Target Your Sources

Topic: Target your sources


Think about the kind of
information you want
and where you might
find that information.
If you want facts and
figures about local
spending, your local
council website might have that.
If you need marketing statistics, the major market
researchers would be a good place to start.
If you want scientific information, think about
scientific journals
Keywords
Your early reading and research will help you think
about key words that you can search for further
articles of interest.
Your keywords should be as specific as possible.
Also, search synonyms for the keywords you select
Primary, secondary and tertiary
sources
A primary source is someone directly involved in the
subject. For example, a scientist who has made a
discovery, or developed a theory. It is research that
is collected first hand, and should result in learning
something new, so could include analysis of your
company’s performance.
A Secondary source is someone not directly involved,
but is using their knowledge and experience to
comment or discuss or interpret the information.
A tertiary source may be a summary of secondary
sources-a review in a journal for example, they are
useful sources of reading material, but you probably
wouldn’t cite them.
Organise yourself
Plan your project and produce a timetable with
milestones, and building in time for proofreading and
review at the end.
As you research, you will see avenues you want to
follow, maybe several at time. You need to follow
one, and then remember to go back to the others.
Then at a later point, something chimes with an
article you read before and you want to go back to it
and follow it through.
BUT Where was it? How do you keep track of where
you have been?
This depends whether you are most comfortable with
pen and paper, or electronic records. if you favour the
first, then index cards can be useful. As you read
something, reference it on a card and make notes
about what you read. Note the page numbers so you
can go back to it if you want to.
If you prefer the electronic option, open a word
document or notepad, and copy and paste links to
useful sites, with a short note as to what you found
of interest there. Or use bookmarking as we
discussed in the first module of this series.
Don’t copy and paste chunks of information from
other sites and regurgitate them. This is called
plagiarism and is easy to check, If your document is
fed into a copy checker it will produce references to
the site you copied and pasted from.
If you want to use something directly, such as a
quote, summary, fact, then reference your sources
correctly.
As you research, you will have your own opinions on
things you read, comments to make, points to add.
So, make sure you distinguish in your notes as you
collect information, between your own words and
thoughts, and those of others. Use a different colored
pen, or font or italics or highlighters, and keep a note
of your key.