Research Lecture

Dissertation/Extended Written Piece

Library Research

Twitter: @LibraryArtLeeds 


Keywords:
FOCUS
RELEVANCE

It helps if you have a well defined title you will do focus research. Then you won't have any irrelevant information.

Try and focus the city/Britain you are focusing on rather than words such as Urban environment.

Visualise your title
Think about what you need to look at for your subject.
Look at others to make comparison/constrast.
Mindmap? Spider diagram?

Dissertation Titles Examples

PRIMARY RESEARCH
Own research

SECONDARY RESEARCH
Disagreement or corroboration.
Triangulation (Dealing with conflicting views of references)

RESEARCH METHODS
Visual Practice, Experiment, Interest & Enquiry 
Questionnaire 
Interviews 
Case Study (Go indepth a universal conclusions from a particular case).
Site Visit 

LITERATURE SEARCH 1
Books (Mix of picture & academic books)
Journals (Mix of picture & academic journals)
Websites/Blogs/On-line forums.
Videos/DVDs
CDs/Tape Casettes/Vinyl Recordings
TV & Radio
Newspapers/Maps/Reports
Printed Ephemera - Stuff that is printed & not meant to be kept.

LITERATURE SEARCH 2
Where to look? Leeds Library
Effective use of catalogues - use an expansive technique.
Use of Contents Page & Index - Before taking it out!
Read the Introduction - always summarises the book.
If you find a good book, look at the book's bibliography.

BOOK SEARCH
Leeds College of Art Library
Leesd Metropolitan University Library
(SCONUL) University of Leeds - Need to fill in a form.
The British Library on Boston Spa - Arrives within 2/3 days LCA library can get it for you.
COPAC - To find the local university which has the book that you want.


JOURNAL SEARCH 1
InfroTrac - Store of online magazine articles.
Click Proceed.
Password: tryinfomarks

JSTOR - Online magazine articles - In college only.

Art Full Text - Journal Index some full text articles avaliable.

Athens - Need to get a login password from library.

Google Scholar - Some full text PDF articles avaliable.


LIBRARY ESTUDIO
Links to most of sites above.
Harvard Referencing
Writing a Biblography

TWO TIPS
Keep the topic & title focused & manageable.
Keeping your bibliography up to date.
Note taking.
Create a sense of momentum, writing a draft.