michigan informatics
Define Your Topic
The first step in formulating your question is to have a good understanding of your information needs. Defining your search topic is essential to targeting the most relevant information. Five criteria to consider are:
COVERAGE
Topic: Is your area(s) of interest in one subject area or is it multi-disciplinary? Do you want to limit your search to English only? Are you tracking information for your local community, for your state, for your country, for a specific foreign country, or for a global community? Are you trying to develop expertise in a specific area? Are you trying to track major breaking news in the overall field of public health?
CURRENCY
Time & Timeliness: Do I have a specific time-frame in mind? Is this search related to a short-term or long-term project? Do you need the information as soon as it is available, on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, or only as needed?
ACCURACY
Type of information: What type of information are you specifically looking for? Is the information statistical in nature? Are you interested only in official updates from health or government organizations? Are you interested in tracking articles in newspapers, popular magazines, professional publications, or web sites?
AUTHORITY
Authority: Are the author’s credentials important to you? Are you interested in only scholarly publications? Are you only interested in articles written by experts in the field? Are you monitoring the information posted by your public health colleagues, health care consumers, or the general public? Do you want to restrict your search to only government web sites?
OBJECTIVITY
Source of the information: Is the information factual or an opinion? What type of organization or individual might collect or publish the information in your area(s) of interest? Would the information be freely available from web resources or subscription/membership-based resources?
The answers to these questions will help you to develop a search strategy to find the most relevant information.
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