Search plan part 2: Information sources

The previous chapter, Analysis, covered the first part of the search plan: the related terms, synonyms and concepts. The search table is used to create a search query to search in specific databases. Before creating the search query, the search plan needs to be completed with an overview of the relevant information types and the appropriate information sources. The information types and information sources determine the syntax you can use in your search query.

Let’s determine the relevant information sources for our research question: How can the automotive industry contribute to the improvement of air quality by adapting existing fuels?

TULib provides an overview of different sources to find certain types of information. Multidisciplinary sources like Google Scholar, Scopus or Web of Science are a good starting point for scientific literature about the automotive industry research question. Information sources sometimes use different rules and/or search operators to formulate search queries. So you can use the same search table for each of the information sources, but you will need to adapt the syntax (like the Boolean operators that can be used) for the search query.

Read more on the different information sources, how to find them via the A-Z list for databases, and the different (Boolean) operators that can be used on TUlib:

• Type of information and resources to use
• Resources
• Search operators