Literature Reviews

Once you have defined your research question and determined the scope of your review, you can begin to create your search strategy. This includes where to search and what information you are searching for.

There are many searchable collections within the library and beyond, before jumping into a sea of information, identify the most likely places for the information you are seeking. Determine the key concepts in your research question so you can run more effective searches with a variety of keywords in order to get the best results.

It's a good research practice to look for information in multiple places (library catalog, databases, websites, etc.). Make a list of places to conduct your research that have content related to your research question. You can make your plan for where you will search in multiple ways:

1. Meet with your subject librarian. Your librarian will be able to direct you towards resources that are the best match for your research. You can meet 1:1 or in small groups.
2. View the subject guide associated with your research topic. Our subject guides will direct you towards databases and other resources specific to this subject area.
3. Browse our A-Z list of databases & E-resources. You can filter this list by subject and type (e.g., Data, Journal Literature, Images).

Why can't I just use Google?

Google, and similar search engines, can be a great starting point to get an overview of a topic, but you shouldn't only use Google to do your research. Why is that?

• Google ranks results to your search by popularity, not by relevance or credibility/reliability. Your results will also be impacted by what Google knows about you. Your results are impacted by your search history, location, & IP address.
• There is little quality control on google. Information you find on the internet can be created by anyone, and the information may be biased, inaccurate, or even have a hidden agenda. Most information you're able to find through Google is not considered authoritive or credible. You're unlikely to find scholarly sources (written by experts in a field, have gone through the peer-review process) in your Google results.
• It can take more time! Trying to find information about a source that often isn't readily available (e.g., who is the author/creator? what evidence do they rely on?) and verifying the information in the source can take a lot of valuable research time.
• A lot of information is not freely available on the internet. Scholarly materials such as journal articles are often not publicly available, and can only be accessed through library databases.

The venn diagram below will help you identify the key concepts of your research, brainstorm keywords for your search, and see how these concepts/keywords are related to each other.