Library Guides: MHP314 Research Skills Guide: Plan your search

Your assessment task

It is important to break down the requirements of your assessment task before you start searching for information so that you can plan your approach.

Let's take a look at the subject outline:

Assessment item 3 - Annotated Bibliography

Annotate 5 peer reviewed journal articles on a contemporary indigenous health topic that has impact on the social and emotional wellbeing of family and lifestyles.

At first you may feel a little overwhelmed by all of these requirements. However, with some thought and planning, you can come up with a research plan that will suit this assessment task.

Topic analysis

Let's start thinking about what terms you will use when searching for information. To do this:

Identify the key concepts of your topic (watch the topic analysis video for assistance); and then
Brainstorm as many synonyms and similar terms/phrases as you can.

This is a useful exercise because the language used to describe your topic may vary from source to source, and you don't want to miss out on a good source because it uses a different term to the one you are searching on.

Let's use Assessment 3 as an example:

Keyword	Synonym/Similar term or phrase	Search tips
Mental health	mental health, mental illness, mental disorder, psychiatric disorder	"mental health", "mental illness", "mental disorder", "psychiatric disorder"
Indigenous	Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, First Nations	Aborigin*, “Torres Strait Islander”, "First Nations"
Social and emotional wellbeing	Family, Lifestyle, wellbeing, social aspects	Famil*, “social aspects”