This guide is intended to help you find CMNS research related to phenomena observed during your observational assignment #1, summer 2012, in order to complete assignment #2.
If you do not find what you need, please contact Sylvia Roberts, Liaison Librarian for Communication: sroberts@sfu.ca / . I'd be pleased to consult about your research, whether it's tracking down a specific title, identifying relevant literature or managing the information flow.
Why do a literature search?
Most academic research articles
- Establish an identifiable need for your research (gap analysis)
- Situate your research question within a current intellectual context
- Increase your breadth of knowledge: key concepts, terminology, definitions, models, theoretical framework. works
- Identify opposing views
- Review relevant methodologies
Start with these article indexes:
Additional indexes for specific contexts / topics of study:
- Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text (LISTA)
- GEOBASE
- Business Source Complete
- Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts
How can I tell if something is a scholarly or academic publication?
When you use books or journal articles published by an academic or scholarly publisher, you can feel confident that the quality of the research and its presentation have been assured. This is not always true of sources that do not undergo a peer review or scholarly editorial process, such as web pages or popular magazines or newspapers.
To ensure you are using credible, high quality resources, you need to evaluate the content of the information and credentials of the author. Once you practise this for a few papers, it will become second nature to you.
Evaluate your findings
It is important to critically evaluate your readings to establish their relevance and credibility for your research topic. After all, you are basing your theoretical framework and your literature review on what you have read. You are looking for the strengths and weaknesses in what you have read to produce a critical and sound literature review.
Authority
- Who conducted the research?
- Is the author an authority in their field of study?
- What evidence is there to support this?
Validity (of research & sources)
- Where has this research come from?
- Is it from a valid source, eg an educational institution?
- Is it peer reviewed or been passed by an editorial panel, eg is it in a refereed journal?
- If it is from a website, does it contain details of author, is it from a .edu site, does it have a publication date?
Accuracy / coverage
- What is the literature about?
- Is the literature accurate and how do you know? One way to find out is to check if the same research is referred to in other sources, or is it inconsistent with other findings?
- What makes the literature believable? Is the literature from credible sources, see validity.
- Is the information complete? Based on your research so far, does the information appear to cover the area being studied?
- Is there any further research that has not been mentioned or deliberately omitted from the findings?
- In which country was the article written? Is this location relevant / important to your research?
Objectivity
- Is there evidence of bias in the article? For example, would you trust research from a cigarette manufacturer claiming that smoking does not damage your health?
- Do the statistics match those in other publications? If not, is the argument (method, research design etc) on which they are based convincing?
- How do you know the data is true? What other supporting data is there?
Currency
- What is the publication date of the material?
- Is it likely that more current information is available?
- Have you found any more recent research that casts doubt upon or refutes some findings?
- Have you checked for more recent information / research? It is advisable to have some references that are current.
Not sure if a journal is peer-reviewed?
Use Ulrich's Periodicals Directory / ulrichsweb.ca. Search for the journal title and look for the referee's jersey icon (see screen shot below).
"Refereed" is another way of saying that a journal is peer-reviewed, i.e. reviewed by experts to assure the articles are of a high standard and contribute significantly to scholarship in the field.