1. Quick Start - ELC6002/ELC6012 - Thesis Writing for Research Students - Guides & Tutorials at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

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Workshop Recording for Part I - 1. Quick Start

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Part I. Literature Search - 1. Quick Start

Quick Start with OneSearch & Google Scholar

As a research student, when looking for journal articles, you may easily jump to a few article databases that you are familiar with in your subject area.

In fact, when you are not very sure about your research topic, it may be a better choice to start with something broad - searching in Google Scholar or Library's OneSearch.

By scanning the titles of results, you can:

explore the terminology related to your topic, since both platforms cover enormous research materials including journal articles, conference papers; and
collect more possible keywords used by other scholars and use them in your next search.

Example on OneSearch

Quick Tips

Start with 2-4 keywords per search for better results.
Use filters to limit your search, e.g. "Peer-Reviewed Journals", "Articles", Publication Year range.
Pick possible keywords from search results, e.g. "coronavirus" and "pandemic" can be alternative keywords to "covid". Including these keywords in your next search may bring you more relevant results.

Example on Google Scholar

Quick Tips

Similarly, start with 2-4 keywords per search for better results.
Sometimes you may find review articles. Reading these articles can help you gain a good overview of a topic and quickly locate relevant literature. Google Scholar also allows you to limit search results to "Review articles" only.
Link your Google Scholar with the library so that you will see "PolyU eLinks" along with the articles that the library has subscriptions to. This is handy in getting full-text especially when you are off-campus. Learn how to set up the connection here.

After we have done some preliminary searches and collected some keywords, we are ready to move to a more in-depth search. Navigate to the next page to continue the journey.