Identify key concepts
tekijä: Tuija Irmeli Oksman
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Viimeisin muutos
perjantai 06. heinäkuuta 2018, 11.04
Systematic information seeking starts with defining your topic, formulating your research questions and identifying the key concepts of your study. Finding background information is an important step when defining the topic. At this stage, you are not yet systematically searching for scientific sources for the theoretical background of your study. Instead, your main target is to get enough general knowledge about your subject to get properly started with you work.
A mind map helps you organize your thoughts and ideas, and to articulate your topic idea.
Read about the subject matter to get an overview of your topic and to clarify your approach to the subject matter. Get to know the terminology by consulting encyclopedias, reference works, handbooks, dictionaries and thesauri in databases. You should also find out what aspects of the topic have been studied before.
To formulate your research questions, think about what you want to find out about your topic. What is it you wish to ask? Research question is a question such as "How does organizational commitment impact employee wellbeing?" Research questions should be open-ended questions starting with why, what, when etc.
Topic > Research questions > Key concepts > Search terms
On this page, you'll find suggestions on where to look for background information. But first, start with the video Where do search terms come from? (4 min) shows you how to work on your search terms.
Choose English subtitles from the quotation mark icon below the video screen:
(If the video does not work below, use this link to watch the video.)
Your prior knowledge of the topic |
How did you find your topic? What was said about it? Who were referred to? |
Classics and key sources in your field | How is the topic handled in key sources, classics and other essential works in your field? |
Reference books | An excellent way of getting familiar with concepts, terminology, research traditions of your field and topic |
Review articles |
A direct route to getting to know the best sources for your topic. Pay attention to the date of publication. |
Theses and dissertations | Often include literary review and/or a summary about research tradition. |
Social media and the web | Are there any blogs or other web resources by researchers that are important for your subject matter? |
MOT-dictionaries | For finding terminology translations and synonyms |
After getting an overview of your topic and clarifying your approach, you will be able to define
A common stumbling block in information seeking is getting stuck with one or few search terms that you don't want to change. Sometimes you need to try alternatives, synonyms or narrower and broader concepts.
All electronic reference books can be accessed via JYKDOK.
How to search for encyclopedias in JYKDOK
Searching for online encyclopedic databases in JYKDOK
Review articles
Example: Use your preliminary research subject as a search term, and add "review", "literature review" or "review article". E.g.
"environmental management"
AND
review
Refer to Resources by Subject -pages to find out about recommended reference works in your academic field!
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