The Research Process
The Process
One thing I want to stress is that this is a time consuming process; don′t expect to spend 20 minutes
on your literature review before class and do a good job. But, if you do this well, if you go
through this process properly, and get your resources, and get the information you need to do
your research all at once, your research work will go much more smoothly. You do not want to
be in the position of getting halfway through your project only to discover that it's been
done or studied by 50 other people, and it's completely passe, outdated, and old hat.
You want to be up on the latest research in your field, and base your work on that newest work.
1. Your first step is to have a basic idea of what subject you want to research.
Notice I said a basic idea. Your research has to be based upon the research of others,
so you can not and should not have a finished research idea
until after you have done your literature review.
This has the added benefit that you will not have committed
to a research hypothesis and then find that the library has no resources for you.
2. Your second step is to identify what preliminary sources you will need to look in.
You are probably already familiar with the online catalog. I hope you are also familiar
with the main databases for Design. But design is a complex subject that draws on many
subject areas. At the research level you should NOT be limiting yourself to only those
standard design sources. You will need to look in indexes like Dissertation Abstracts,
which describes doctoral dissertations, to find what other research has been done on
your topic. And you'll need to look in indexes outside of design that may be related
to your topic. For example, if your basic interest is sustainability, you should also
be looking in science or ecology indexes. If you are interested in some aspect of
design and health, you will need to look into health or medical indexes as well.
If you are interested in community design, you will be looking into social sciences
indexes. NC State Libraries subscribe to hundreds of indexes, and you will need to
look over that list of indexes and decide what is relevant to your topic.
3. Once you've identified the indexes you want to look in, you'll need to decide
what terms to search with. One thing I would strongly recommend is that you sit down
and try to think of all the appropriate terms that would describe your topic. You may
also want to look in the Library of Congress Subject Headings to find out what terms
have been used to describe your topic. The Library of Congress Subject Headings books
are 5 large red volumes in Design Library reference (call number Z695.Z8 L524a) and in
the main library reference. It′s very easy for people to fall into the habit of using
the latest buzzword, and not realize that not every profession, not every group of
people, will necessarily categorize that topic in those terms.
Get Started
When you′ve identified your basic topic, identified the indexes to use, and thought
about the terms to use, it′s time to start with your literature review. There are
a few basic indexes you should automatically look in; first and foremost,
the online catalog. At this point, when you are beginning a search, you want
to be as broad in your focus as you can; you want to find everything you
can possibly find on your topic. We′ll use "sustainability" as an example:
Do a keyword search for "sustainability" in online catalog; you should end up
with nearly 1000 records. But look at the records; some will not be what you want,
some will be sort of what you want, and others will fit exactly with what you′re
looking for. For those that fit exactly, look at the full record for the item.
You want to mine as much information from this record as you possibly can; look
at the subject headings, look at the author, look at the title, the notes fields,
and so on. These are all clues to how your subject is cataloged or treated
in the online catalog. Click on the subject headings; these will lead you
to other books in your topic. Click on the author; scholars and experts
generally stick to one topic and you want to become familiar with the people
working in your area. Look at the title; how does it describe your topic;
are there phrases or synonyms for your topic that you hadn't thought of
or considered? The same with the notes field if there is one; look at the
chapter headings, look at descriptions of the book; try to get a sense of
what this book is really about, and see if it uses words or synonyms you hadn't thought of.
Once you′ve started on your search, you will probably want to try several
terms together; for example, sustainability and architecture, sustainable and
design, and so on. Use the Advanced version of the online catalog, and look at
the information below about Advanced Keyword Searching; it′s based on the help
screens for the advanced catalog. Be sure in any database you use, that you check
out the help screens and find all of the different techniques you can use to make
your searching easier.
Keep Everything
You should also print out or email to yourself ALL the records that are relevant to your topic.
Don′t worry about the amount of information you collect; don't worry about
being too scrutinizing at this point. You are building a resource of information
for yourself. You don't know yet what your exact final topic will be, so you want
to collect as much detailed information as possible about the relevant items.
You also don′t want to have to do this search again, so don′t just write down
call numbers; print out the records or email them to yourself and keep the complete information.
Or, you can download the information into Endnotes software directly
from the catalog or from some of the databases. Check out
the library′s webpage on Citation management software:
http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/risd/guides/citems.html or contact
Katherine Dexter Willis if you have questions : katherine_dexter@ncsu.edu
Narrow and Broaden
Once you′ve searched in the online catalog, and the main databases for design,
there are two things to do at this point; narrow your topic, and broaden your
search. There′s no hard and fast rule on when to do this; but fairly early on,
you will either find you can′t find anything, or you′re finding too much. If you
can′t find anything, come and talk to the architecture library staff. There may
be several things going on:
1. We may not actually have much in this library on your topic.
But don′t assume you′ve found one until you′ve talked to me
and we′ve looked for stuff together.
2. You may not be searching for the right subject heading,
or may be spelling something wrong, or some other simple thing.
Again, come talk to me about it.
If you find too much, and this is more usual, you′ll need to narrow your
topic down to the particular aspect you′re interested in.
You′ll also want to broaden where you search. Why broaden it? You′ve already found
900-some books. Well, because broadening it is the step that transforms what you′re
doing from writing a paper to actually doing research. If you′re just writing a paper,
you find the first 3 or 4 books on your subject, throw together something
the night before, and hand it in. If you′re really concerned about research,
you have to search EVERYWHERE for EVERYTHING on your topic.
There′s a couple reasons for this: for one thing, you won′t
win any points from your advisors by doing research that has
already done and is already accepted as fact. And two, your research
has to be informed by, and built on, the research that has gone before.
You need to be able to demonstrate to your professors, advisors, and so on,
that you know what other people have already done, and show that your work is
an extension of that.
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