What is a search plan? A search plan helps you search in a structured and efficient way, ensuring that you find the most relevant and reliable information for your research. Planning your research, rather than just launching into it, can mean you don't miss out any important steps, and follow a logical process to retrieve all the information you need. It also means your research should be thorough.
Once you have analysed your research question and identified the key task, content, and limiting terms, you can begin developing your search plan.
To develop a search plan, you should:
Gather background information
Determine the type of resources you need and where to locate them
Build your search strategy
Compare three common management styles used in Manufacturing Industry and discuss their effectiveness. Restrict your discussion to Australian Industry in the last 5 years.
As stated, the content words/topic area for the above topic question are: Management Styles and Manufacturing Industry.
To get started on the research process, and create an effective search plan, we will start by finding background information more generally about the topic. This is particularly important if you are unfamiliar with the subject area or how to approach your topic. However, if you already have a good understanding of the topic area (for instance if you are already researching in this area or it's something you have previously done similiar assignments on) then it may not be so important.
For background information, we can suggest a few areas you may search.
There are different places you can look for background information. A great place to start is Google, but you will also want to search for books and scholarly articles.
Internet search engines can help you locate a wide range of information, including:
Fact sheets
News articles
Company profiles
Open data
Government policies and reports
Guidelines and procedures
Other reference materials
However, any source gathered from the internet.
Finding Keywords
In the process of finding background information, you may start to identify important terms like synonyms or relevant words to your content topic. These are important to your search later, so make sure to make a note of them!
Aside from books or articles, you can also check for background information in dictionaries, handbooks and encyclopedias.
You can use the table below to keep track of the keywords you found. Here's an example of what it would look like for our current assessment question.
Try filling in this table with the keywords from your assignment!
This is a brainstorming exercise; you may not use all the synonyms and related words in your search.
Identified Content Words |
Synonym |
Related words |
|---|---|---|
Management Styles |
Styles of Management, Leadership style | Autocratic, Leadership, Management, effective leadership |
Manufacturing |
Hand made, production line process, | production line, factory, industrial |
Australia |
NSW, Victoria, Queensland, | Melbourne, Sydney |
The types of resources you use will vary depending on your study area or subject. While you’ll often be encouraged to use academic sources such as journal articles and books, other types of resources may also be important for completing your assignments. Below are some common resource types you may need to locate:
Books (check the library catalogue or online via our Oreilly service)
Journal articles
Company Reports
Conference papers and proceedings
Standards, reports, and statistics
Industry reports
Websites and Blogs by experts on the topic
Different resources are found in different places, so it’s important to identify what you need early in your research process. To locate academic materials, you can use:
Library Catalogue – for books and journal articles
Libguides - pathfinders indicating our best sources for various areas of research
Databases – for journal articles and conference papers
Reports and statistics – available from sources such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Statista Also see our Business Statistics Guide