Literature Search Techniques 2

Strategic searching

                          

In this lecture you will learn:

1. The function of a literature search

2. The structure of academic literature

3. Revision of the previous lecture

4. An overview of search strategies

1. The function of a literature search

What is the Purpose of a Literature Search/Review? (1: Cognitive)

To avoid reinventing the wheelTo find out what other scholars are writing

about your topicTo learn methods and approaches that are

appropriate for your studyTo learn appropriate theory to underpin your

work

What is the purpose of a Literature Search/Review? (2: social)

To demonstrate to your audience that your contribution is new – different from everyone else’s– Nobody will believe you unless you can demonstrate

through the literature review that you know what everyone else has done

In an MSc: to demonstrate to your teachers that you can do an effective literature review

Because literature reviews are an accepted part of university projects/research and your project will not look like a good project without one

What Information Should You Look For?

Publications that cover the same or a similar topic to yours

Publications that support your methods– E.g. Stats, Systems Analysis, Database Normalisation,

Project Management, OO programming

Background information books– E.g. The Web, The JAVA programming language,

electronic security

2. The structure of academic literature

Overall Structure

Research Topic

Specialist sub-area

Relevant

Primary

research

Your research question

Advanced literature search

50%

10%

10%10%

5%

5%

5%

Topic 1

Topic 2

Topic 3

5%

Specialist area

Afieldstructure

3. Revision of the previous lecture

Sources for Literature Reviews

The Library– Look through the list of journals and browse the books on

the shelves to find relevant ones

Digital Libraries– Need to use keyword searches to identify relevant articles

The Web– Use keyword searches in Google (which indexes PDF and

PostScript academic publications)

The Strengths and Weaknesses of the Different Sources

Books vs. journal articles vs conference proceedings vs. the web

Which tend to be the best for– Currency– Authority– Understandability?

Which types of task would each source be best for?Academic papers are quality controlled – many are

rejected as being incorrect or uninteresting

Literature search techniques

Keyword search– To find topically relevant information from digital libraries,

databases, or the web– Good in most cases

Browsing– To sift through collections of potentially relevant text– Good where there are many relevant books/articles, but only a few

can be selectedChaining

– Tracking references and citations to find articles relevant to a topic– Good where the topic is very small

Example: search engines

1. Look for web page on search engines: read page

2. Look for book on search engines: read introduction, contents list, look for subtopic

3. Start keyword searching for subtopic in digital libraries

4. Chain key authors and papers for subtopic

5. Read the likely papers and pick one as your main paper

Exercise

[Class vote on answers]

4. Overview of search strategies

Literature search strategy

Literature search -real?

Alternative literature search strategy

A practical strategy?– Do general searches until you find a paper that you

think you could understand & use it as the basis for your research

– Author/reference/citation chain from this paper– Keyword searches to get papers relevant to

subtopic

Alternative literature search strategy

Your progress

The following should occur as you progress– Increase in knowledge of the subject– Increase in general knowledge of the specialist

topic– Increase in your specialist vocabulary– Increase in confidence that you can complete the

task

Homework Task

Conduct a literature search for your chosen sub-area for the second assessment

Report– The searches conducted (digital libraries, OPAC etc)– The titles found from each search

Discuss which types of publication (books, journal articles, Web, conference papers) should be used to give the different types of information needed

Make a list of problems/issues that arose with your searchYou do not need to print out all the articles you found