Writing your assignment
Extend your search
As you are developing a plan for your assignment, you might notice that there are some gaps in your knowledge or that you don’t have enough evidence to support your argument. It’s important to remember that you won't find everything you need in your first round of searching – you will need to allow enough time for several cycles of plan, search, review, read and – search! This chapter looks at extending your search by using Google Scholar and Library Databases. For information about starting your search in the Library Catalogue, you can visit ‘Start your search’.
Do targeted reading
Now that understand the key ideas, issues, theories and debates related to the topic, you can start your targeted reading which is the final stage of the reading process. Using your knowledge of the topic area, you can refine your search via the Library catalogue, Google Scholar or the Library databases. Use different combinations of keywords or apply limits (filters) to your search.
Watch the video
Video length: 1 minute, 21 seconds
Key points from the video
- Google scholar advanced search allows you to easily organise your search concepts.
- The exact phrase box searches for phrases in the same way using double quotation marks (" ") does.
- The at least one of the words box helps broaden your search.
- The all of the words box helps narrow your search.
- You can limit by date range to see more recent results.
- The Fulltext at UniSA link will display next to a result held in the Library Catalogue.
- If there is no Fulltext at UniSA link, you can still double check the Catalogue by searching for the article title.
- For more information, check out the Learn to Search Google Scholar interactive tutorial (10 minutes).
Click on the links below for more information about Google Scholar:
- Power Searching with Google Course (link)
- Google cheat sheet (pdf)
Remember, not everything in Google Scholar is scholarly, so you will need to evaluate the information you find!
Learn about advanced searching techniques
It is important to search broadly to ensure you find a range of relevant academic literature to support your arguments. The interactive resource below builds on the Catalogue searching techniques we covered in Plan your search. It guides you through the process of developing a comprehensive search plan and describes the range of sources you can use to find published or unpublished literature. It also demonstrates how to apply your search to a ‘library database’ (a subscribed online collection of resources), expand and narrow your results, and use two key supplemental searching techniques ('reference harvesting' and 'identifying key journals and authors') to locate additional literature.
Other useful sources to help you search
- How to find scholarly sources (pdf)
- Ebooks explained guide (link)
- Databases by category (link)
- Save time searching databases (pdf)
Having trouble finding what you need?
For more help with searching for references you can contact Ask the Library via phone, chat, or email.
