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Research Methods

Literature Searches
Resources
Search Techniques
Bibliographic Referencing
Timothy Collinson
What is a review of the literature?
• A literature review is an account of
what has been published on a topic by
accredited scholars and researchers.
• In writing the literature review, your
purpose is to convey to your reader
what knowledge and ideas have been
established on the topic you have
chosen, and what their strengths and
weaknesses are.
• Your literature review will enable you to
identify gaps in the existing knowledge
that you can build upon.
• As a piece of writing, the literature
review must be defined by a guiding
concept (i.e. your research aim and
objectives). It is not a descriptive list of
the material available, or a set of
summaries.
A good literature review is:
• Focused - The topic should be narrow. You
should only present ideas and report on
studies that are closely related to topic.
• Concise - Ideas should be presented
economically. Don’t take any more space
than you need to present your ideas.
• Logical - The flow within and among
paragraphs should be a smooth, logical
progression from one idea to the next
• Developed - Don’t leave the story half told.
• Integrative - Your paper should stress how
the ideas in the studies are related. Focus on
the big picture. What commonality do all
the studies share? How are some studies
different than others? Your paper should
stress how all the studies reviewed contribute
to your topic.
• Current - Your review should focus on work
being done on the cutting edge of your
topic.
A literature review must do
these things:
• Be organized around and
related directly to the thesis
or research question you are
developing
• Synthesize results into a
summary of what is and is not
known
• Identify areas of controversy
in the literature
• Formulate questions that
need further research
So what is a literature review?
• A literature review is a coherent essay,
not a list describing or summarizing
one piece of literature after another.
• The literature review should be
organized into sections that present
themes or identify trends, including
relevant theory. It's usually a bad sign
to see every paragraph beginning
with the name of a researcher.
• A literature review is not a list of all the
material published, but an evaluation
of research to date on the guiding
concept of your dissertation or
research questions.
Possible sources
 Books
 Academic Journals
 Conference Papers
 Reports
 Government Publications
 Magazine Articles
 Newspaper Articles
 Blogs
 Reputable Web Sources
https://library.port.ac.uk/guides/docs/LG790.pdf
moving forwards in time
Marie’s article Citation Searching
2017

~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~ Timothy’s article
~~~~~~ 2010
References
~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~
Hawking’s article

*
~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~ 2006

moving backwards in time


References
~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~
References
The links below take you to guidance on ~~~~~~~
cited reference searches for the ~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~
following databases
Web of Science
Scopus
Google Scholar
https://library.port.ac.uk/libcat.html

Or confine your search


to the Universities e-book
You can search for collections once you
both printed & have a set of results
electronic materials
(recommended)
Academic libraries contain materials selected by
academics and are therefore more dependable
http://copac.ac.uk

Access to the merged online catalogues of many major


University, Specialist, and National UK Libraries
http://books.google.co.uk

• Will search within books for chapters


• Not all are academic sources so appraise authors & publishers
• Useful previews of some texts but beware they can disappear
How to recognise a scholarly
journal article Academic articles will
have a volume
number and be more
than a couple of
pages long

The authors are often


academics

Most importantly the


article was sent to the
experts for review and was
Often have not published until all the
keywords revisions were approved
assigned
Academic Databases
Many databases will
allow you to restrict
your search to
refereed articles

Or indicate those articles


which are peer reviewed
Creative Commons Licence
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rossjamesparker/89414788
labour / labor

migrant workforce
foreign

building
culture labour / labor

migrant workforce
behavior foreign

building U.K.
United Kingdom
“construction industry”
“building industry”
GB / G.B. / Great Britain
challenges
culture labour / labor
Intervention
strategy
migrant workforce
behavior foreign

building U.K.
United Kingdom
“construction industry”
“building industry”
GB / G.B. / Great Britain
law

case studies

London / Birmingham / Glasgow


Think about the keywords you use in the Library Catalogue, in database
searching, or in Google/Google Scholar
• Alternative words – lift/elevator; colour/color
• Note tips such as truncation: build* will search (in most databases but
not Google) for build, building, buildings etc.
• Watch out for punctuation such as hyphens which Google ignores
but many databases treat as a separate search
• Use “ “ to search for phrases “construction industry”
• Related keywords: overseas, migrant, foreign
• If you’re finding too much, narrow down your search
• If you’re finding too little, broaden your search out
Boolean Operators

“renewable hous* wind


energy" NOT
energy excludes

AND
narrows/focuses

sustain* environment*

OR
widens
6
Discovery – Using Limiters to
Refine Your Search
To keep items in folder
permanently, create an
6 account here

Type your
Discovery Query

Look at “Subjects” to find 5


alternative keywords.
