Searching for information in an efficient way, and evaluating that information on how relevant and credible it is, are crucial aspects of your academic studies. In this first module, we will go over the most important steps in the information search process.

In this day and age, finding information on the internet is easy. But establishing the credibility of that information is a lot more difficult. It is also difficult to understand why some results show up during a certain search, and not others. By learning to be more critical towards the information you find, and what search engine/database to use for what purpose, you will be well equipped for your continued studies and upcoming working life.

In academia, we often want to find current research information on a topic. That is, we want scholarly information. The way to find this type of information is often different from how you would normally search for information, on, for example, Google.

One reason for this is that scholarly information is not often freely available on the internet. It needs to be searched for in specific search engines and databases. It is usually through the university library that scholarly information is made available to you as a student. However, even if scholarly information would be freely available to search for, it would still be difficult to find the information that is relevant for you. Therefore, it is a good idea to practice how to find relevant material, coming up with useful search terms, knowing where to look for different types of academic material, as well as how to evaluate the information you find. All of these are important aspects of academic information literacy.

Information literacy includes:

being aware of the information retrieval process
being able to find relevant information with useful search terms
knowing where and how to access different types of scholarly material
being able to critically evaluate the information you find
being able to show/demonstrate your search strategy
having the skills to evaluate the material you find

Some questions to consider before you start your search:

What are the most important terms in your research question?
What types of material are you interested in?
Which search engine or database would be best for you to use?

When you have finished this module on The Search for Information you will have:

Familiarised yourself with the terminology for information literacy
Gained more knowledge on:
- The different components of the information search process
- How to structure your search, and how to choose useful search terms based on your research question
- How to apply different search techniques and conduct your search more effectively

In the next section, we will go into more detail on how to structure your search and how to choose useful search terms.