Examine the original reason for starting the literature review, whether it is a course assignment or thesis work. Does your chosen topic meet the criteria of the project? If so, great, it's time to start your literature review. If not, you need to rethink your topic until it does.
Use a thesaurus for generating terms. Here are links to useful thesauri:
Now you know enough about your topic to talk about it for a couple of minutes. But often times our topics start out broad and as we learn more, we begin to hone in on a particular aspect of the subject. Other times we come to a project with a very specific idea, and have to broaden our research in order to make connections. We have to "research around" the topic.
Step 2 will help you to:
When you first pick a topic, it's a good idea to brainstorm possible search terms related to your topic. You may want to create search log in a Google Document or another document where you can make note of database(s) used and your successful searches. You can also save citations for promising articles.
When you find an article or resource that is relevant or close to what you're looking for, note the subject, or author-supplied keywords associated with it in your search log. You may have to do several searches before hitting upon the best search terms for your topic.
Example of narrowing a broad topic:
When beginning research, our questions or interests might be broad, such as a desire to investigate "motivation in the workplace." Here are some examples of how to narrow, focus on a sub-topic within "motivation" by:
examining a particular author or theory within research on "motivation," such as "Maslow's heirarchy of needs"
focus on a particular context to study, such as virtual teams, or particular people, like "minimum wage earners"
Example of broadening a narrow topic:
Sometimes in research one can have a very specific topic, such as "layoffs in Boise." Being so specific may provide practical relevance, but there may not be research on that specific topic. Broadening your search will help you find relevant research. For example, instead of searching only on Boise, you can broaden your search to a specific state such as Idaho, Northwest, West, or United States.
When you are searching for articles in a library database, it is different from doing a search in the Google search engine. In Google, you can type in a sentence or ask a question. In a library database, you must type in only relevant keywords or search terms, and connect them using the Boolean connectors: AND, OR and NOT.
Below are some examples using AND:
Note: You can use an asterisk at the end of a word, or the root of a word, to find variant endings.
Example: trend* will find trend, trends, trending, etc.
Below are some examples using OR:
Note: If you are using "OR" between terms, that part of your search has to be in parentheses in order for the database to interpret your search correctly.
Below is an example using NOT:
Using Quotations
Use quotations for searching for phrases, that is two or more words that you want to search together in a particular order.
Examples:
"blended learning"
"blended learning" AND trend*
Remember, refining your research topic or question is an ongoing process. As you conduct your literature review, you may find that you need to narrow or broaden your topic.
For this activity, you will brainstorm possible keywords to use when searching for articles on your topic.
Write down your research topic ........................ (fill in the blank!)
Take a moment to jot down a few search terms that you think might yield relevant results.
Let's say I pick "blending learning" as my topic. Next, brainstorm broader terms, narrower terms and synonyms to use in a search. For example:
If you're having trouble brainstorming search terms, use the thesaurus links under "Hint!" on this page.