How to research effectively
Developing a search strategy
The key to planning is to develop a search strategy that will enable you to retrieve information on the various resources that you will be using.
The first step is to look at your question and find the keywords to search on. The best way to do this is to break your question into concepts and find the relevant keywords for each concept.
Example : Discuss the issues that one would encounter when adapting a novel (e.g., the English Patient ) to film?
| Concept 1 | Concept 2 | Concept 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Novel Book |
Adaptation Film Movie Motion Picture |
English Patient Michael Ondaatje |
To make defining the issues easier here is a sheet that you can download [Download sheet]
Concepts and Keywords
There are a number of tools that can be used to help you work out the keywords for your topic, namely Dictionaries, Encyclopedias and Thesauri. You are probably familiar with the general versions of these. There are also subject specific versions [i.e Dictionary of literary terms - Fisher Reference 803/69]. To assist you we have developed a web guide that points to the main works in the English field. [ Go to the English Guide]
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