Finding Literature on your Research Topic

Where to start searching

QUT Library provides a wide variety of search tools which you can use to identify published literature relating to your research.

Different sources are found by searching different tools, with some sources - such as multimedia - being found across multiple search tools. Understanding which tools to choose is an important part of to finding the right kind of information.

Tools for searching

Library Search

QUT Library Search - can assist you in finding books, ebooks, journals, journal articles or magazines and newspapers.

Why use Library Search?

This is our recommended way for you to commence your literature discovery;
Library Search simultaneously retrieves a lot of information drawn from a wide range of sources;
Library Search returns books, chapters, journal articles and conference papers in one result;
The vendor of our library search product indexes much of the content in the major library databases;
Think of Library Search as our biggest database;
In Library Search it is a simple matter to limit your results to peer-reviewed scholarly content;
Library Search helps you find relevant information (from other disciplines) that you may not otherwise have thought of searching.

Use the advanced search interface to Library Search to perform more sophisticated search queries.

Here are some tips to get better search results .

Databases

Databases are specialised search tools. They are useful for finding articles and papers that focus on a specific study area. They can also be used to find highly specialised information like evidence-based medical information, company and industry information, standards, maps, images, statistics, theses, patents and legal resources.

There are indexing and abstracting databases and also publisher / society full-text databases than may contain a mix of document types.

Databases available via QUT Library

Begin by searching some of the recommended databases in your discipline area:

Business
Law

Open source searching/internet search engines

Some internet search engines can be useful for finding webpages, publicly accessible Government reports or for searching social media.

Google Advanced is a good way to discover government reports and statistics.

You can use Google Advanced to build more comprehensive searches and also narrow your results to specific domains, e.g., .gov.au or formats e.g., .pdf

Watch the video below for a more in-depth look at this search tool.

Whilst Google Advanced is a good way to discover government reports and statistics, not all the of the information you find on the Internet is accurate, up-to-date and reliable. Therefore, it is important to evaluate your information before you decide to use it in your assignment.

Ask yourself:

Authority - Who is the author? What is their point of view?
Purpose - Why was the source created? Who is the intended audience?
Publication & format - Where was it published? In what medium?
Relevance - How is it relevant to your research? What is its scope?
Date of publication - When was it written? Has it been updated?
Documentation - Did they cite their sources? Who did they cite?

Always check the URL of a website to determine what type of site the information is coming from:

.edu.au : an educational institution

.gov.au : a government body

.org.au : an organisation

.com.au or .co : a commercial site

.net : a network

Is it published by a reputable author or organisation?