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Effective Strategies for Information Gathering in Academic Research

This guide, authored by Ben Taylorson in November 2010, outlines essential methods for sourcing information pertinent to your formative assignment. It emphasizes the importance of careful topic analysis, search planning, and resource selection. The guide covers strategies for refining searches using logical operators, synonyms, and alternative spellings. Additionally, it discusses selecting appropriate resources, evaluating the credibility of web information, and underscores the significance of practical application during research sessions. Equip yourself with these techniques to enhance your academic inquiries.

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Effective Strategies for Information Gathering in Academic Research

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  1. Discovering Society: finding information November 2010 Ben Taylorson

  2. Aims and method In the context of your formative assignment: • Planning a search • Where to look • Getting articles An hour of theory and practice

  3. Gathering information 1 – define the topic 2 – search strategy 3 – choose resources 4 – begin searching 5 – refine searches 6 – collect and note the source of information used

  4. What are you looking for? Simple planning is the key: • look carefully at your topic • break it down into concepts or themes e.g.“attitudes towards performance-enhancing drugs in sport”

  5. Combine terms • Express your search logically - it may sound obvious but many don’t do it… AND

  6. Synonyms • Don’t be restricted by the terms of the original question - think about related terms i.e. synonyms • Remember alternative spellings e.g. US vs British AND OR OR

  7. Widening a search Other options with keyword searching: • use truncation to pick up plurals or other word endings • e.g. cultur* = culture, cultures, cultural, culturally • use wildcards to pick up spelling variants • e.g. behavio?r = behavior, behaviour • use phrases instead of keywords where applicable • - e.g. ‘performance enhancing drugs’ instead of performance AND enhancing AND drugs

  8. Have a go… Using the search grid: • Write down your topic • Break it down into key terms • Think of synonyms, alternative spellings and plurals, truncation, etc

  9. AND drug* sport* OR OR doping athlet* OR steroid* OR amphetamine*

  10. Selecting your resources - questions What kind of information do you want? - primary, secondary, topic overview, fine detail, statistics, diagrams, images… In what format? - whole books, book chapters, journal articles, proceedings, newspapers…

  11. The library catalogue • Limited to the fields indexed in the catalogue record • Won’t find chapters • Wont’ find articles CATALOGUE DEMO

  12. Finding articles • Via individual journal titles • Via databases 1) Science Direct (full text) 2) Web of Knowledge 3) SPORTdiscus

  13. Searching the web • Why evaluate? 1) Anyone can be a web author 2) No controls over what is posted on the web 3) Very little material is peer-reviewed or edited 4) Much of the information may be out of date 5) Is there bias?

  14. Practical USE THIS TIME TO FIND THINGS AND ASK ME QUESTIONS – NOT FOR CHECKING FACEBOOK AND YOUR EMAIL!

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