information services and systems criminology dissertation october 2013
TRANSCRIPT
Information Services and Systems
Are you feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of doing a literature search for your dissertation?
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1. Yes 2. No 3. A bit!
Information Services and Systems
How do I devise a search strategy?
1. Identify any limitations
2. Think about your topic & identify your keywords
Information Services and Systems
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
Information Services and Systems
Devising a search strategy: how to tackle it
Identifying keywords?
• Think about your topic & select terms/keywords that best describe or express it
Information Services and Systems
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?
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Topic: Support for families with problems in the UK, specifically Wales
Concept 1 Concept 2 Concept 3 Concept 4
problems families support UK, Wales
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What other keywords/terms could be used….
Think about: • Broader/more general terms• Narrower/more specific terms• Related terms• Synonyms
Information Services and Systems
Topic: Support for families with problems in the UK, specifically Wales
Concept 1 Concept 2 Concept 3 Concept 4
problems families support UK, Wales
conflict parents intervention UK/GB
dysfunction homes conflict resolution Wales/Welsh
disruption children parent training United Kingdom
Domestic violence siblings Great Britain
illness
alcoholism
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Don’t worry the snowball effect will occur …..
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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
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AND Aim Search Examples Results
To focusyour search results
&
Link your terms
problems AND families
dysfunction AND child
conflict AND homes
Only retrieves results containing both
keywords
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OR Aim Search Examples Results
To broaden your search results
&
OR will help you to search for related
terms & synonyms
conflict OR problems
intervention OR conflict resolution
Children OR siblings
Retrieves results containing either of
your keywords
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NOT Aim Search Examples Results
To exclude a term from your search
Wales NOT Australia
sibling NOT twins
Will exclude records containing the second term
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Phase searchUse quotation marks “ ” to keep keywords together
e.g. “child protection”“elder abuse”“British association of social work”
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I have received too few results: what should I do?
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1. Use the Boolean operator AND
2. Use the Boolean operator OR
3. Give up!
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Too few results?
Try …
• Check the thesaurus; terminology can differ
• Use the truncation symbol
• Combine your keywords with OR
Information Services and Systems
Too many results?
Try …
• adding additional search terms with AND
• use more specific keywords
• use refining/filter menus within the search tool
Information Services and Systems
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
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Do you agree with this statement: “A good literature review gathers information from many sources”
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1. Yes 2. No 3. Don’t know
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Sources of information to consider
• Books • Journal articles• Reports• Newspaper articles• Official publications• Statistical information
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Where will you search for your information?
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1. Books & Journals2. Academic database3. Library catalogue4. Google5. iFind Research6. All of the above
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How often do you use Google to look up information for your Academic work?
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1. All of the time2. Some of the time 3. Hardly ever
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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
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Evaluating Web Resources : Key questions to ask : The Five Ws
•Who wrote 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?
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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 reviewed journals
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Further help:
Library Support for Criminology
on Blackboard (under “My Studies”)
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Need help? Just ask!
/swanuni.iss @swanuni_iss
http://buseconlib.wordpress.com/