• Use “quotation marks” for exact phrase, e.g. “additive manufacturing”

("3D-print*" OR "three-dimensional print*" OR "additive manufacturing") AND (custom* OR personal*) AND (medical OR clinical OR biomedical)

Step 4: Start searching

You will need to find different types of information during your studies. These may include: 

• Books & book chapters
• Journal articles
• Newspaper articles
• Standards & statistics
• Reports
• Grey literature

The type of information you are looking for will determine where you search, and how you search. 

Using the steps above will help you find most of these information types.

Having a good search strategy is important, but it is also essential that you search for information in the right places.The library catalogue is a good place to start and a good place to look for books. If you are looking for journal articles, you should try search in one of our databases! 

Explore this study guide or ask a librarian to discover more. 

Step 5: Review your results

Not all the information you get from a search will be useful. A successful search will show results relevant to your topic. If your results are not relevant go back and try different keywords in your search.

Find relevant results by checking the: 

Even if your information is relevant, it might not be good quality. Check if it passes the C.R.A.P. Test before you use it.