Course Number: AN450
Subject: Anthropology
Picking a topic - ideas
- Picking a topic that’s interesting to you
- Choosing something relevant to your course
- Clarifying with the course readings
- Scanning through some current course readings, old readings that you found interesting
- Take a concept discussed in class and apply it to something else
Where do you find topics and background information?
- Annual Review of Anthropology
- Oxford Bibliographies: Anthropology
- Individual Journals
- Browse individual issues, tables of contents; also see special issues devoted to particular topics
- AnthroSource – see the list list of journals; search using search box at top right (Advanced available)
- Web of Science:
- go to Journal Citation reports > Browse Categories > Social Sciences, General > Anthropology (use the SSCI Edition)
- Broad database search from the Anthropology Subject Guide
What is a literature review?
- An overview of existing research on a specific topic
- Focused on scholarly literature: the "scholarly conversation"
- Usually involves aspects of analysis and synthesis
- Not just a list or a summary of material
Purpose of the literature review
- Summarize existing research
- Show you are aware of research done in a field
- Show you can interpret the research
- Identify gaps in or critique existing knowledge
- Fit your work into the scholarly conversation
Research Questions
- Should be:
- Clear
- Researchable – doable
- Relate to existing studies
- Neither too broad, nor too narrow
- Video tutorial: Developing a Research Question (6:25)
Literature search tips
- Conduct your search systematically
- Create a search strategy
- Use effective search terms and combinations
- Decide where you’ll search
- Repeat searches across databases
- Track results, modify strategies as needed
- DO NOT: type questions into a research database
- Do: separate your terms into concepts, and link them with connectors (boolean operators) to broaden/narrow results
Example search strategy
For the research question "What implementation strategies have Arctic communities undertaken to adapt to climate change?"
- Break it down into the following concepts and search strings:
Concept 1: Arctic OR Nunavut OR "Yukon Territory" OR "Northwest Territories"
AND
Concept 2: "Climate change" OR "Global warming"
AND
Concept 3: Adapt* OR Modif* OR Adjust* OR Regulat*
AND: narrows results OR: broadens results; links similar terms NOT: subtracts any results with your search term (use judiciously)
NOTE: if you use Omni, you must put AND, OR, NOT in all CAPS
For more details see:
- Better searching using AND, OR, NOT (video, 2:26)
- Better searching using truncation (video, 1:50)
Managing your information
- Consider using a reference manager:
- Laurier recommends two free managers: Zotero and Mendeley. See links below for some short videos we've made on them:
- Getting started with Mendeley
- Getting started with Zotero
- Using Mendeley's plug-in for Word
- Using Zotero's plug-in for Word
- Zotero or Mendeley: which one is best?
- Attend our online workshop Citing Insights for more detailed training, see Library Events.