Identifying Relevant Literature Prof Dr Levent Altinay

The roles of the literature in research The entire basis of the research A source of ideas on topics for research A source of information on research already done by others A source of methodological or theoretical areas A source of comparison between your research and that of others A source of information that is an integral or supportive part of the research – e.g vital statistical data

Sources of Information Documentary: Written: Books, Journals, thesis or dissertations, Newspapers, Organisation’s records such as personnel s, letters, minutes of the meetings etc. Non-written: Television and radio, taped interviews, video-taped observations. Survey Based: Government surveys, organisation surveys, academics’ surveys.

Planning the literature search Defining parameters; Generating key words and search terms.

Defining Parameters Language of publication (for example English); Subject area (for example finance); Business sector (for example hospitality and tourism); Geographical area (for example Europe); Publication period (for example the last 10 years): Literature type (for example refereed journals and books).

Generating Key Words Key words: Basic terms that describe your research question (s) and objectives Initial reading Discussing your ideas as widely as possible.

Evaluating the relevance of literature Will it enable you to answer your research questions and achieve research objectives? How recent is the item? Does the item support or contradict your arguments? For either it will probably be worth reading!

Locating your Literature library procedures (borrowing, renewing, returning, reserving, fines, short loans, etc.), ID cards opening hours and security systems (Athens DA for remote access) interlibrary loans OPAC - online public access catalogues

Electronic Databases (journals) EBSCOhost Emerald IngentaConnect Sage Premier ScienceDirect Blackwell Synergy (12 months embargo) A-to-Z e-journals service

Electronic Databases (market reports) Mintel Reuters Euromonitor market research reports on particular products or services and provide a wide variety of market information: –sales, market trends, advertising figures, distribution, brands, the companies involved and customer profiles

Electronic Databases (Company Reports) EBSCOhost Infotrac Proquest Newspapers For financial information (company accounts and share prices): FAME -Financial Analysis Made Easy Thomson One Banker Analytics

Google Scholar

Let’s start from Oxford Brookes Homepage: 1) From here click on the “Library” link

You are the Oxford Brookes Library Homepage: 1) From here click on the “Catalogue” link

You are now in the Catalogue section of the library where you can search for Book and Audiovisual Brookes!

Let’s start from Oxford Brookes Homepage: 1) From here click on the “Library” link

You are the Oxford Brookes Library Homepage: 1) From here click on the “Electronic Library” link

You are now in the “Electronic Library” where you can search for Specific Electronic Databases, E-journals, Electronic Newspapers etc. Let’s look at databases: 1) Click on the “Databases” Link

You are now in the databases section where you can browse for databases in alphabetical order or search for a specific database. As we are looking for the “Emerald Database in this tutorial we can either click on “E” or search by typing “Emerald” in the search box emerald

You are now presented with two choices: on-campus and off-campus connection. For this example we are assuming we are on-campus so: 1) Click on “On-campus: connect to Emerald fulltext

You are now in the Emerald Fulltext database homepage. Please note that most databases will present you with some form of “quick-search” screen which is a good starting point, however there are options to refine your search by going to “advanced search”

Brainstorming Key Words What is, in one sentence, my research topic? What are the words that are ‘core’ in this topic? What are some relevant words, synonyms and broader or narrower terms? How can I combine them so that they can still make sense? Are there any known theories linked with these combinations? How can I bring these in the context I want to research it? Are there any different versions (English or American) in these words?

Example “how well has economic crisis been managed by the service industry” start broadening the term “economic crisis” : crisis. “managed” may lead you to crisis management. Combining them: crisis management, economic “retailing, professional services, hospitality, tourism (industry)” hotel(s), hotel chains, hotel organisations, accommodation, catering – lodging “organisation” / “organization”, Colour /color, etc.

Constructing Search Strings a line of text that consists on a combination of key words that sum up what you are looking for –Boolean search (with the use the Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT)

Exercise Read the abstract handed out to you, identify the keywords and find 5 journal papers (references) that you think are relevant to the research topic described.