Architecture and Interior Architecture: Planning your search

The Library Catalogue can be a good place to start. Use the Catalogue to search across much of the material in the Library's collection.

Depending on what you need to find, and how comprehensive you need to be in your search, you may also need to use specialised databases.

You must have a broad understanding of your topic, before you can search for information or write your assignment. Consider:

• What do you need to do?  

• What do you know? Or need to explore further?

• Do you need to define any terms?

• What types of evidence do you need?

• Does information need to be current?

• Do any theories apply to your topic?

• Do you need facts and figures, or statistics?

Example topic: Individually design a transport stop that achieves both openness and protective enclosure whilst demonstrating an understanding of the core structural principles covered in the course.

The main concepts in your question form the foundation of your search:

• design
• transport stop
• openness
• protective enclosure
• structural principles

To cover the range of terminology used in the literature, you must also identify any synonyms or similar keywords for each concept:

• design, construction, layout; transport stop, train stop, train station; openness, exposure; protective enclosure, shelter

Also consider:

•  Plurals, different word forms (bus vs buses; child vs children)
•  Different spellings (behaviour vs behavior), and hyphenated words (layout vs lay-out)
• Acronyms or Abbreviations  (Fluoroscent vs fluoro)

Once you have your list of terms for each concept, you can combine them to create a search strategy.

First simplify your search. Use truncation, wildcards and phrases to cover word variations:

Now connect your remaining terms using AND, OR.

• Use OR to connect different terms within the same concept

• Use AND to connect each concept.

For example:

(design* OR layout) AND "bus stop" AND shelter*

Need more info? Check out our How to guides below.