Search Methods - MGMT 2110 - Organizational Behavior (Fall 2025) - LibGuides at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Library

Search Strategies & Techniques

These strategies are not "do it once in this order & be done". Instead, they are recommendations for approaches that are often done several times at different points in your research. They also involve techniques that are shown in the sub-sections.

Start with what you have been given
1. Ideas, information, data, themes, methods of analysis from lectures
2. Ideas, information, data, themes, arguments, from readings
Look for clues in your readings (syllabus)
1. Main argument, findings (in abstract? in conclusion?)
2. Keywords, special terms?
3. Important authors?
4. References to other articles, books, statistics in assigned readings (for your follow-up) = Classic Scholarly Method
Use References from things you research & find = The Classic Scholarly Method)
1. When you do research, you will find things cited in papers & books you read. You can then look those up and read them.
2. You can then also citation chain forward (see what scholars used the article you found useful. after it was punblished)
Think about the arguments & evidence from the readings and lectures and other info
1. See if/how they apply to your topic
2. What questions do they give you? Start to search for answers or evidence that might lead you to your answer, your theory, your argument.
Search for more answers or evidence (or questions!) in recommended in PowerSearch or other search tools
Use smart-search techniques in those search tools

Search Smart

Learn how to search smart! These techniques will help you find more precise and relevant results. They work across many different databases.

Don't type in the whole sentence to search, pick the most important keywords. (2 min 37 sec)

Think of and use alternative terms and keywords to improve your search. (1 min 23 sec)

Phrase searching can help you refine a search and find more precise results. (1 min 14 sec)

Use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to connect keywords to search effectively. (39 sec)

Use truncation symbols to find words with a common root or stem. (1 min 14 sec)

Use parentheses to combine multiple keywords (prioritize orders of searching). (1 min 26 sec)

Use wildcard symbols to find a word's variants. (1 min 39 sec)

Citation Chaining

Citation chaining helps you find papers by following citations through a chain of scholarly articles. It is an essential technique to support your literature review process. You can do backward and forward searching based on an article in hand.

Method:

usually start with a "perfect" article in hand (also called "seed" article)
can be in two directions: Backward searching and forward searching based on this perfect article

Tools:

Library's PowerSearch, Google Scholar, Web of Science, Scopus, Semantic Scholar, etc.
Learn more from Citation Chaining Tools

Backward searching

finds articles the author used (in the reference list of the perfect article) to see what prior research it is based on.
These articles are usually called: "References", "Cited Articles", "Cited Documents"
It helps you trace classical and foundational studies

Forward searching