Aviation

Planning your search approach is important to find relevant results. 

Video length: 2 min 26 sec

Key points from the video

• Identify the key concepts (main ideas) in your assignment
• Check other ways key concepts are described in the literature
• Create a search by connecting concepts using AND and OR
• Alter your search strategy as you find more keywords

More help

For some assessments, you may be required to develop a research question that is clear and answerable.

To help you get started

1. Pick a topic area of interest e.g. aviation safety and drones.
2. Conduct some initial searches to learn more about the topic area including key issues. For example: 

• What key research is happening? Are there any gaps?
• What terminology is being used?

The Library Collection search or Google Scholar can be useful places to start.

3. Focus your topic area into a research question.
   Ask who, what, when, why and how questions to focus your ideas. For example:

• Who does this impact on? Commercial airlines? Pilots?
• Why does this matter? Safety, accidents etc...
• What can prevent this? Systems, technology? How?
• When should they be used?

More help

Struggling? For more in depth help use:

Typing your assignment question into Google or the Library Collection is not the most effective way to search.

Mapping out your search can be a good strategy:

• Start by identifying key concepts in your question or task. These become your keywords.
• Note task or instruction words. These tell you what to do with the key concepts (e.g. analyse, compare, discuss) however, you don't have to search for them.

Undertake some initial searching and use course readings, encyclopedias, dictionaries, websites or thesauri to find synonyms or alternative keywords, this is important as not everyone refers to concepts in the same way.

Create a mind map or table to capture potential keywords.

Once you have identified the key concepts in your assignment topic, consider if there are any alternative keywords you could search for as not all authors refer to ideas the same way.

Consider

• Synonyms, e.g. drone OR unmanned aerial vehicle
• Related or broader keywords, e.g. aeroplane versus aviation industry
• Plurals or word variations, e.g. protect OR protection
• Common acronyms, e.g. UAV
• Different spellings, e.g. aeroplane OR airplane
• Splitting phrases, e.g. "drone incursion" versus drone AND incursion

You may have already found some terminology (keywords) from your initial searching. It can useful to map out or table these to organise your search approach. For example:

Tip: Look at the terminology used in titles, keywords and abstracts and add them.

After you have identified your key concepts and found alternative keywords, connect these to form a search strategy.

The following search functions are used to connect your keywords:

• OR: Connects synonyms, related keywords, and broader keywords, e.g. aeroplane OR airplane OR airline
• AND: Connects each different keyword together, e.g. aeroplane AND pilot

Other search functions you can use to build your search:

• "quotation marks": Used to search for phrases, e.g. "flight crew"
• (brackets): Groups synonyms or similar keywords together, e.g. (aeronautics OR aviation)
• *asterisks: Searches variant spellings of keywords, e.g. manag* searches manage, management, managers

Library Collection basic search:

Library Collection advanced search allows you to place each different concept in a new search field:

Refine your results by resource type, publication date, peer-reviewed and much more.

More help

At University, you must acknowledge when you use other people's ideas as part of your assignments. This means referencing using your program area's preferred citation style. For assistance with referencing and academic integrity refer to the University guides below.

Copyright works, protected by Copyright, are material form and have a human author. Copyright protects the expression of the idea, not the idea itself. It protects published and unpublished material, including material available in electronic form.

Learn more

If you need further assistance, there are a number of resources created by the Student Engagement Unit to help you with your studies.