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Defining Your Topic
Selecting Appropriate Sources of Information
References
Up-to-Date Information
Evaluating Information
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Defining Your Topic
1. Identify your research task.
Most often this will be an assignment question, set as part of the
assessment for your course.
For example: "Security concerns prevent Australian businesses
taking up the opportunities offered to them by the Internet"
Comment on the above statement.
2. Read the question.
In order to determine what the question is asking you it is useful to read
the question through a few times (even read it out loud!). This helps you
to pick out the main emphasis of the question, that is, what you are really
being asked.
3. State your topic as a series of questions.
This will help you focus on the question and guide your research.
Taking the example quoted above:
WHO: Australian businesses
WHAT: Internet, security issues, business opportunities
WHERE: Australia
WHEN: 1990's, 2000's
4. Expanding on the key points
Think about the terms, which make up the key parts of the question. What do
they mean? How do they relate to each other?
To continue with our example:
- Security issues - what type of security
issues affect (Australian) business activities?
- Australian businesses - what type of businesses? Remember
the focus must be on Australian businesses.
- Internet opportunities - what type of business
opportunities are available to Australian businesses on the Internet?
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Selecting Appropriate Information
Selecting or choosing the most appropriate information resources to
answer your question is another step in the research process.
After you have defined what it is you have been asked you must decide
which information resources will best satisfy your query.
You will use information from a variety of sources to research your assignment.
Some of these could be books, periodicals, newspapers, and also the
Internet, which you can access through the library.
- Reference material, such as
dictionaries and encyclopaedias, can be useful for definitions and
background for your topic.
- Up-to-Date
Information is usually important to present the most recent
information available.
- Statistics
can help support your point of view.
The information you need will come from a variety of sources:
- The Library
Catalogue will help you find books, periodicals, videos
and audio cassettes.
- Databases and
Periodical Indexes will help you to find articles from
newspapers and periodicals
- An Introduction to
the Internet will help you get started on the Internet
Don’t
forget that whatever resources you use for your research you may need to
name them in your assignment, so you need to keep details of all the
resources you use. See the section on Bibliography
Presentation to check what details you will need.
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References
You will need to check the meanings of any words in your assignment with
which you are unfamiliar or don’t fully understand.
Dictionaries, Encyclopaedias and Handbooks will help you.
Encyclopaedias will provide background and general information on any
topic, with articles written by experts in the field. They may be general,
such as World Book Encyclopaedia, or specialist, such as The Illustrated
Encyclopaedia of Animals.
Many encyclopaedia articles include brief lists of additional reading which
can help get you started. They are readily available from most libraries,
usually for use in the library only.
Many titles are available on CD-ROM. Some, such as Encyclopaedia Britannica are now
available on the Internet. Other reference material available on the
Internet can be found here.
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Up-to-Date Information
Newspapers
The most current published information available is in newspapers. Copies
of The Age, The Australian, The Herald Sun and the Australian Financial Review can be found at most
libraries. Newspapers are also available on the Internet, Australian
newspapers are found here
and some archives are accessible online or on CD-ROM in some libraries.
Periodicals
Current information can also be found in weekly magazines such as Newsweek and Time Magazine which are held in most
libraries.
Internet
News services on the Internet such as the ABC, NineMSN and
CNN provide bulletins throughout the day.
Statistics
Statistics are compiled by governments and many other groups and
organisations. They can be used in your assignments to support your
arguments, but you should make sure that they are produced by a recognised
source.
The following sources are available from most libraries.
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Evaluating Information
With the development and growth of the Internet the information
available on any topic is phenomenal. Before you cite or use any
information you find in your assignment you need to evaluate the
information
The following points are important when evaluating any information you
find.
Is it Relevant?
Look at the information you have found in relation to your research topic.
Does it deal with the main topic?
Does it cover the country and time period you have been asked to discuss?
Is the language applicable - not too basic or specialised?
Is the source appropriate? You may have been asked to use 'primary sources'
such as newspapers, interviews, original documents, or 'secondary sources', which are
publications that interpret original materials.
