Steps in the Research Process
As a laboratory researcher, you are fully aware that all research follows definable steps from beginning to end.
Literature research is also based on the "scientific method":
Define the Question
In this step, you brainstorm your possible avenues of research,
primarily what topics are of interest to your literature search.
This generally takes the form of developing lists of keywords that
describe different facets of your experimental procedure. The
work you do in this step
lays the groundwork for the rest of the search.
Construct the Query
After developing keyword lists, you will need to think about how to
organize those keywords into a search query or statement. The query
may include Boolean, truncation, and/or phrase searching to expand or
limit your search according to your needs.
Select & Search a Database
Selecting a strong complement of databases to
search may be the most critical step in the search process, after
developing keywords. For a search of this magnitude and
importance, you will need to search more than one database. The keywords and search query
you developed in the previous steps need to be evaluated for applicability to each database.
There are a number of specialized databases available for searching for
alternatives in animal testing.
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