Trek 2:
Finding keywords
Trek 3:
Understanding your reading list
Trek 4:
Using the library catalogue 1
Trek 5:
Using the library catalogue 2
Trek 6:
Finding journal articles
Trek 7:
Searching the WWW
Trek 8:
Evaluating resources
Trek 9:
Referencing
Trek 10:
Using library services from home
Feedback
Send the InfoTrekk team your comments
This is the first stage of your InfoTrekk and is really one of the most important! It's often very hard to know just where to start when you've been given your first assignment. This Trek will help you prepare before you begin searching for information by making you look carefully at your topic. After you've worked your way through it, test yourself with the InfoTrekker Quiz!
What is your topic?
What is a concept?
Understand your question
Begin by analysing your question.
What are the important aspects of the question?
Pick out the main ideas - these will be the basis for your literature search.
Sometimes, if your topic is hard to analyse, it can help to rephrase it as a question. Take this essay topic, for example:
"Many experts in the information technology field believe that it is futile to try to develop effective protection against computer viruses because detection always lags behind the development of viruses. Discuss."Phrased as a question, this could become:
"Can effective protection against computer viruses be developed?"This makes it much easier to recognise the main ideas:
"Can effective protection against computer viruses be developed?"
Concepts describe the main idea or ideas in an assignment. A concept or idea may be expressed by a single word or several closely related words.
As we have seen, the question:
"Can effective protection against computer viruses be developed?"has two main ideas or concepts: protection and computer viruses.
How many concepts can you see in this question?
"What safety measures need to be considered by management in the storage of hazardous chemicals?"Did you find three concepts?:
safety measures
storage
hazardous chemicals
In working out the main concepts of a question, you can disregard the 'extra' words, but you DO need to make sure you understand exactly what is required of you. These instructional words tell you what to do and what type of material to look for.
For example if a question starts with:
"Discuss recent developments in ..... "
you know that you should look for up-to-date resources.
Remember that sometimes you will be asked to limit your search to one type of resource. For example, you may be asked to look for newspaper articles only, and you'll need to keep this in mind as you plan your library search.
Once you've worked out your concepts and you know what the requirements of the question are, your next step is to think of some alternative terms or KEYWORDS for each of the concepts so that your search will be more effective.
The next Trek, Finding Keywords will discuss finding precise terms for searching, but try our Quiz first to see if you now understand more about concepts!
Click on the first Quiz heading above to go to the InfoTrekker Quiz! (Click on the "text version" of the Quiz if your software won't read JavaScript. )
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