Guidelines
When you have posed your hypothesis or question, check your department’s guidelines:
- How long should the assignment be?
- What is the deadline?
- What other requirements are there (presentation, referencing, bibliography, etc.)?
Basic research
Start with basic reading to get an overview of the topic and the current issues surrounding it. Keep the question in mind as you do your initial research:
- Lecture and seminar notes.
- Relevant chapters in core textbooks.
- Frequently cited and recent articles.
- Websites: The internet is a hugely valuable resource for research, but remember to verify that the information you have located is academically reliable.
You can think of this first research phase as 'dipping your toes in the water.' It's helpful to get a sense of the overall landscape before investing too much time unpicking highly complex, sprawling literature.
Detailed research
When you are familiar with the basics, move on to more advanced texts where you will find detail on the variety of academic opinions on a given topic and suitable supporting evidence:
- Articles in academic journals (use your Library Search account to get started).
- Texts referred to by your lecturers or supervisor.
- References in core texts (you can expand your reading by checking footnotes, endnotes and bibliographies of core texts to find related work and sources).
- General and specialist databases (check your Library subject page for databases suggested for your discipline).
Be selective
It is essential to always make sure your examples are relevant to the topic in hand. Keep the question in mind, and check the relevance of the material you read and note down.
