Dissertation Research Guide – Modern Research

Traditionally, research has required visitation to a library or other information archive with the student spending hours on end reading books, periodicals and other printed resources to obtain the information he or she needed for their assignment. Today, things are gradually changing as new techniques, resources and technology find their way into our society and academic environment.

One of the primary driving forces behind these changes has been the personal computer. Combined with the development of the Internet and Internet-related technologies, today’s students have up-to-the-minute information on almost any topic available with a few keystrokes and clicks of a computer mouse button.

As computers have evolved into the modern-day notebook, this effect has only been magnified, allowing students (when notebooks are combined with wireless Internet access) to conduct research directly from their classroom, home, or increasingly from their local Starbuck’s.

An Overview of Internet Resources

The diversity of Internet resource is as wide as those found in a typical big city library, if not wider. With resources ranging from personal opinion blogs and websites to comprehensive corporate, governmental, scholastic and other organizational information centers, students are frequently tempted to use only Internet resources in their assignments.

Though it is rapidly changing with many organizations incorporating historical archives into their websites, the Internet’s primary strength today lays in the available coverage of issues, events and knowledge that are more current.

Finding Quality Internet Resources

Once the decision to use Internet resources is made, the student must begin the task of finding reliable and scholarly materials. This is not always easy, depending on the topic, but nor is it impossible.

When locating quality Internet resources, the student must ask key questions regarding the potential resource:

• Is the resource offered by a trustable, reliable source?
• Why is the information being distributed on the Internet?
• Is the source properly cited or a report on original, first hand research?

An additional word of caution regarding the Internet is its volatility. Often students will find materials they were viewing recently no longer available. This happens for one of several reasons: the page was deleted to make room for newer materials, the page was moved during site reorganizations, or the website, itself, has vanished entirely.

Because of this volatility, many professors discourage or “forbid” their students from using Internet resources. This does not mean that the Internet should be ruled out as useful during research. There are many legitimate resources still available that even these professors would find acceptable.

Online Scholarly Journals

Today, many scholarly, academic and industry journals are deploying parallel websites as part of their distribution of knowledge. Some have incorporated historic archives, though most charge an access fee for their use, which is frequently $100 or more per year. Recently, one group of academic professors in California rebelled against a publisher in the field of cellular biology research that was charging excessive sums to academic institutions for access to this type of archive and began their own information distribution network. Ironically, these journals were publishing and profiting from articles primarily written by professors at these same institutions.

Although there are many referencing and listing services, most charge significant fees like the journals mentioned before. This is not always the case, however. A major resource in locating scholarly journals and resources online that does not is the Directory of Open Access Journals (www.doaj.org). The site offers “free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals.” As of the end of August 2008, the website bragged over 3,500 journals referenced with over 1,200 searchable at an article level. At that time, there were over 200,000 articles in their database.

Finding Searchable Keywords

Unless one knows the sites he or she is going to use already (which is unlikely), they will most likely end up using a search engine of some kind. This means entering specific topic keywords in an effort to find what you are looking for. However, how does one come up with these keywords?

One way to come up with keywords is to scan relevant content that you already have. Searching the text of existing materials may reveal additional words, subjects or concepts that might yield useful information through a search engine or library search. Another means is using Ask.com as the search engine. Ask.com has an interesting feature through which they offer search suggestions down one side of the results page that relate to the search just performed. They are divided into three categories: narrow your search, expand your search, and people. Again, these keywords can be used elsewhere, so keeping a separate list is advisable.

Another source might be to examine materials of the main subject (or subjects) of which your dissertation topic of is a subset. Performing the same techniques on the broader subject might reveal additional, related materials.

Using Boolean Expressions

In Internet searches, three words can dramatically affect the quantity and quality of your search results: “and,” “or,” and “not.” The use of these words triggers special behavior in most search engines that can narrow the number of search results returned to the user.

The word “and” forces search engines using Boolean searches to include only those websites that contain both the word preceding the “and” and the word directly following it. Often the reported search results include pages that have one or the other, but not both. The word “or” forces the search engine into an exclusive mode, including websites that have one or the other, but not both words. This contrasts with the use of “not,” which causes the search engine to include all pages with the first word unless they also contain the second word.

By limiting the quantity of results, it is possible to weed out unwanted trash, though one must be cautious with this attitude. Narrowing your search too much can end up with valuable resources being pushed aside unnoticed.

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