When you’re at university, you have to do research. Whatever you study, chances are you’ll spend some time looking through books at the library– or, more likely, browsing the online catalogue searching for sources.
For some of us, research may be exciting: it’s a time to learn more about a new topic, and dive deeper into a subject we love. For others, research may be incredibly confusing, time-consuming, and difficult.
Wherever you fall on this spectrum: you’re not alone. The truth is that even students who love research sometimes find it challenging to find just the right sources for their upcoming assignment.
In this Lightning Session, our colleague from the Library walks us through two of the most common research struggles:
- Too Many Sources
- Too Few Sources
Watch the video for a full explanation (complete with a screen-sharing demonstration), or keep scrolling for our top tips.
[Note: To skip the intro, jump straight to 05:25.]
Challenge 1: Too Few Sources
Sometimes it’s hard to find enough pertinent sources for our essay. Especially when we’re working on really specific topics, it can be difficult to find sources that directly address our topic.
For instance, if your essay question is: “To what extent is Draco Malfoy the archetypal antihero in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child?” then a good first step would be to type the keywords, “Draco Malfoy,” “antihero” and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” into the library search.
If you did this, however, you wouldn’t come up with a single result. It’s far too specific. Instead, it’s better to use just a few of the keywords, or to modify them slightly. For instance, you could try “Draco Malfoy” and “Harry Potter” or “antihero” and “Harry Potter.”
If you can’t find enough sources, use fewer keywords or make them more general. Then, be open-minded with the sources you find. Maybe an article on “Heroism in Harry Potter” doesn’t look like exactly what you want, but give it a skim-read anyways. There’s a good chance at least part of the article will be relevant to your topic!
Additionally, once you’ve found one relevant article, make sure to look at its footnotes and bibliography. Chances are, at least some of these sources will be relevant to you, and they might not have immediately come up in the search engine.
Challenge 2: Too Many Sources
Perhaps a bigger problem is too many sources. Especially when we’re assigned quite a broad topic (perhaps, “Is Harry Potter a Hero?”) a library search for our basic keywords can literally return millions of results!
The good news is that the Library search sorts results automatically by relevance, so there’s no need to scroll through every source (though it is worth going through at least a few pages, to make sure nothing important has gotten buried).
If you’ve got too many results, you can use the filters on the right side of the library search to cut your results down to only the most relevant. Helpful filters may include:
- Peer Reviewed journals (only journals that have been properly vetted by other academics)
- Resource type (books, journals, conference proceedings, etc…)
- Subject (Humanities, social sciences, etc…)
- Date (select a date range)
Using filters can cut your results down from thousands to hundreds. They can even reduce your results to nothing at all, so it’s good to be careful! Don’t immediately apply certain filters, and it’s always worth experimenting with different combinations of filters, rather than putting them all on at once.
If you’re still struggling with too many sources, it’s worth trying some of the features in the advanced search function, such as limiting your search to article titles, for instance.
We hope these tips are helpful as you start researching your next assignment! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email us at asc@dundee.ac.uk.