University of Sunderland in London

Academic Research

Develop your academic research skills for successful assignments and dissertations

You started with your initial reading in Library Reading Lists, you explored your wider reading resources in Library Search but now you have a specific assignment question or dissertation topic. It is time to carry out your academic research to answer your specific assignment or dissertation question.

Academic research is using a variety of methods and specialist tools to find current and reliable information from different types of resources for your work. There are two types of research in general:

Primary research where you design and carry out surveys and questionnaires (quantitative research) or interviews, observations, field visits (qualitative research) yourself, and gather and analyse the data for your work – you are the author

Secondary research where you find and use quantitative and qualitative data from various sources such as academic books, journals, databases, reports, statistics, theses, good quality websites, and more in your work – other people are the authors and that is why you have to reference them to avoid plagiarism

Most research carried out for your work is going to be secondary research. Explore the academic research process below.

Analysing your question and identifying your search terms

You have an assignment question or trying to formulate your dissertation question. It is very important that you firstly understand what you are being asked to do or what you are setting out to accomplish in order to carry out appropriate research using relevant tools. If you are finding it difficult to understand your assignment question or formulate your dissertation question, try these:

Break down the question

Eliminate process words such as analyse, compare, effect of, impact of, etc.

Identify key topics and concepts once you eliminate process words

Rephrase the question in your own words if necessary, and think about synonyms and related words

For example, if you are writing a report on “what are the types of strategies for quality improvement in organisations” with a focus on a specific sector and company, these are what you should consider:

Keywords	Quality improvement	Strategy/strategies
Synonyms/ related words	Excellence Progress Development	Approaches Tactics Policies
Specific sectors/ approaches	Business Health Hospitality	Reward Mentoring Measuring performance
Specific examples/ strategies	Toyota NHS Marriott	Quality Control Quality Assurance Total Quality Management

Keywords

Quality improvement

Strategy/strategies

Synonyms/

related words

Excellence

Progress

Development

Approaches

Tactics

Policies

Specific sectors/

approaches

Business

Health

Hospitality

Reward

Mentoring

Measuring performance

Specific examples/

strategies

Toyota

NHS

Marriott

Quality Control

Quality Assurance

Total Quality Management

Advanced search strategies: Boolean Operators

In any system with an advanced search facility, you will find Boolean Operators AND, OR, NOT to combine your keywords. They help you limit, expand, or specify your search:

AND	Narrows your search results Use to combine search terms Use for terms with different meanings	Example: quality improvement AND strategy	Will bring results where both terms appear You are limiting your search
OR	Broadens your search results Use to combine terms with the same meaning Use for synonyms, acronyms, abbreviations, and variant spellings	Example: TQM OR Total Quality Management	Will bring results where either of the terms appear You are expanding your search
NOT	Use to exclude terms from your search Use for separating terms that tend to appear together	Example: leadership NOT management	Will exclude results where both terms are combined You are getting very specific search results

AND

Narrows your search results

Use to combine search terms

Use for terms with different meanings

Example:

quality improvement

AND

strategy

Will bring results where both terms appear

You are limiting your search

OR

Broadens your search results

Use to combine terms with the same meaning

Use for synonyms, acronyms, abbreviations, and variant spellings

Example:

TQM

Total Quality Management

Will bring results where either of the terms appear

You are expanding your search

NOT

Use to exclude terms from your search

Use for separating terms that tend to appear together

Example:

leadership

NOT

management

Will exclude results where both terms are combined

You are getting very specific search results

Advanced search strategies: Wildcards

There are more optional tools, such as wildcards, which you can use to carry out an advanced search in an online system:

Asterisk *	Matches any number of characters at the end of a word	strateg* will find strategy or strategies or strategic and more...
Question Mark ?	Matches a single alphabet in a specific position in a word	organi?ation will find organisation (British spelling) or organization (American spelling)
Quotation Marks “”	Looks for multiple words in the exact order	Searches for phrases without separating words “quality improvement”

Asterisk

*

Matches any number of characters at the end of a word

strateg* will find

strategy or

strategies or

strategic and more...

Question Mark

?

