During the problem analysis, if necessary, you divided the main question into a number of sub-questions and translated them into search questions.
An effective way of searching is the "building block method." You first divide your (search) question into a number of components. On that basis, you devise specific search terms with which to search.
Example:
You are looking for literature on food in retirement homes. Your question is: What is the influence of food on the social well-being of elderly people in nursing homes?
The main components of this question are:
For each of the components come up with different search terms.
nutrition | elderly people (in nursing homes) | social well-being |
food | aged | quality of life |
breakfast | elderly | social |
menu | dementia | well-being |
appetite | nursing home | loneliness |
vegetables | geriatric | tasty |
eating | etc | etc |
etc |
When thinking of search terms, you can think of:
examples | |
compounds |
field work fieldwork |
specific terms |
food fruit vegetables breakfast |
spelling variants |
80 year old eighty year old behavior behaviour |
synonyms |
old age geriatric elderly mild cognitive impairment dementia food eating |
inflections |
feeding foods |
translations |
vieillesse bejaarden Alter |
abbreviate or not |
end-of-life EoL |
antonyms (words with opposite meanings) |
social well-being loneliness tasty bland |