Starting Your Research
The first step to research is to decide what you want to find information on. If you have been given an assignment the topic will often have been set by your lecturer, if you are doing a degree by research you will have to come up with the proposal yourself with help from your supervisor, but in both cases the techniques are very similar.
Spending time in the beginning to really clarify the direction and scope of your research will save you time in the long run. Make sure you understand exactly what information you will need to find to fully answer the question.
A good way to start is to do a mind map, or concept map. Map maps are just a way for your to brainstorm the elements of your question and organise your thoughts.
Start with the question or idea you wish to develop in the center of the page. Break the central idea into its elements, or sub topics, connecting them to the central idea by lines. Repeat this process on each of these elements trying to break down each element as far as you can. When you have gone as far as you can, you will have a better understanding of the information you will need need to answer your question.
All you really need to do a mind map is paper and something to write with, but all ECU staff and students have access free to Mindmerster if you wish to set up a digital mind map. There are also several free online mind mapping tools available, including MindMup that requires no login
For further information please see Academic Skills Essentials: Assignment Steps and Academic Skills Essentials: Types of Assessments
You break your topic into key concepts or ideas. The more clearly you can define these concepts the easier it will be for your to get useful results.
For each concept you need to come up with a list of keywords. Try to find alternative ways of rephrasing the concept without changing its meaning, and remember that groups can use different words to describe the same object or idea. For example the big purple fruit that Australians and Americans call eggplants are known as aubergines in the British Isles.
If for example you wished to explore how fear can lead to aggressive behavior in adolescence your main concepts would be FEAR, "AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR" and ADOLESCENCE.
For each of these concepts you must then try to come up with alternative ways of expressing the same idea. For example instead of Aggressive Behaviour you may search for some of the following terms: violence; assault; hostility; attack; combativeness; antagonism; belligerence; aggression; "anti-social behaviour".
The more alternatives you use for each concept the more thorough your search will be.
For more information please see Information Essentials: Keyword searching
Each search engine you use may have different searching operators. The easiest way to find out what they are is by doing a quick search for help when using that search engine.
Search Engines and Library Databases
For ECU library search the most common search operators are:
# represents 0 to 1 character at the end of a word. Fight# finds fight and also fights, but not fighting.
? represents 0 to 9 characters within a single word. Organi?taion will find both organisation and organization.
* represents any number of characters at the end of a word. Please make sure the stem of the word you use before the * is enough to limit your search to useful results. You* finds Young, Youngster, Younger, Youth etc. but will also find YouTube, You, Yours etc. which could give you almost infinite results.
"Phrase searching" will result in all the words within the quotation marks being present, together, and in the order they appear withing the quotation marks.
Boolean Search Operators
The Boolean search operators come from Boolean logic are AND, OR and NOT.
- And combines search terms so that each search result contains all of the terms. For example, puppy AND kitten finds items that contain both the terms puppy AND kitten.
- Or combines search terms so that each search result contains at least one of the terms. For example, puppy OR kitten finds results that contain either puppy OR kitten
- Not excludes terms so that each search result does not contain any of the terms that follow it. For example, puppy NOT kitten finds results that contain puppy but exclude any that mention kitten.
Using Booleans and Round Brackets (Parentheses)
To make even better use of Boolean operators, you can use round brackets to nest query terms within other query terms.
You can enclose search terms and their operators in parentheses to specify the order in which they are interpreted. Information within parentheses is read first, then information outside parentheses is read next. For example,
When you enter (puppy OR kitten) AND pet, the search engine retrieves results containing the word puppy or the word kitten together with the word pet.
If there are nested brackets the search engine processes the innermost bracketed expression first, then the next, and so on until the entire query has been interpreted. For example,
((puppy OR kitten) AND pet) OR furbaby
Green AND Small AND bad grammar = YODA
- Databases
A library database is an electronic catalogue or index of published items (eg. Journal Articles.) They provide access to resources (full-text and abstract) across a broad spectrum of subject areas and Journals (they are a one-stop shop of research in many instances). Databases are searchable by many attributes, including: Keywords, Title, Author, or Subject.
Examples are: ProQuest, Science Direct, Medline. - Encyclopaedias and Wikipedia
Encyclopaedias are an effective way to quickly get a broad overview of a subject, to search for keywords and synonyms for further research, significant authors in the field, and important sources.
However, they are not original research, and should only be used as a starting point, and index for your full research.
Wikipedia shares these same attributes, use the References or Further Readings at the end of an entry to verify the information and continue your research. - Journals
Journals are a good source of primary information, often reporting on the outcomes of academic research or a source of practical information to practitioners in the field.
They are articles written by and for scholars, researchers and professionals. Journals are published regularly and contain the most up-to-date information. - Peer-reviewed
A journal (or article) which has undergone the review and scrutiny of a board or panel of experts in the same field of study. The reviewers evaluate this source and make recommendations, revisions or in some cases, reject the publication.
This process ensures only the best or highest quality research is published.
Also called “refereed” articles or journals. - Popular Sources
Magazine or Newspaper Articles and Reviews, Blog posts, Social Media Comments, etc. These materials tend to be either opinion-based or written about other people’s original research.
Fine to be used to illustrate a point, or for otherwise current news, but not to build your argument. - Primary Sources
Provide first-hand testimony or direct evidence concerning a topic under investigation. They are created by witnesses or recorders who experienced the events being documented.
Examples include diaries, speeches, letters, interviews, autobiographies, news footage, novels, etc. - Referencing
Referencing means acknowledging your source. If you use someone else’s work or idea, you must acknowledge where it came from. This can be done both in the body of your work and in the bibliography / works cited list.
- Scholarly Articles
Research papers published in academic journals, enabling researchers to communicate their research findings.
These are original research which have the following features:
Published regularly, written by experts in a particular field, contain the most up-to-date research findings, infused with language specific to the particular discipline, and may be peer-reviewed or refereed. - Secondary Sources
A source that interprets and analyses primary sources. These sources are removed from the actual event.
Examples include textbooks, magazine, commentaries, quotes, criticism, etc.