Course Title: Advanced Search Strategies for PGR Students in the College of Engineering
Course Description:
As part of the literature search for your thesis, you will need to carry out effective searches to
find details of books and journal articles as well as less typical sources of information such
as conference papers and theses. Your ideas will by informed by active, ongoing research.
There is always more to learn as new information and data is produced all the time in
published and unpublished formats. By the end of this session, you will be able to identify an
information need and define limits in your research process to achieve a specific purpose.
We look at developing and revising search strategies which can be applied across a range of
information sources. Some of the resources we will look at include: subject specialist
database such as Web of Science and Scopus, which also have tools to help you manage
your research; finding theses and conference papers with databases such as Zetoc, Digital
Dissertations, Index to Theses; ‘searching smarter’ with Google; Cited reference searching –
take a well-known book/paper on your topic and find out who has cited it in their work as
they are likely to have similar research interests to your own. There will be opportunity for
hands-on practice and an opportunity to talk about your own research needs.
Target Audience: This course is aimed at Engineering students at any stage of research
Pre-requisites: n/a
Session preparation: n/a
Format of Delivery: Face to Face
Please remember to arrive on time for a course – places are limited and offered on a first come
first serve basis.
Don’t forget to keep a record of your attendance as this will count towards the Postgraduate
Research Skills Award