How to Find the Relevant Sources for Your Paper Quickly and Easily?
Suppose you are working on a paper on any topic, let's say business. Your first step would be to determine which are the relevant factors that are central to your topic. Next, you determine which are the relevant sources for the paper and delineate some sources that are used or could be used in the paper. In this article, I will suggest a few methods that will make it easier for you to look up for the relevant sources and also include them in your research paper.
The first step in successful literature review or collection of resources is a properly and cleverly conducted search. Yes, you must use your search engine to its maximum advantage as a powerful search tool can help you to locate the right kind of resources. Step 1 is to use the search engine to steer the research in the right direction. Using relevant search terms in the search engine will return significant number of search results and you will have to select your sources from among these search results. Thus determining your search terms for your search results and searched resources will help you to finally write a great research paper.Step 1 is this emphasis on search. At this stage you will be collecting as much information as possible and delineate all the relevant sources so that finally there will be enough material or resources for you to consider and you can select from a wide range of sources.
The second stage or Step 2 of the source identification process is to identify the most relevant search terms. Not only should you identify the search tools but also the search terms that will return a large number of research results. Once these two processes are complete, run the search. This is essentially Step 3. Use Google Scholar, Ingenta Connect, JSTOR, Pinned, Science Direct and several other related journal databases to locate the sources. Use relevant search terms that are already an integral part of your chosen research topic. For instance, if your research topic is on child abuse, your primary search term has to be on child abuse.
After the search is conducted, in Step 3 pick the resources that are most suited or relevant for your query. Some research papers are more relevant to your topic than some others. For example, if you want to conduct a study on anger management among autistic children, the most relevant research papers must be on autistic children and anger management and the relationship between these two variables.
Searching relevant sources for your research paper would vary according to your topic or subject area. For example, if you are writing a science paper, use science direct, PubMed and other science related websites and search tools. These tools will help you identify the papers for your research. You must also check all related sources in your library. Look up for the library catalog and create a list of resources you will particularly look for. Search and find the most relevant books, research papers, white papers, academic documents, corporate documents and other online and offline documents and papers that are relevant to your research.
Identifying the research topic and identifying research sources and material are the two most important steps in research and once these are achieved, you are almost a professional researcher ready with all the ammunition, so to speak,to make your research a success.
So, how exactly would you choose the most relevant papers and sources for your research and how would you use these sources? Suppose, you have a research topic - establish or determine the relationship between high intelligence and emotional stability among college students. The factors that you have to study are intelligence, emotional stability, and focus primarily on the college student population.The search terms that have to be used for the paper are 'intelligence', 'emotional stability' and 'college students'.
Once you use the correct search terms, you will run a search on the search tool which could be any number of journal databases. The search terms will generally result in a few thousand search results and from these thousands of search results, choose 50 research papers that are most relevant and exactly addresses the research question. Identifying the most relevant papers from a thousand or more search results is the most important aspect of Step 4 which is finding sources for your research.
For Step 5 create a table of the resources that you have found and note the names of the authors, research problems tackled, title of paper, methodologies followed, research findings and conclusions drawn. All these specific details of research papers are tabulated to create a comparative table on 50 most relevant research papers. In this final stage, the table is created to provide a better understanding of the research material and sources obtained. The table provides.a quick guide and brief overview of relevant issues and secondary data on which to base further research on the topic.
Researchers must be particular about using the most relevant sources for their research, because sources largely determine the quality of research and its final acceptability among the academic research community.
This blog provided a step by step detail on how to search for and use sources for your research. How would you find sources in the library? How would you use search terms relevant to your research topic to get the maximum number of results on search tools? These are some questions that you must carefully consider while looking for sources for your research. Search engines are vital to your research and research material must be easily accessible through these search engines and tools.
Researchers have to be flexible in their search terms and get maximum output from their search results. So, the process of searching relevant sources is largely dependent on factors and topics identified, researcher knowledge, interest and preferences, search tools and whether search terms are appropriate for the research topic. Refer to this site for more details on sources and the research process in general.