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Research Project: Developing the research

Note taking template 2017

Library Catalogues

Start here to search the catalogue and find books, Clickview digital videos and websites at Renmark High School Library.

Choose Author, Title or Series searches if you have accurate details relating to specific resource, otherwise choose Subject or Keyword. A Subject search will check the Subject headings attached to a record, a All fields search (or a Quick search using the Renmark Public Library Catalogue) will search the word or phrase in the author, title, series, notes and subject fields of a record.

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Renmark Public Library

The Library has joined the 'one card' system. Click here to find out how this enables you to locate and request items for yourself from the SA Public network catalogue.

 

Search Strategy:

This is a strategy often used by experienced researchers :

  • Begin with a keyword search. Use one or two keywords that describe your topic. Choose general keywords to begin this process.
  • Examine your results list to find one resource that seems to match your topic.
  • Display the full record (by clicking on the title of the resource) and look closely at the subject headings.
  • Click on the subject heading (s) that best matches your topic and you'll be taken to other resources on that exact subject.

This strategy helps eliminate 'false hits' or search results that have nothing to do with what your really looking for.

 

Questions to consider when evaluating information sources

The attached PDF document will give you questions to consider when you are determining the relevance, credibility and bias of an information source.

Primary Sources of Information

Access the SACE document Primary and Secondary Sources for more information about these sources of information.

A primary source is information and/or records that provide first-hand evidence that can be used to create a picture of what happened at the time. They maybe unpublished. (SACE, 2009)

The designations of primary and secondary differ between subjects, particularly between the sciences and the humanities. Primary sources for critics studying the literature of the Second World War are different from those for a research scientist investigating a new drug for arthritis. The critic's primary sources are the poems, stories, and films of the era. The research scientist's primary sources are the results of laboratory tests and the medical records of patients treated with the drug.

Primary Sources of Information

  • scientific experiment results

  • poems

  • diaries

  • autobiographies

  • interviews, surveys and fieldwork

  • letters and correspondence

  • speeches

  • newspaper articles (may also be secondary)

  • government documents

  • photographs and works of art

  • original documents (such as birth certificate or trial transcripts)

  • Internet communications eg email

To find primary sources of information in the library catalogue or in a seach engine add the following words to your keyword search

  • correspondence
  • diaries
  • early works
  • interviews
  • manuscripts
  • oratory
  • pamphlets
  • personal accounts
  • sources
  • speeches
  • letters
  • documents

Secondary Sources of Information

Secondary sources can be thought of as second-hand information. Secondary sources analyse and interpret primary sources. (SACE, 2009)

Secondary sources of information include :

  • biographical works

  • dictionaries and encyclopedias (may also be tertiary)

  • history

  • indexing and abstracting tools used to locate primary & secondary sources (may also be tertiary)

  • journal articles, other than science (may also be primary)

  • non-fiction (other than autobiography)

  • newspaper and popular magazine articles (may also be primary)

  • review articles and literature reviews

  • textbooks (may also be tertiary)