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The Research Process For Undergraduate Students: Determining your information need

This libguide will help undergraduate students with skills required to find, retrieve and evaluate information on research topics

Introduction

This section will help you to explore more on the information you'll need, get more information on your topic and define the keywords.

Recognise your information need

You'll know that you need information when you:

  • receive a project/assignment from a lecturer
  • have a personal need that requires certain information before you can make a decision, e.g buying a cell phone.

 

Think about your information need

What is the problem question or topic you need information for

At this time you would have identified your need for information and have a vague idea about the topic. You will have to formalize your search question 

Remember, in some cases, your lecturer will give you a specific topic and you will have to look very carefully at precisely what is asked of you, so that you can formulate your search question accurately.

 

Read about your topic

When you search for information, you will need to use keywords. To find the correct keywords, you'll have to do some reading about your topic. in other words, you read to get the right keywords.

The best place to start is using the reference sources. These include but not limited the dictionaries, encyclopedias. These will supply you with alternative words to your keywords and begin your search. 

It is important to start recording the resources you have used, the information you found and where you found it.

Define keywords

Once you have read generally about your topic, you should have a better idea of the keywords under which you will find information about your topic. So before you can start your search, you should define your keywords accurately.