Beginning your Research

Analyse and define your topic Find background information Develop your research using relevant resources

Evaluate your resources Manage and organise your information Cite your references

1. Analyse and define your topic

• Identify key words and concepts in your topic. e.g. "Does advertising encourage teenagers to take up smoking?" uses the keywords advertising, teenagers, smoking, but you should also consider advertizing, adolescents, children, cigarettes.
• Use dictionaries and thesaurii to clarify the meanings of keywords, and to find other ‘like’ terms or synonyms to use.

2. Find background information

• Use encyclopaedias to find background or overview material on your topic.
• The Library’s Reference Collection contains many useful general and subject specific dictionaries (e.g. The Oxford English Dictionary, The Dictionary of Philosophy) and encyclopaedias (e.g. Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedia of Microbiology).
• Access to general and subject specific electronic reference sources is also available.

3. Develop your research using relevant resources

• Find books.
  
  • Books held at Murdoch Library are listed in the catalogue, whether they are held in print, electronic format or both.
  
  
  • If you know the title of a book (e.g. from a reading list), check the title in the catalogue.
  
  
  • To find books on a topic use the Keyword option in the catalogue.
  
  
  • See How to Search the Murdoch Library Catalogue for help in using the catalogue.
  
  
  • If a book is not held in the Library you may need to search Catalogues at Other Libraries or Libraries Australia.

• Find articles from a reading list.
  
  • To locate a specific article (e.g. from a reading list) you need the citation details for the article (i.e. the author's name, article title, journal title, volume, issue and page numbers).
  • Many articles on your reading list will be in Electronic Course Materials. From the catalogue you can search Electronic Course Materials & Reserve by Unit Name or Code, or Unit Coordinator to find articles for your unit.
  • If the article is not in Electronic Course Materials, search for the journal title in the catalogue. Journals held at Murdoch are listed in the catalogue, whether they are held in print, electronic format or both.
  • You can also use the Citation Linker to find out if an article is available online - enter as many details as you have.

• Find articles on a topic.
  
  • To locate articles on a topic use databases.
  
  
  • The Library's databases can be indexes to article references, or full text collections of materials such as newspapers, journals, statistical publications, encyclopaedias and legal materials. You can search the databases for information relevant to your topic by using keywords or concepts.
  
  
  • Select databases relevant to your topic from the Library's Journal Articles & Databases page.
  
  
  • Use the Quick Search Library Portal to search for articles in up to 15 databases at once. For further information or help in using the Library Portal please consult the Quick Guide to the Portal and The Library Portal FAQ.
  • If a database does not include full text material, look to see if the records in the database include an SFX button, which will allow you to link from a citation to a list of services for that item.
  • If a database does not include SFX Findit buttons, look to see if there is a direct link to check the Library's catalogue for the journal title. If no such link exists, write down the details of the article and in a separate step search the Library catalogue for the journal title.
  • For further help in using the Library's databases (including SFX linking) please consult Using Databases.

4. Evaluate your resources

• Evaluate the information you have found in terms of relevance, currency, reliability and accuracy.
• Check details such as author, publisher and publication year to assist you in your evaluation.
• For further information on evaluating information see Evaluating Information or Evaluation of information sources.

5. Manage and organise your information

• Keep a record of books, articles, printouts and photocopies used, making sure that your photocopies include the source details. This will save you substantial time when writing your assignment and reference list.
• Consider using the EndNote software to organise your references in a database and create bibliographies automatically using your word processor. For further information see the Library's EndNote and EndNote classes pages.

6. Cite your references

• Documents are cited for the following reasons:
  • To acknowledge the work of other writers
  
  
  • To demonstrate the body of knowledge on which you have based your work
  • To enable other researchers to trace your sources
• If you do not cite your sources, you may be unwittingly claiming authorship of ideas or statements not your own. This is plagiarism which is not tolerated in academic circles.
• The most important aspect of citing is to use an acceptable format and be consistent.
• The Library’s publication How to Cite References, discusses a variety of citation styles and provides examples for referencing.