5 Also, see the “Choosing
1 Keywords” Library Guide
Limit by
2
1
3 Full Text (Online and Print) -
searches both our full text online
resources and our printed Subject - enables you to
resources within the library. search specifically within
4 your original search
3
2
Source Types –
4 Publication Date – Book, Academic Journal etc.,
move the sliding date bar
to the dates you want.
Tip: Selecting scholarly material enables you to read
in depth around your topic. For more information on
Source Types visit the Information Landscape
https://library.port.ac.uk/databases.html

Use this box only if you


know the name of the
database or broad subject
area not listed in the drop
down subject menu below

Limit to just Quick links to the


civil main academic
engineering multi-disciplinary
databases databases
http://www.port.ac.uk/library/subject/tech/
Use My
Subject to
find the key
library
resources in
your subject
Engineering Village

Refine your search


to a manageable
number

Use the Full text link for


articles instantly available
electronically from the
university
If we don’t have
full text, we can
obtain an article
via Inter Library
Loan for you

Limit by adding a term


Or limiting to a country
http://www.info4education.com

Good source of industry research reports,


standards and text books as well as
government documents
http://www.icevirtuallibrary.com
We don’t subscribe to everything but book
chapters may be available in the library.
Check the library catalogue for the book title.

If we don’t have what you want, we should be


able to obtain it via Inter Library Loan.

Articles from ICE Proceedings should be


available on the site.
Online magazines are a good source for
topical issues but bear in mind that articles
are not refereed and may be biased.

http://www.nce.co.uk

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/

http://www.building.co.uk

Access via the website or via our Nexis database for full text
http://www.lexisnexis.com/uk/nexis/

Searches every word of Newspapers from around


the world. You need to use very specific/narrow
search terms and restrict to UK Broadsheets or a
particular regional newspaper. Be aware of bias.
Find advanced search
beneath the settings link
Google

Search for a phrase

Use for synonyms

Words you do
not want in
your search

From a reputable
source/country:
gov.uk
ac.uk
org.uk
http://scholar.google.co.uk
Use library links within Scholar
settings to enable scholar to
search the university e-journals
Re-running the search in Google
Scholar (omitting the domain
restriction gov.uk) Or use the
Advanced Search option

A good way “Cite” gives and APA


of finding formatted reference
more recent
articles on
your topic
Using the World Wide Web
 Leave internet search to the end of your
research
 Using the advanced search (“”, + and -)
will make your web searching more
efficient
 Get used to scanning the summaries
particularly the URL for clues
 Evaluate web sites: W?W?W?
 Avoid Wikipedia?
try Scholarpedia
Sources to include/Search terms to apply

 Books – Academic library catalogues & Google


Books – broad terms
 Academic Journals – Engineering Village &
Discovery, Databases & Google Scholar – advanced
search; narrow academic search terms
 Magazine Articles – Discovery and websites – narrow
professional search terms
 Newspaper Articles – Nexis – multiple narrow terms
 Reports – Construction Info Service – specific terms
 Reputable Web Sources – within a specific domain
e.g. site:ac.uk or site:gov.uk or site:org.uk
University Style In text citations:
APA 6th edition (name and date)
Basic form: Use the ampersand
(Blaxter, Hughes & Tight, 2001, p.141) within brackets
Blaxter, Hughes and Tight (2001, p.141) suggest that..

Clearly links from in-text citation to When there is no


alphabetical listing in reference list Author use the title
...in the recent book (Encyclopaedia of 20th century,
2004, p.62) ...
... in this article (“Salmonella tainted”, 2004, p.4) .. To differentiate between
Two recent studies (Harding, 2004a; Harding, 2004b) Items by the same author
In the same year
have shown that…
A recent broadcast (British Broadcasting Corporation
[BBC], 2012) commented on …..
Do not use acronyms in
Should occur naturally within the sentence Your reference list
http://referencing.port.ac.uk

Use APA 6th Style


Bibliographic Management Software

Word Reference Tool

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Store up to 50,000 references
20 most popular bibliographic styles
2GB of files storage
Online search of the 5 most popular databases
Webpage reference capture
Key DOs and DON’Ts
Do:
– Be methodical
• Think and plan
• Keep a proper record first time
– Ask for help if you need it
– Let us know if you have problems
Don’t:
– Panic!
– Ask the ‘experts’ until you are
familiar with your subject and
have identified what you need
to know
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