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Resources for Research and Doctoral Students

Search tips

A cartoon of a student building with oversized lego blocksWhen you are searching Library Search and academic databases you will have some options to make your search more effective.  This will help you if you are getting overwhelmed by the number or results or not finding anything relevant.

Use the tabs to get some expert search tips.

Start by noting down which words you will use to search.  These are known as keywords or search terms.

  • Identify any keywords or concepts from your topic/assignment title; think about any related terms.
  • Consider synonyms / similar words that might be alternatives (e.g. marketing / advertising / promotion)
  • Are there any broader terms to expand your search or more specific terms to narrow it? (e.g. teenage boy is more specific than young people)
  • Are there any variations in spelling?  Can the word have alternative endings? (e.g. behavior (US) vs behaviour (UK); advert, advertising, advertisments)
  • Are there terms that need to be kept together as a phrase? (e.g. purchasing decisions)
  • Are there any countries you want to focus on?

Filter icon, it looks like a funnelOnce you have got your search results, look for an option to filter.  This will help you to narrow down your search (fewer, more specific results).  

The icon may look like a funnel or a triangle pointing downwards.

The filters will vary depending on your search results and the database/platform you are searching.  But you may find options like these:

Full text: only show results where you can read the whole article/book (rather than just a summary).
Peer reviewed: only show results where the results are from peer-reviewed publications (meaning the content has been reviewed and examined by other experts in the field before publication).
Date range: some topics may require current research only so you can change the date range to only show recent articles/publications.
Source type: maybe you only want books or academic journals or maybe a less academic magazine? If so, you can refine your search here. You can also look for patents, news articles, or theses.
Subject: this can help narrow the results to a subfield in the topic. For instance, if you are looking for information on the Eiffel Tower you can refine the results to topics about architecture, history, tourism, and more.

 

Advanced search: AND, OR, NOT

Look for an advanced search option.  This can help you to effectively combine your keywords using linking words AND, OR and NOT (Boolean search operators), making it easier to construct advanced searches.

AND: include results that contain both search terms. This will narrow your search (fewer, more specific results).
OR: include results that contain either search term.  This will broaden your search (more results).
NOT: exclude results that contain this word.  This will narrow your search (fewer results).


Phrase searching

Use “double quotation” marks to search for a phrase e.g. “supply chain management”.

Get fast access to scholarly articles

LibKey Nomad is a great tool which helps you to easily find scholarly journal articles.  When you are searching on the web, Nomad lets you know if any of the content is available from our library subscriptions or open access alternatives. 

All you need to do is add an extension to your web browser. 

Go to libkeynomad.com, select your browser at the bottom of the page and follow the instructions to add the extension. When prompted, select London Metropolitan University as your organisation. 

When searching the web look out for the Nomad button to link you to the article.

The Nomad Button- it has a green flame and says Download PDF 

Wildcards and Truncation

This is useful if you have alternative spellings or endings.  The operator (e.g. ? / # / *) may vary depending on the database you are using.  So always check the help pages on that database.  The below work for Library Search.

?    The question mark can refer to any letter. Example, search for "ne?t" will return results with neat, nest, or next.
#    Useful for alternate spellings. Finds words that have or don't have a letter in place of the #. Example, search "colo#r will return results with color or colour
*    Use the asterisk to search for root words. Example, search "comput* will return results of computer or computer. 

Field Searching

Often under the Advanced search you will be able to select where you want the search term to be located.  For example to narrow down your search you could search for the keyword in the title of the results or the abstract (summary).

Systematic searching

Systematic searching to do a systematic review, or systematic-type review, is much more thorough and structured, and should be reproduceable. It's usually used in health and medicine related subject areas, such as dietetics, nutrition, and psychology.  It's usually necessary to do some scoping searches, to see what's been published, to help to focus your research question/topic, as well as to review and edit your searches until you have a final systematic search that includes all possible synonyms and index/thesaurus terms. 

A couple of useful models to consider:

PICO is a framework to help you formulate (clinical) research questions.

  • P= Patient or population and/or problem e.g. Adults with diabetes type 2
  • I= Intervention, therapy or treatment e.g. Ketogenic diet
  • C= Comparison e.g. Nordic diet
  • O= Outcome e.g. Weight loss and metabolism

Prisma: the Prisma flow diagram depicts the flow of information through the different phases of a systematic review.  It can help you to record your results at each stage of your searching, filtering and screening processes. PRISMA 2020 flow diagram — PRISMA statement (prisma-statement.org)

You may be pointed towards other guidelines by your course team.

Helpful resources:

Systematic searching for Business & Management

The systematic search and review process has been developed and used mainly for scientific research. Business researchers have started to tailor this research method and adapting some of the processes for their own research purposes.
 

What is it ?   

It is method consisting of several or more predefined stages which are followed rigorously throughout the whole research process. Within the framework the literature searching criteria are set out in a series of organised steps and this is one of the areas of interest to business researchers.
 
When researching business and management subjects a number of steps can be reduced in the literature search as it may not be appropriate to follow every research step as is carried out for scientific research. Guidelines can be found on the PRISMA  website as well as useful flow charts and checklists in the form of templates to help you with keeping records of your searches and results.
 

Why?

This enables a body of literature to be captured, then reviewed and assessed using standardised techniques or methods as laid out by the systematic review template. It helps set out goals to identify, select, review and critically analyse the existing literature and provide a summary highlighting evidence and conclusions on a research question or problem.

 

How is it done?

There are four main steps each having a number of predefined processes to follow.
 
  1. Formulate your question:
  •  Your objectives need to be clearly defined and laid out in the form of a research question and its limits or parameters.
  •  List the set of pre-defined criteria for inclusion/exclusion of the literature to be searched and reviewed.
  2. Search for existing research work or studies by starting your literature scoping exercise:
  • Have a predetermined search strategy in the collection of the information such as keywords, synonyms and search operators.
  • Decide on specific databases and resources such as Web of Science , EBSCO subject collections, research networks, Library collections etc. 
  • Systematically follow the process laid out in a flow diagram chart and fill in results for each search criteria and results.
  • Make sure the predefined search criteria apply to all the sources utilised and that these are clearly presented in the review.
  • This search process may need to be redone many times in order to obtain valid results.
3. Assess, analyse the quality of existing research:
  • Identifying conflicting findings.
  • Identify similar findings.
  • Identify themes.
  • Elements that need further investigation.
  • Evaluate consistencies, inconsistencies, generalisations or evidence.
  • Justify the exclusion of some literature sources found.
4. Interpret the findings and suggest ways of addressing problems arising from the research review:
  • Provide comparison of the results.
  • Provide a qualitative synthesis of the results in a flow diagram chart.
  • Include references to any incoherencies and any errors found in the research collected and analysed.
  • Summarise the evidence.

Helpful resources

 
 

Snowballing

Unofficially named snowballing, this search technique is less structured and more like discovering things accidentally on purpose.
 
The technique includes:
 
  • Looking for useful sources in the reference lists of relevant articles already found.
  • Looking at citing articles - some databases give you a list of sources that cite the one you are viewing.
  • Looking at similar articles - some databases give a list of similar articles when you view an article record.
  • Looking at articles that have been categorised with the same keywords or subject headings as one you are viewing.