In order to find relevant literature for your studies and research, you will need to develop the skills to plan a search and to use a range of search tools effectively. Resource lists are useful starting points, but you will be expected to explore the literature beyond the recommended readings.
When you are first given your assignment title it can be tempting to simply Google the key ideas or even your entire assignment topic.
However, Google is not the best search tool for finding academic literature such as journal articles. To find this type of literature you need to use specialist search tools, such as Library Search, which require you to search using specific keywords and search techniques.
Identifying keywords is the first step in the planning process. It's very important to take some time to think about your topic so you can identify the most appropriate keywords to use. These keywords then become the search terms that you enter into Library Search or other databases to find relevant literature.
Start by asking yourself:
Have a look at the following assignment title. Can you identify the key concepts?
To what extent have recent initiatives to increase the number of people who travel to work by bicycle been successful?
"To what extent..." We disagree that this is a key term to use in a search tool. The assignment is asking you to make this judgment after weighing up the evidence you find in the literature.
"Recent..." We disagree. Although you will need to find recent information to answer this question, including the term "recent" in your search is likely to exclude a large number of relevant results. Instead use date limits or order your results by date to refine your search results to the more recent information. You will find out how to do this later in the tutorial.
"Initiatives..." We agree, "initiatives" is a key term to explore.
"Increase..." We can ignore words like "increase" as it can be expected that any initiatives introduced are intended to increase the number of people cycling to work.
"Number of people..." We can ignore words like "number of people" as it can be expected that any initiatives introduced are intended to increase the number of people cycling to work..
"Bicycle..." We agree "bicycle" is a key focus of this assignment question.
"Successful..." We disagree. We wouldn't include the term "successful" as the question is asking us to consider the extent to which initiatives have been successful and so we may also want to know about unsuccessful schemes to make an informed judgment. Using the keyword 'successful' may therefore exclude any unsuccessful schemes.
Once you've identified the key concepts, try to think of as many keywords as possible which describe them.
Two approaches you could use are a search table or mind map.
For our example topic on the previous tab "To what extent have recent initiatives to increase the number of people who travel to work by bicycle been successful?", look at the mind-map and the search table below to see related keywords which you could include:
When planning your search strategy, think of as many words as you can which have similar meanings, also known as synonyms, for example, city, urban, metropolis. Could any of your keywords also be plural or have alternative endings? For example, city, cities.
It may be that you don’t come up with all the necessary keywords on your first attempt. But you can continue to add new words to your search table or mind map as you read more about the topic.
If you're unsure of ideas for keywords, you can:
The library has a very useful planning tool document that you can use to plan and design your search strategy. You can download a blank template from the link below.
This video has no voiceover but it does have a music track, so don't forget to mute the audio if you find it distracting.