Matches a single alphabet in a specific position in a word

organi?ation will find

organisation (British spelling) or

organization (American spelling)

Quotation Marks

“”

Looks for multiple words in the exact order

Searches for phrases without separating words

“quality improvement”

Advanced search strategies: filter/limits

Once you identify your keywords, you can use search filters to limit your search to, for example, title or subject from the very start. This means, you are asking for your keywords to be in the title of a document and/or (depending on which Boolean Operator you use) the document to be tagged with your subject:

Search filters	Title	contains	"quality improvement"
AND	Title	contains	strateg*
AND	Subject	contains	organi?ation*

When you finally carry out your search and get results, you can further refine the results by using other filters offered by the system you are using (Library Search or others), such as material type, language, date, and more.

Do not expect to find everything in a single search. Carry out your search, review results, download what you want. Then, revise your search strategy, carry out another search and download what you want. Continue with this process until you get sufficient research material that will help you write your assignment or dissertation.

Evaluating information from the internet

If you are using the internet for your research in addition to Library Search, you have to evaluate the information you find before using it in your work as you are required to use good quality trusted sources. These are what you need to consider if you find information on the internet:

Authority: Who is the author of the website? Qualified? Paid/employed? By whom?

Objectivity: What is the purpose of the website? Any bias? Marketing material on page?

Timeliness: What is the date of the website? Last updated? Maintained? Broken links?

Supporting evidence: What evidence is there to support author’s ideas? Accurate references? Links to other sources to follow? Any data or statistics?

Relevance: What is the level of information? Emphasis on the topic? Related to what you are looking for?

Domain names: What is web address extension? Commercial (.co /.com), non-commercial (.org), academic (.ac / .edu), governmental (.gov)?

Explore your subject sections (Business, Health, Tourism) for good quality sources from the internet for your subject areas.

Searching external academic sources

If you are especially a post-graduate student, you may want to also use other academic institutions' resources for your research to show that you are able to find good quality information using your investigative skills.

SCONUL scheme: for accessing other university libraries

EThOS by British Library: for online doctoral theses

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ): for good quality, peer-reviewed open access journals covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social science and humanities
Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB): for scholarly, peer-reviewed open access books and helps users to find trusted open access book publishers.

Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR): for other institutions’ open access publications such as dissertations, theses, articles, and more

Explore the External Resources section of our website for more information.

Dissertations and systematic reviews

If you are writing a dissertation as part of your degree, consider these before finalising your question:

As you have to read a lot to write well, you have to find a lot of good quality research material written on your topic to read before starting to write.
For this reason, do not be emotional when selecting your topic; do not select a topic just because you like it or you have a particular affiliation to it (family and friends).
Always carry out a preliminary investigation on the topic you have in mind before taking it to your supervisor so you do not have to change it later if you cannot find much written about it.
If you cannot find much written about your proposed topic, be ruthless – discard it and select another topic (on which there is a lot written) even if it breaks your heart!

If you are doing a systematic review fo your dissertation, do you know how to differentiate between an original research paper you can use and a systematic review you cannot use in your dissertation?

Original Research Paper (primary research)	Systematic Review (secondary research)
The author of the paper has conducted a study directly with participants included or by using raw data	The author of the paper summarises the results of studies conducted by other authors
Key words: clinical trial, randomised controlled trial, original study, original research, survey, interview, observation	Key words: meta-analysis, meta-synthesis, literature review, survey of literature, study of literature
You can use this paper	You cannot use this paper

Original Research Paper

(primary research)

Systematic Review

(secondary research)

The author of the paper has conducted a study directly with participants included or by using raw data

The author of the paper summarises the results of studies conducted by other authors

Key words: clinical trial, randomised controlled trial, original study, original research, survey, interview, observation

Key words: meta-analysis, meta-synthesis, literature review, survey of literature, study of literature

You can use this paper

You cannot use this paper

Your personal research/referencing assistants

There are several research/reference managers that can help you collect, organise, annotate, and reference your research data. Here are some of them:

Zotero: Zotero is a free tool to help you collect, organise, annotate, cite, and share research. It is designed to store, manage, and cite bibliographic references, such as books and articles. Zotero is a tool for collecting and organizing research information and sources.
Mendeley: Mendeley is free as well. You can add papers directly from your browser with a few clicks or import any documents from your desktop. Access your library from anywhere, Windows, Mac, Linux and all browsers. You can also generate references, citations and bibliographies in a whole range of journal styles with just a few clicks.
EndNote: EndNote is the reference manager that helps you save time formatting citations, so you can focus on your research. The basic online version of EndNote is free.

If you would like to know more about any of these, look out for our advertised drop-in sessions or book an online appointment with us.

Book an appointment for Research Skills training The next essential stage in your journey: referencing to avoid plagiarism