Typical questions

• • How can I find materials for my dissertation?

• • What has been published on equal pay in the last 5 years?

Starting points

• • There are several types of literature search. Systematic searches try to locate all the information written on a specific topic, other studies are intended to be quicker and less comprehensive. Find out the purpose of the search and the types of resources required – e.g. do they need to find theses? Statistical data? Or just books and articles?

• • Students need to conduct literature reviews to search for materials for their dissertations. Many need assistance on how to find items that are not on a reading list. Some students may simply have clicked through to full text items from online reading list systems and not be familiar with the basic library catalogue. In these circumstances, advice will be required on constructing search terms.

• • Researchers and academic staff need to conduct a literature review before undertaking a new project in order to examine what has been written before. This is usually a more comprehensive review.

Stages in the literature review process

• • Defining the research question – setting the scope and parameters of the search. This can be one of the most difficult things for inexperienced students. If a question is too broad, it can become too difficult to answer! For academic purposes, questions often need to be analytical rather than descriptive, so they will need to identify relevant writers, theories and concepts to explore. In order to do this, it is a good idea to undertake some background reading to develop and refine ideas. Referring to course reading lists, subject dictionaries, encyclopedias and examples of previous dissertations can help. Making a list of key ideas and concepts is a good idea. It can also help narrow down the date range, geographical information and type of information required. This can be further refined later in the research process.

• • Choosing the search tools/databases to search. It is helpful to consider the types of materials needed as locating them may require the use of other tools beyond the library catalogue.