The plan consists of goals formulated in an action plan or process to follow. A well-defined question should be answered in the course of the research. The database searched will be dependent on many factors including the assignment or project needs along with the type of coverage offered by the database. Understand and Describe the Structure of Databases Efficient searching of a database requires an understanding of how the records it contains are divided into smaller parts called fields. Common fields include journal title, title of article, author, date, volume number, page numbers and subject descriptors.
Most fields are searchable depending on the database.
The words used in a database search reflect the ideas, concepts or themes identifed in the search statement. A controlled vocabulary or descriptor search usually yields more focused results. This allows the search to be narrowed or broadened. If not, consider different databases or different terms.