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PhD Session

PhD Session. Kate Purcell, Subject Librarian k.purcell@bbk.ac.uk Tel: 020 7631 6062. Literature Searching. A systematic and thorough review of published literature in all formats To establish that no-one else has already undertaken your piece of research To find existing relevant research

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PhD Session

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  1. PhD Session Kate Purcell, Subject Librarian k.purcell@bbk.ac.uk Tel: 020 7631 6062

  2. Literature Searching • A systematic and thorough review of published literature in all formats • To establish that no-one else has already undertaken your piece of research • To find existing relevant research • To establish general patterns and areas of dispute

  3. Literature Searching Key stages • Determine and analyse concepts in your proposal • Identify search terms • Identify relevant bibliographic tools • Consider search strategies

  4. Analyse your research area • Who are the main proponents? • What are the main principles? • Were there any significant events? • What were the precursors and subsequent developments? • Are there opposing or counter theories?

  5. Identify search terms • List key words and then consider…. • Variant spellings • American English e.g.‘our’ vs. ‘or’ • Plurals • Prefixes and hyphens • Alternative terms • Related terms – wider / narrower concepts

  6. Bibliographic tools • Databases that help you identify what has been published in your subject • Which is best for your subject? • Check the scope and coverage • Become familiar with the interface • Same search principles apply to different interfaces

  7. Search principles • Phrase searching: exact phrases in quotation marks • Truncation: asterisk after the word stem • Wildcards: for variant spellings • Boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT • Proximity searching: specify how close keywords are to each other

  8. Search principles Wildcards • A question mark stands for any letter E.g. organi?ation will find ‘organisation’ and ‘organization’ • A dollar sign stands for any or no letterE.g. labo$r will find ‘labour’ and ‘labor’

  9. Citation Indexes • Extensive subject coverage • Academic peer-reviewed titles • Lists who has cited an article • Useful for tracing research and development of theories • Identify key authors / journals in a field • Identify trends in research

  10. Citation Indexes • Register for additional features • Save your search histories • Set up weekly or monthly email alerts with new results of your saved search • Set up citation alerts

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