LibrarySix step approach
Whether you draft your strategy on paper or using your phone’s notes app, keep the process of developing a search strategy simple by using this six step general approach. The steps encourage you to think about what you are searching for as well how and where you are going to search
| 1. Your question/topic: Ethical dilemmas of using autonomous vehicles |
| 2. Your major concepts: ethics autonomous vehicles |
| 3. Synonyms/related terms: ethics – moral, morality, ethics, ethical autonomous vehicles – driverless cars, self-driving car, robo-car, AV or auto car |
| 4. Limits/filters Literature published in the last ten years. |
| 5. Searches to try: (think about how you will enter all these search words into a search engine/academic database) ethics OR ethical OR moral OR morality AND “autonomous vehicle*” OR “driverless car*” OR “self-driving car” OR robo-car OR “AV car” OR “auto car” See the More effective searching advice on using AND, OR and “phrase searching”. |
| 6. Resources to search: Information source required: journal articles. Databases: IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, ScienceDirect, Web of Science. See your Subject guide to find resources specific to your topic. |
If you prefer to take a more visual approach, try creating a concept map. This can be useful if you are exploring a topic but not sure what aspect you want to focus on or what angle you want to take on a topic. Gather all your ideas in one place and capture useful keywords during the process that you can develop further and utilise later on in your search.
Concept map
You could keep developing your concept map by including themes that may need to be explored, a list of resources you need to search in order to find information on your topic, limits that may need to be applied to your search and even the types of material you may need to source such as journal articles or legislation, law cases and patents.