Finding scholarly information for your critical essay
1. What you need to do
For this assessment you need to find scholarly information to support your critical essay.
Remember to read all the information on your course website related to your assessment to understand exactly what you need to do.
Case study question: Do Australian businesses respect Aboriginal voices and communities? |
2. Plan your search
Once you read the case study think about what the key issues or concepts are.
Try mapping these out in a table or mind map. Try thinking of any synonyms or alternative concepts to incorporate into different searches.
Here is an example mind map:
*Mind map created using mindmeister*
Remember, this is not comprehensive. There may be other concepts that are relevant.
Watch the following video:
- Define any terms you are unsure of. Use an introductory book, dictionary, encyclopedia, handbook or website.
- Identify main concepts in your case study. These will help you form your searches.
- Concept 1: Australian
- Concept 2: businesses
- Concept 3: Aboriginal
- Concept 4: voices
- Identify any synonyms or alternative concepts for each main concept.
- Concept 1: Australian, Australia
- Concept 2: business, businesses, companies, organisations
- Concept 3: Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal Australians, First Nations people
- Concept 4: voices, communities, perspectives, culture
- Consider any:
- word plurals (voice or voices)
- different word forms (community or communities)
- different word spellings (organisation or organization)
- common acronyms (MP or Member of Parliament)
More help:
3. Where to search
For your previous assignment you may have used the Library catalogue or Google Scholar. Some quick searches in them can be useful for understanding the topic area.
Library catalogue search example:
Tip: Use the 'Tweak my results' menu to limit your search to books or articles.
However, we recommend you use these key business databases:
For more help watch:
4. Building your search
Business Source Complete
Business Source Complete is a key business database that you should become familiar with. It will be useful throughout your studies.
- Start by entering each of your different concepts into a new search box.
Notice these are connected with AND.
If you want you can use truncation, the star * symbol, to find word stems. For example australia* will find australia OR australian.
- Incorporate any synonyms into your search. Connect these with OR.
- Apply limits if you want.
These can help narrow your search.
Informit Indigenous Australia
Search this database the same way you search Business Source Complete.
Notice you use the same truncation symbol, the star *, and any phrases have double quotes around them to keep them together, for example "first nations".
Tip: This database is really useful for finding Australian content.
