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ITC598 Research Skills Guide: Identify & plan

Identifying what you need

Planning an effective search strategy can save you time and retrieve more relevant results.

At this first stage, you need to work out:

  • what the assessment is asking you to do
  • how you are going to search for answers to the question

If you are confused or unsure about the assessment topic, ask your lecturer or tutor who will be happy to talk it through with you.

Topic Analysis

A topic analysis will help you to clarify and understand what your assessment question is asking you to do.

You will generally be given three key pieces of information:

  1. The key topic or concept words direct you in what to research.
  2. The limits or qualifiers tell you the specific focus of the topic or concept.
  3. The task or instruction terms tell how you are to deal with the content. Check this list of explanations for common instruction words.

Let's look at a hypothetical assessment task:

Prepare and write a report on one of the following topics:

  • Algorithms in Social Media
  • Non-Fungible Tokens 
  • Biases in Artificial Intelligence
  • 3D Printing 

In your report you must discuss issues raised by your selected topic and provide practical recommendations. Use information sources published in the last three years to support your discussion and recommendations.

Instruction words prepare, write, discuss, recommend
Qualifying words & phrases last 3 years
Key concepts

algorithms in social media; non-fungible tokens; biases in artificial intelligence; 3D printing 

Keyword activity

Write down the key concepts from your topic and have a go at brainstorming as many alternative keywords and phrases as possible.

Thinking about your topic in this way forces you to describe your topic in "other words", which will provide you with some useful keyword alternatives as well as help you to cement your understanding of the topic.

Find additional keywords

Dictionaries and encyclopaedias can help you to find additional keywords and get an overview of the concept.

Oxford Reference Online is a huge repository of subject-specific dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and other reference-type material.

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