1. Information Services and Systems Criminology Dissertation October 2013

2. Information Services and Systems Are you feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of doing a literature search for your dissertation? 1.Yes 2.No 3.A bit!

3. Information Services and Systems How do I begin a literature search?

4. Information Services and Systems By devising a search strategy

5. Information Services and Systems How do I devise a search strategy? 1.Identify any limitations 2. Think about your topic & identify your keywords

6. Information Services and Systems Devising a search strategy: how to tackle it Limitations? Will there be any geographical limits Will there be any time limits i.e. how far back do you want to search

7. Information Services and Systems Devising a search strategy: how to tackle it Identifying keywords? Think about your topic & select terms/keywords that best describe or express it

8. Information Services and Systems Let’s look at an example…. This is our topic: ‘Support for families with problems in the UK, specifically Wales’ What terms best describe this topic? What are the key concepts?

9. Information Services and Systems Topic: Support for families with problems in the UK, specifically Wales Concept 1Concept 2Concept 3Concept 4 problemsfamiliessupportUK, Wales

10. Information Services and Systems What other keywords/terms could be used…. Think about: Broader/more general terms Narrower/more specific terms Related terms Synonyms

11. Information Services and Systems Topic: Support for families with problems in the UK, specifically Wales Concept 1Concept 2Concept 3Concept 4 problemsfamiliessupportUK, Wales conflictparentsinterventionUK/GB dysfunctionhomesconflict resolutionWales/Welsh disruptionchildrenparent trainingUnited Kingdom Domestic violencesiblingsGreat Britain illness alcoholism

12. Information Services and Systems Don’t worry the snowball effect will occur …..

13. Information Services and Systems Keep a record

14. Information Services and Systems I have a search strategy – what’s next?

15. Information Services and Systems To get the best out of a search strategy you need to control how you use your search terms These search tools will help: Combining terms using AND, OR, NOT Using the Phrase Search Using the Truncation Symbol Using the Wildcard Symbol

16. Information Services and Systems AND AimSearch ExamplesResults To focus your search results & Link your terms problems AND families dysfunction AND child conflict AND homes Only retrieves results containing both keywords

17. Information Services and Systems OR AimSearch ExamplesResults To broaden your search results & OR will help you to search for related terms & synonyms conflict OR problems intervention OR conflict resolution Children OR siblings Retrieves results containing either of your keywords

18. Information Services and Systems NOT AimSearch ExamplesResults To exclude a term from your search Wales NOT Australia sibling NOT twins Will exclude records containing the second term

19. Information Services and Systems Phase search Use quotation marks “ ” to keep keywords together e.g. “child protection” “elder abuse” “British association of social work”

20. Information Services and Systems Truncation symbol * child* child children childhood

21. Information Services and Systems Wildcard symbol ? Behavio?r BehaviourBehavior

22. Information Services and Systems I have received too few results: what should I do? 1.Use the Boolean operator AND 2.Use the Boolean operator OR 3.Give up!

23. Information Services and Systems Too few results? Try … Check the thesaurus; terminology can differ Use the truncation symbol Combine your keywords with OR

24. Information Services and Systems Too many results? Try … adding additional search terms with AND use more specific keywords use refining/filter menus within the search tool

25. Information Services and Systems Do you know what peer-reviewed journals are? 1.Yes 2.No

26. Information Services and Systems Choosing the right search tool: where to start? You can use iFind Research to: To locate journal articles if you have the full reference To search for articles on a topic Select & access key databases & resources for your topic

27. Information Services and Systems Do you agree with this statement: “A good literature review gathers information from many sources” 1.Yes 2.No 3.Don’t know

28. Information Services and Systems Sources of information to consider Books Journal articles Reports Newspaper articles Official publications Statistical information

29. Information Services and Systems Where will you search for your information? 1.Books & Journals 2.Academic database 3.Library catalogue 4.Google 5.iFind Research 6.All of the above

30. Information Services and Systems How often do you use Google to look up information for your Academic work? 1.All of the time 2.Some of the time 3.Hardly ever

31. Information Services and Systems Choosing the right search tool It’s not a good idea to rely on Google Google has many disadvantages -you will receive an unmanageable number of results -will give irrelevant & inappropriate results -not everything will be free of charge -there is no quality control

32. Information Services and Systems Evaluating Web Resources : Key questions to ask : The Five Ws Who wrote the information? What is the purpose of the site? When was the content created? Where does the information come from? Why is this information useful to me?

33. Information Services and Systems Why academic databases are a better choice Indexing is entrusted to people not search engines They index academic quality publications e.g. Journal articles, Conference papers A large proportion of the content is from peer reviewed journals

34. Information Services and Systems Further help: Library Support for Criminology on Blackboard (under “My Studies”)

35. Information Services and Systems Need help? Just ask! buslib@swansea.ac.uk /swanuni.iss@swanuni_iss http://buseconlib.wordpress.com/