Step 3 Determine formal requirements

After you create the search query, think about the formal requirements of your search, i.e. how old the information you are looking for should be, what language the material is written in, what type of document it is, etc. Most databases provide the possibility to specify the search results in this way (e.g. if you need articles from the last ten years, because information in your field becomes outdated quickly, and you also want information only in your language and English, because these are the languages you understand).