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Reviewing the Literature Room

Reviewing the literature is a major part of any research process. It is important for many reasons, including finding the basis for your research, checking the current knowledge and thinking in your subject area and demonstrating that you can find, read and synthesise a range of literature in your subject domain. As you create your literature review, you will also be building your skills in literature sourcing, retrieval and management. These include effective reading, synthesis, rationale-building, organisation and writing. As you study the constellations in this room, keep referring to the think map on the left. This will help you to see the relevance of a particular constellation to the overall picture.
Reviewing the literature > Sourcing the literature > Refining your search results

Refining your search results

A wooden hourglassIf you get too many results you may need to narrow your search in order to increase the precision. To narrow your search you may like to try some of the following:

  • add additional keywords using the Boolean operator AND.
  • use more specific keywords.
  • limit the search to particular fields if appropriate in the database you are using i.e. instead of searching for 'law' search for 'contract law'.
  • limit publication year if appropriate.

If you get too few or no articles you may need to expand your search. To expand your search you may like to try some of the following:

  • check your spelling.
  • use truncation or wildcards with your search terms.
  • use all possible synonyms, alternative terminology/spelling and combine these using OR.
  • use broader keywords.
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