Home: Research Process

One of the first steps in the research process is finding some general or background

information about your topic. 

Purpose:

• Provides an overview of the topic.
• Helps you to understand the context of your research.
• An opportunity to clarify any concepts or meanings that you don't fully understand.
• Gather keywords and phrases

Finding Background Sources

Goral, M n.d., Research Guides: Articles, Books, and . . . ? Understanding the Many Types of Information Found in Libraries: Reference Sources, viewed 21 July 2021, < https://guides.library.ucla.edu/content-types/reference >

Books usually provide more detailed information than a general background sources such as encyclopedias. Importantly, books contain information that has been researched, checked for accuracy and if located in a library, have been selected for their relevance and suitability for the library users. The school library is a great place to start locating relevant books about your research topic. Public libraries also have books about a wide range of topics but may be less focussed on subjects studied at school.

• Make sure that you have your keywords ready to use as search terms in the Library catalogue.
• Many Library Catalogues will also contain full text articles from magazines and journals. (see next tab Finding Articles & Electronic Resources)
   

Finding Books & Print Resources

Free Photo: Books, Knowledge, School, Library, Education, Read, Book | Hippopx n.d., viewed 21 July 2021, < https://www.hippopx.com/en/books-knowledge-school-library-education-read-book-63969 >.

Articles found in magazines, newspapers and academic journals usually focus on one or two parts of a larger topic and provide more detail. Often, but not always, they are written by experts in their field and may contain the results of experiments or original research. Finding articles that are relevant to your research topic will help provide a deeper understanding of this topic. Many of these articles are found in electronic databases which you can access from the Genazzano Library, Public Library web sites and the State Library of Victoria. Similarly, suitable eBooks may be available from these libraries.

Information relevant to your research topic may also be available on various web sites and depending on your topic, some social media sites. However, it is important that you consult the Using Sources and Evaluating Sources tabs before using web site or social information, to ensure that it is authoritative and appropriate to your topic.

Finding Articles & Electronic Resources

All sources used in the research process should be evaluated to ensure that they are providing accurate, information compiled by someone who has the expertise to publish material on the particular subject. Sources must also be evaluated for relevancy to your specific research task.

The link below will provide strategies to evaluate sources.

Evaluating Sources

Check List Free Vector Icons Designed by Freepik n.d., Flaticon, Flaticon, viewed 21 July 2021, < https://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/check-list_1721936 >.

Authors and creators of sources must be given credit for their work and Copyright Laws must be respected when works are used in research. This means that you must not "cut and paste" information from sources into your own work. Further information about plagiarism and copyright can be found using the link below.

The Using Sources link also provides access to several note taking and research organising tools. These will help you take notes in your own words, identify linked areas within your topic and logically organise the information you have found.

Using Sources

LibrarJuan n.d., How to Evaluate Internet Sources?, viewed 21 July 2021,< https://librarjuan.blogspot.com/2018/10/how-to-evaluate-internet-sources.html >

Authors and creators of sources that you have used must be given credit for their work. A bibliography lists all of the sources that have been used to create your final piece of work. This includes all notes, quotes, photos, illustrations videos and sound recordings. 

In-text references will also be required for some senior secondary essays and research tasks. There are several styles of referencing and bibliographies. The Harvard Style is preferred at Genazzano. Follow the Citing Sources link, to find out more about referencing and using CiteMaker to quickly and accurately create your references.

Citing Sources