Skip to Main Content
QUL logo

GPHY 368 Environments and Society

This guide is will help you research information for your critical review esearch paper.

Steps in Research Process

  1. Read your research paper assignment carefully
  2. If you're not sure where to start, consult the dictionaries and the encyclopedias listed under Reference Materials
  3. Reflect on various aspects of your research topic
  4. Determine which questions you're attempting to answer
  5. Think of synonyms and related terms that apply to your topic
  6. Consider using thesauri (e.g. Oxford) if you need help identifying good keywords
  7. Start your research in the library catalogue, key databases or other relevant resources
  8. Depending on your search results, narrow or broaden your searches by adding/removing keywords, using search operators etc.
  9. Evaluate the documents that you find as well as the sources of information
  10. Keep a record of keywords that you used and information that you located
→ Please do not hesitate to contact me at any stage of your research! ←

Search Operators

 

Boolean logic
AND, OR, NOT

 e.g. If you type Victorian AND garden, you will find documents that contain both keywords.

Quotation marks
"____"    

 e.g. If you type "garden city" in quotation marks, you will find documents that contain this phrase.

Truncation
*

e.g.   If you type manufactur*, you will find documents that contain the words manufacture, manufactured, ...

Wildcard
?         

e.g. The question mark (?) will match any one character and can be used to find Olsen or Olson by searching for Ols?n.

Operators may vary from database to database: consult specific database help pages for more information.