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ITC571 Research Skills Guide: Research your topic

Keywords and synonyms

Let's suppose you have chosen the following emerging technology to focus on for your capstone project:

What are the ethical considerations of collision avoidance systems in autonomous vehicles?

You will need to make a note of synonyms and alternative keywords that you can use to search for information on this topic. 

For example:

Concept Synonyms
autonomous vehicles self-driving cars, automated vehicles
collision avoidance driver assistance system, autonomous emergency braking, proximity detection
ethical consideration ethics, values, moral principles, social norms

Keyword mapping and search terms

Chart showing how keywords can be mapped and connected. Each topic is a branch, synonyms of that topic are grouped on the end of each branch.

Literature search cycle

This diagram illustrates the literature search cycle. It shows a circle in quarters. Top left quarter is identify main concepts with rectangle describing how to do this by identifying:controlled vocabulary terms, synonyms, keywords and spelling. Top right quarter select library resources to search and rectangle describing resources to search library catalogue relevant journal articles and other resource. Bottom right corner of circle search resources and in rectangle consider using boolean searching proximity searching and truncated searching techniques. Bottom left quarter of circle review and refine results. In rectangle evaluate results, rethink keywords and create alerts.

From research question to search strategy

Topic analysis

Charles Sturt University acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands on which its campuses are located, paying respect to Elders, both past and present, and extend that respect to all First Nations Peoples.Acknowledgement of Country

Charles Sturt University is an Australian University, TEQSA Provider Identification: PRV12018. CRICOS Provider: 00005F.