Keep Track of Your Searches
One of the most important strategies you can use as you collect information is keeping track of your searches. Note the keywords or phrases and the search strategies you used with them (wildcards, Boolean search, author search, and so on), as well as how many sources the search turned up and whether those sources were relevant to your writing project. Keeping track of your searches will help you identify promising approaches; it will also ensure that you don’t repeat your efforts.
In your writer’s notebook, record the following information for each source you search:
Checklist for Recording Search Terms
Resource that was searched
Search terms used (keywords, phrases, names)
Search strategies used (basic search, exact-phrase search, wildcard search, Boolean search)
Date the search was conducted
Number of results produced by the search
Relevance of the results