Getting Started with Library Research

Before you start searching for information, you need to understand exactly what your assessment is asking you to do. Breaking down the question helps you:

• identify the key concepts
• understand the scope of the task
• develop effective search terms.

Highlight or underline the keywords or phrases that tell you the approach to take for your assessment. Assessment questions often include three types of words:

Instructional words tell you what to do, but are not used in your search. Examples of instructional words might be: describe, define, analyse, compare and contrast.  

Keywords indicate the main topics or concepts. These will be used when searching.

Limiting words narrow the focus of your assessment and will often be used when searching. These may provide limits around time, place, or groups. Examples of limiting words may be: in the last 5 years, Australia, women under 50.    

Example:

Describe and critically reflect on the individual personal skills necessary for work ready graduates. 

A search strategy helps you find relevant information efficiently. Instead of typing a full question into the search box, you’ll use keywords and connectors to get better results. This saves time and ensures you don’t miss important resources.

Once you have identified the keywords in your assessment question, the next steps are to:  

1. identify alternative keywords
2. combine your keywords and alternative keywords using connectors and other search techniques.

Step 1: Identify Alternative Keywords

Sometimes, different authors use different words for the same thing; including alternative keywords means you won’t miss relevant results.

You can find alternative keywords in your unit’s textbook or readings and by searching for synonyms in a thesaurus or via Google. Alternative keywords can be broader or narrower. You should also consider plurals and spelling variations.

Use a table or mind map to record your brainstorming. To get started, you can use this Table of Keywords document to help you with identifying keywords and alternative keywords. Or you can create your own table or mind map.

Example: 

Step 2: Combine Keywords and Alternative Keywords

The next step is to combine your keywords, limiting words, and alternative keywords with connecting words and other search techniques. This is called a search statement or search string.

Connecting words are used to combine keywords and alternative keywords. Connecting words are written in capital letters, and the most common ones are AND and OR:

• AND connects your different keywords or concepts and narrows your search.
• OR combines your alternative keywords and broadens your search.

When combining alternative keywords using OR, use brackets to group each concept in your search statement.

Example:

(personal skills OR interpersonal skills OR soft skills OR team work OR reliability OR organised) AND (work ready OR job ready OR employable) AND (graduates OR university students)

Search techniques format your search statement to maximise the potential of each keyword and alternative keyword. Here are the symbols used in Library Search:

• Double quotation marks enclose a phrase made of two or more words. This is called phrase searching. It allows you to search for words together, in exact order.
• An asterisk, or star symbol, allows you to search for various endings of a word, like plurals. This is called truncation. Add a star symbol to the root of the word to search for all possible endings.
• A question mark symbol replaces a letter in a word with an alternative spelling. This is called a wildcard. If a word has different spellings in other languages, replacing the different letter allows you to search for multiple spelling variations.

Example:

("personal skills" OR "interpersonal skills" OR "soft skills" OR "team work" OR reliab* OR organi?ed) AND ("work ready" OR "job ready" OR employable) AND (graduates OR "university students")

Enter your search statement in Library Search or other databases to retrieve better, more relevant search results.

Some databases use different rules than Library Search. Always check the Help or Search Tips to make sure you’re using connecting words and search techniques correctly. 

Library Search is your gateway to CQUniversity’s collection of books, eBooks, journal articles, and other academic resources. It allows you to search across most of the Library’s collections in one place, saving time and helping you find credible sources for your assessment.

The Library Search guide will show you how to perform searches in Library Search using your search statement.  

It will also look at limiting search results and understanding a resource’s record. 

Library databases are collections of academic resources such as journal articles, conference papers, reports, and eBooks. Unlike general web searches, databases provide credible, peer-reviewed content that is essential for university-level research.

Library Search is a great starting point as it lets you search across a wide range of the Library’s databases and collections at once. However, some relevant articles, papers, or specialised materials may not appear in Library Search results, so it can be necessary to search key databases directly, especially when you need:

• more comprehensive or discipline‑specific results
• advanced search tools tailored to a particular subject area
• access to material that Library Search may not fully capture.

Using Library Search and databases together provides a comprehensive approach to academic research.

1. Go to our Databases page for a full list of databases available through CQUniversity.
2. Use the left-hand menu to limit to a list of relevant databases:
   1. Select your discipline area from the Study Areas drop down menu to get a list of databases relevant to your area of research.
   2. Select Type of Resource to find lists of databases containing specific types of information like standards or statistics or images.  
3. Read the database descriptions to see what kind of information each database has and what the coverage is.
4. Choose the databases that have the type of information you need to answer your research question.
5. Click the database name in the search results to open the record for that database.
6. Click the database name under View Online to go to that database and start searching.

If your research spans multiple disciplines, you will need to look at the lists of databases for each of these disciplines, or try searching a multidisciplinary database. If you are researching nursing, for example, you will need the list of nursing databases, but you might also need the psychology databases depending on your research question.

Your lecturer or supervisor should also be able to recommend key databases for you to search. 

Now that you have found some relevant information, you will need to evaluate that information to ensure it is suitable for inclusion in your assessment or research project.

Evaluating your sources ensures that your research is based on credible, accurate, and relevant information.

Watch the "Evaluating information and resources" video to see how to evaluate a resource using five main criteria: authority, currency, relevance, objectivity and purpose.

Further information is also available on the Evaluating Resources page. 

Google Scholar is a powerful tool for finding academic articles.

You can link CQUniversity Library and Google Scholar so that any results that are part of the Library's collection appear as 'View @ CQUniversity' links. Clicking on these will take you to the Library's copy of this resource. You can set this up using the step-by-step instructions in the Using Google Scholar guide.