Is it Reliable?
Check to see if the author's qualifications and the organisation involved
is given in the publications. If this information is not provided, the
publication may not be from a reliable source.
Are the sources of the facts given? For example, do the statistics come
from a reliable source such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics?
With information on the Internet in particular, there is a high percentage
of sponsorship by companies and other organisations. Groups such as
political, religious and environmental movements may only present facts
that support their point of view.
The information may still be very useful to you, but if it is advertising
material, politically biased, or propaganda, you need to be aware of this.
Material considering different viewpoints, which acknowledges the resources
used in putting the document together, might be of more use in your
assignment.
Anyone can publish anything on the Internet so be wary of personal web pages
if you know nothing about the author. Looking at the domain in the URL (web
address) may tell you if the author is associated with any organisation.
- .edu: school, college or
university
- .gov: government body
- .com: commercial
This may give you some guidance towards the reliability of the site.
Is it Up-to-Date?
The publication date of the material you have found may be an important
consideration, depending on the topic you are researching. In areas such as
history, art and literature, information published many years ago may still
be extremely valuable.
However, in rapidly changing areas such as computing, biological sciences
and business you will need to find information in recently published books,
periodicals or on the Internet.
Generally you can check the age of the information by looking at:
1. The date that the book was published (usually on the title page)
2. Date of issue of the periodical
3. Date that the webpage was updated (though it is not always given)
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Books
Is it reliable?
Check the Table of Contents and read the title of the chapters contained in
the book. Flip through the first few pages of a chapter and check the
language and style of the text. Check the preface at the beginning for a
brief outline of the coverage and the main arguments being presented.
Periodical and Newspaper Articles
Is it Relevant?
Read through the first and last paragraphs to get some idea of the content.
Some periodical articles will have an abstract or summary at the beginning
of the article, so you can see whether it will be useful for your research.
Is it Reliable?
The article may contain a brief introduction by the editor of the
periodical, which will tell you about the article and its author. This
could indicate how well the author is regarded by others in the field.
Some periodicals, often the more academic titles, include a bibliography at
the end of the article, to acknowledge the sources used to prepare the
article. This can be useful to find more information and provide further
reading for your topic.
Check the author's credentials - what qualifications and experience does he/she have? Do they represent a company or governing
body? This information can be found at the beginning or end of articles.
Is it Up-to-Date?
Sometimes the articles in periodicals and newspapers will be reprinted,
having been published earlier, so read the text carefully.
An article which includes statistical information should indicate the
source of those statistics and the date of collection. This may be in the
text, or in footnotes at the end of the article. Be very careful using
statistics in your assignments if you do not know who has collected and
published them.
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The Internet
Is it Reliable?
Anyone with a computer and Internet access can publish material on the web,
so the quality of information varies widely and there may be some bias in
the presentation.
Information put on the Internet by organisations may be very useful to you,
but it may also be just advertising and promotion, so find out the purpose
of the site. If you want to use the information from the Internet for your
course it needs to be from a reliable source.
Names of authors and those responsible for the site appear on the homepage
of each site. Many have an email address, and invite you to contact them
for more details. This facility adds credibility because it shows the
authors are prepared to be accountable for the information they provide on
the site.
Check the URL, because the domain indicates the type of organisation
responsible for the site (edu, org, gov). As an
example, information from an educational institution may be more reliable
than that found on a personal webpage, and Australian information may be
more relevant than information published elsewhere in the world for your
assignment.
Is it Up-to-Date?
The initial search results screen which lists Internet sites and their
summaries usually gives a date. This may be the date of the last revision,
or when the page was published on the web. It is a good idea to always go
to the site and check. Information on the Internet may seem very current,
but it can be out of date and therefore irrelevant. Information at the end
of the site usually gives the name of the person responsible and the date
last updated.
As with books and articles, pages on the Internet should acknowledge their
sources, especially for statistics. Tables, graphs and other statistics
should include dates and sources of information, and should be referenced
at the end of the page. If this information is not provided it will be
difficult to verify your data, so use any such material with caution.
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