IDL 2.4c Documenting & Evaluating the Search Strategy

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From the course by The University of Sydney

Academic Skills for University Success: Capstone

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The University of Sydney

Academic Skills for University Success: Capstone

оценки

Course 5 of 5 in the Specialization Academic Skills for University Success

This Specialization is aimed at preparing students for undergraduate study in an English-speaking university. The course equips you for full participation and engagement with your studies by building awareness and understanding of the core values and expectations of academic culture, and providing you with practical strategies to apply to your studies. In the Capstone Project, you will apply the academic knowledge and skills you have learnt throughout courses 1-4 to research, write and present a project proposal that addresses a complex, real-world problem related to your field of interest and/or future study. After completing this course, you will be able to: 1. Apply a range of idea generation techniques 2. Apply research strategies to search, collect, select, process, and cite information 3. Use the research process to develop and critically analyse ideas 4. Apply critical thinking skills to evaluate and analyse ideas and evidence 5. Use problem-solving skills to identify gaps in knowledge and define issues 6. Develop creative and innovative solutions to real-world problems 7. Use appropriate academic genres for written texts and multi-media presentations 8. Use written and oral skills to communicate ideas effectively for academic contexts

From the lesson

RESOURCES - Optional

This module is for the resources from the other courses you have studied. There is no new, or extra, material here. You do not have to watch any of this material.

IDL 2.1a The Scholarly and Cultural Record5:56

IDL 2.1b Defining Information 27:17

IDL 2.2b Understanding different kids of information (Journal Articles)6:08

IDL 2.4a Defining an Information Need7:34

IDL 2.3a Accessing Information3:55

IDL 2.4b Developing a Search Strategy5:14

IDL 2.4c Documenting & Evaluating the Search Strategy6:45

COM 3.3a Conducting Research for Essays7:27

COM 3.3b Conducting Research for Reports and Proposals4:58

Meet the Instructors

Katherine Olston
Deputy Director (Digital Learning)
University of Sydney Centre for English Teaching
Luke Alexander
Academic Literacy Instructor and MOOC Learning Instructor
Centre for English Teaching
Lydia Dutcher
Education Manager, Graduate Programs
Centre for English Teaching
Jessica Blackburn
Academic Literacy Instructor and MOOC Learning Designer
Centre for English Teaching

[MUSIC]

In terms of thinking about what and information need is,

I think it is easiest to think about it in a practical sense.

So think about if you're in a lecture and you suddenly realize that you don't quite

understand the concept or a particular words that your lecture is talking about.

There's an information need there,

to actually get a definition of those kind of terms.

Or you could think about it, that you've got an assignment and

you realize that you don't have the background information to complete it.

You're not sure how to go about researching and

looking for books and journal articles.

So again, there's an information need there.

So you need to know how to go about finding information

as well as actually accessing it to rate and complete your assignment.

So in a simple term I think these

are scenarios all relate to how having an information need.

And essentially, I think it's about you don't have the answer.

However, you're motivated enough that you want to find out the answer and

you want to learn more about something.

[MUSIC]

I think it's important to document and

evaluate your search strategy because it's really going to save you time and

help you to efficiently complete your assignment or whatever task it is.

So in terms of documenting your strategy, you will have already thought about your

topic keywords to search and the kind of places you can go and find that material.

So you could look at your course notes,

you could check a search engine like Google, you could go to the library and

look at the online database.

So you could check the catalog for books, you could look, search a database for

journal articles.

So because you're doing searches across a lot of different formats,

it's really useful to document what you do.

So that way you can refined your search and

you haven't forgotten what you've done.

You're not going back and repeating what you've done.

So it's really useful just to write down so

that your search is particular beta database or

you've check your notes and you found this kind of information and you used this kind

of keywords to find, so what you've tried and if you found anything.

And then I think the next step is to actually check individual records.

So if you've found a book record

that's on the library catalog, that you actually have a look at it online.

Or a journal article that you read, you have a quick scan of it online.

And so that way you can see if it's relevant.

So you can rate perhaps the first chapter.

You can look, often records have keywords and

you can see if those keywords are similar to what your topic is.

So that's a really good way to see if they're relevant.

There are some strategies that you can, I mean you can change your strategy.

So for instance, if you start a search and you find you're not getting

relevant information, it may be because your keywords are too broad.

And you're just getting a lot of information.

So you might want to make them more specific.

So you could for instance, instead of searching for

something about education You could search for undergraduate students.

So that's bringing it down and making it very specific.

So you will only get results related to undergraduate students.

So that's a way of narrowing your search.

Another way of doing it is if you're not getting enough information,

maybe you need to make your search terms more general.

So maybe you're looking for something

in Australia and maybe that's too broad and it's not getting very many results.

You could be more specific and just search for material related to New South Wales.

So it's about changing the parameters.

Of your search depending on your results.

And really I just recommend it's about trying and doing that.

Because sometimes it can be trial and

error the first time you use particular applications.

So then finally, I think once you've thought and

you've refined your search in various ways, you can start thinking about,

well Do I want the most recent material?

So I might want to limit by date range.

You might only want to find materials, so journal

articles that are full text online, and that you don't actually have to go and

find the actual physical, Journal in the library.

So you can limit in various ways and that will help you to refine your strategy.

[MUSIC]

Thinking about your search strategy,

it's really useful to think about how you're going to manage your time.

So at university you will have a lot of competing courses and assessments to do.

So it's really important to use your time effectively.

So I get asked about this all the time with students, so I think

it's really important to remember what your actual assignment or your task is.

So if you only have to find three articles, then spend the time searching,

as soon as you have found what you think are your relevant three articles stop,

because it's very easy to keep looking for better and better sources.

However, you have a time limit.

And thinking about that,

it's also really useful to think about how much is your assessment worth?

So if it's worth 10%, maybe you're not going to spend so

much time on that compared to if you have an assignment that's worth 50%.

So in terms of managing your time,

I think it's really useful to think about those tips.

[MUSIC]

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