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Research: Finding Information and Research

A guide to the research process and search strategies

Finding Information

The Library homepage provides access to essential resources for your study and research. The Library Links tab gives access to individual Databases, eBook Databases, Video & Multimedia resources, Dictionaries & Encyclopedias, News & Media and Standards. The Library Guides tab leads you to APA Referencing, Te Ao Māori and the Subject & Study Guides. The Research tab takes you to the Copyright and Research guides and the Whitireia & WelTec MIT and MPP theses collections. The search field enables you to search for Library resources by title or keywords. There is a drop down menu with a list of filters.

If you require support to help you find information or research contact the library team.

Searching Tips and Strategies

Planning

Before you start, plan your search.  Think about the search strategies and techniques you can use, what type of resources you need (books, journal articles) and where to find them.

Search strategies and techniques

Keywords

These words give you the key to information. Use keywords rather than sentences when searching library databases.

 e.g. nursing leadership Zealand

Not: Describe nursing leadership in a New Zealand context

Always brainstorm keywords before you start searching. To get some ideas:

  • Look at your assignment question and cherry-pick the main terms
  • Read the abstracts of books and articles and note the terminology authors are using
  • Look at the subject headings in the library records of these resources for terms you could search with

Think of the three Ws to help you get the information you need:

  • Who are you researching e.g., Elderly, adolescent, children?
  • What are you researching e.g., leadership, mental health, cultural safety?
  • Where are you researching e.g., hospital, hospice, New Zealand, Australasia?

The first search is not always your best search

Be prepared to modify your search and use different keywords or combinations of keywords until you are happy with the results. Start with broad terms or concepts, e.g. Nursing and then if necessary, refine your search using more specific terms e.g. palliative care.

Phrase searching

Use quotation marks to treat words as a phrase e.g., “cardiac arrest” or “cultural diversity”

Synonyms

Think about words or phrases that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase e.g., nosebleed OR epistaxis

If your results are:

  • Not relevant - Use synonyms, broader or narrower terms, add more words, try different combinations of synonyms
  • Too few - Check your spelling, try truncation, synonyms, or a broader term
  • Too many - Add more words, use a narrower term, synonyms, use the filters (Scholarly & peer-review, content type, subject, date) 

Truncation

If a word has several possible endings, use a truncation symbol (usually an asterisk) so the computer searches on all the words at once. For example, use reflect* to search for: Reflect, reflects, reflecting, reflective

Wild card 

If you want to include several possible spellings of a word, then use the wild card symbol (use a question mark to replaces 0 or 1 letter, an asterisk for more than 1 letter) so the computer searches on all versions of the word at once. e.g. Coloni?ation for searching both colonisation and colonization 

Boolean operators

These focus your search and are great to use in the Advanced search of databases (NB Use capital letters for these words). 

  • AND - When you want to include all terms. Each hit should contain both words e.g. falls AND prevent* (This narrows the search)
  • OR - Each hit will contain one or the other term. They may or may not appear in the same record.  This is where you can include synonyms (alternative words for the same thing) e.g. elderly OR older OR aged (This broadens the search)
  • NOT - This excludes a word e.g. Australia (This narrows the search)

Publication date

Library databases give you the option to select a specific publication date range.

Quick searching summary

Searching Tips Quick Guide

What type of resources?

The type of resources you should be using are academic books, ebooks and scholarly/peer-reviewed journal articles. You could also refer to professional/industry journals, conference papers and proceedings.

Use of websites

Depending on your assignment question, you can use relevant information found on governmental, organisational and tertiary websites such as the Ministry of Health, New Zealand Nursing Organisation (See web resources) and open access repositories of institutions. e.g. reports, policies, evidence-based nursing procedures and theses. 

What is scholarly?

Scholarly articles are written by experts or researchers in a particular field.  They are aimed at other experts or researchers (including students) in their field. They are usually in depth research, original research or case studies. They use technical language, contain no advertising or non-essential images (only those that support their research i.e. graphs, charts, statistics etc). They have different sections including an abstract, introduction, literature review, methodology, results and conclusion. They have formal and lengthy references and are usually peer-reviewed.

What is peer-reviewed?

Peer-reviewed or 'refereed is when scholarly work is evaluated by other experts in the field before it is accepted and published in a scholarly journal. This ensures that the required standard of expertise is met.

Where do you find information?

Many courses have required textbooks or recommended reading lists. Look at the Books/eBooks and Databases tabs of this guide for titles on your subject area. Look at the reference list and bibliographies of books and articles to see what the authors are using in their research.

The Library search field on the Library website enables you to search the Library’s collection. There is a drop down menu with a list of filters:

  • Select Library Catalogue filter for finding physical books
  • Select Search Everything filter to search the Library’s print and online items at the same time.

Databases and eBooks links under the Library Links tab enable you to search specific databases on a topic. Use the Advanced search of different databases to refine your search and apply the searching techniques mentioned in this guide (see above).

Aotearoa Theses & Research

Whitireia & WelTec Theses (Open Access)

Māori Research

Aotearoa / NZ Theses (Open Access)

NZ Research on Digital NZ. You can access a comprehensive collection of research papers from New Zealand organisations, including from universities, polytechnics, and other research sites.

International Research