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Criminology Dissertation October 2013

Criminology Dissertation October 2013 . Are you feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of doing a literature search for your dissertation?. Yes No A bit!. How do I begin a literature search?. By devising a search strategy . How do I devise a search strategy? Identify any limitations

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Criminology Dissertation October 2013

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  1. Criminology Dissertation October 2013

  2. Are you feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of doing a literature search for your dissertation? • Yes • No • A bit!

  3. How do I begin a literature search?

  4. By devising a search strategy

  5. How do I devise a search strategy? • Identify any limitations • 2. Think about your topic & identify your keywords

  6. Devising a search strategy: how to tackle it • Limitations? • Will there be any geographical limits • Will there be any time limits i.e. how far back do you want to search

  7. Devising a search strategy: how to tackle it • Identifying keywords? • Think about your topic & select terms/keywords that best describe or express it

  8. Let’s look at an example…. • This is our topic: • ‘Support for families with problems in the UK, specifically Wales’ • What terms best describe this topic? • What are the key concepts?

  9. Topic: Support for families with problems in the UK, specifically Wales

  10. What other keywords/terms could be used…. • Think about: • Broader/more general terms • Narrower/more specific terms • Related terms • Synonyms

  11. Topic: Support for families with problems in the UK, specifically Wales

  12. Don’t worry the snowball effect will occur …..

  13. Keep a record

  14. I have a search strategy – what’s next?

  15. To get the best out of a search strategy you need to control how you use your search terms • These search tools will help: • Combining terms using AND, OR, NOT • Using the Phrase Search • Using the Truncation Symbol • Using the Wildcard Symbol

  16. AND

  17. OR

  18. NOT

  19. Phase search Use quotation marks “ ” to keep keywords together e.g. “child protection” “elder abuse” “British association of social work”

  20. Truncation symbol * child* child childhood children

  21. Wildcard symbol ? Behavio?r Behaviour Behavior

  22. I have received too few results: what should I do? • Use the Boolean operator AND • Use the Boolean operator OR • Give up!

  23. Too few results? • Try … • Check the thesaurus; terminology can differ • Use the truncation symbol • Combine your keywords with OR

  24. Too many results? • Try … • adding additional search terms with AND • use more specific keywords • use refining/filter menus within the search tool

  25. Do you know what peer-reviewed journals are? • Yes • No

  26. Choosing the right search tool: where to start? • You can use iFind Research to: • To locate journal articles if you have the full reference • To search for articles on a topic • Select & access key databases & resources for your topic

  27. Do you agree with this statement: “A good literature review gathers information from many sources” • Yes • No • Don’t know

  28. Sources of information to consider • Books • Journal articles • Reports • Newspaper articles • Official publications • Statistical information

  29. Where will you search for your information? • Books & Journals • Academic database • Library catalogue • Google • iFind Research • All of the above

  30. How often do you use Google to look up information for your Academic work? • All of the time • Some of the time • Hardly ever

  31. Choosing the right search tool It’s not a good idea to rely on Google Google has many disadvantages -you will receive an unmanageable number of results -will give irrelevant & inappropriate results -not everything will be free of charge -there is no quality control

  32. Evaluating Web Resources : • Key questions to ask : The Five Ws • Whowrote the information? • What is the purpose of the site? • When was the content created? • Where does the information come from? • Why is this information useful to me?

  33. Why academic databases are a better choice • Indexing is entrusted to people not search engines • They index academic quality publications • e.g. Journal articles, Conference papers • A large proportion of the content is from peer reviewedjournals

  34. Further help:Library Support for Criminologyon Blackboard (under “My Studies”)

  35. Need help? Just ask! buslib@swansea.ac.uk /swanuni.iss @swanuni_iss http://buseconlib.wordpress.com/

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