Conducting your research
Exploring the existing literature is essential for understanding your research area, designing your research project and implementing a comprehensive search strategy. To conduct a robust overview of the literature, you should consult a range of relevant sources. There is no single source that will cover all the published literature in your discipline. You may need to include books, databases, grey literature, newspapers or governmental reports.
The first step is to plan your research strategy. While it might be tempting to jump straight into reading articles, especially if you’re passionate about the topic you’re researching, it will save you time and effort in the long-term if you plan and conduct your research in a systematic way.
Once you’ve planned your research strategy, the next step is to systematically search a range of relevant sources, depending on your topic and the types of materials you’re looking for. Consider Principle 2: Rigour of the Principles of Research Integrity as you start your investigation of the literature.
Managing your research, through reference management software and documenting your search results, will help you keep track of your research along the way. This step is particularly helpful for long-term research projects, such as Honours or Masters research projects, PhD theses or systematic literature reviews.
Conducting research methodically may seem time consuming, however, applying this iterative process and evaluating your strategy and search results consistently throughout the process will increase precision and reliability.
