Assignments are sometimes presented as questions, other times as more detailed and extensive briefs (depending on the subject).
It's tempting to muddle through with a vague understanding of the brief but clearly a better idea is to check and double check what your tutors actually want by reading carefully.
Doing preliminary research can be a good way to to familiarise yourself with your topic and can help you to establish basic facts. It may also lead you to adjust your topic as you find areas that you want to focus on.
As you explore, notice the words that are being used to describe your topic. Look for the names of key people, places, events, concepts, or theories. These can be used for more focussed searching later on.
There is no need to do in-depth reading at this stage. Just dip in and use what you find to help expand your ideas. All ideas and thoughts are welcome!
Do some 'quick and dirty' simple searches using a familiar search engine such as Google (remember other search engines are available, e.g. DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, and Firefox).
These basic searches will bring you back a diverse range of sources covering lots of different perspectives. These might include news stories, product promotions, links to professional organisations as well as more scholarly sources.
Although it isn't recommended that you use Wikipedia as a cited source in your assignment, online encyclopaedias such as Wikipedia are useful to help you understand basic background information. It can provide clear explanations of events or key terms and concepts.
The hyperlinks within each Wikipedia article allow you to explore related concepts and because sources used in the articles are cited, you might find useful articles or books.
Think back to any lectures you might have had on the topic. What events, theories, or people were mentioned? Are there are any slides or course materials you could go back to?
Were there any related resources on the module Talis resource list? Use the lists to not only to identity key texts but also the names of authors who write on the topic. What else might they have written? Also note the titles of journals that any recommended articles were published in. You might want to search through the journal for related articles. A quick way to access your Talis list is to type the module code into Online Resource Lists.
Talk your ideas through with a friend. Bouncing ideas off other people can generate more ideas and fresh approaches. It can also help you to identity where the gaps are in your knowledge.
Be open to their comments and questions!
Capture the ideas that come out of your brainstorming by using a mind map or by writing down all your ideas on post-it notes.
Add in any questions that you might have. Brainstorming is likely to generate questions because it triggers new ideas. You will also discover that there are gaps in your knowledge. Maybe there are dates or names of people that you need to check, or a definition that you need to find? Are there theories or concepts that you need to understand in more detail? Make a note of these too.
Draw arrows to connect up related ideas or move your post-it notes around so similar ideas sit next to each other. You will start to see what your main topics are going to be and what the sub topics are. This will put some order on your ideas and may help you to see a possible structure for your finished work.
Finally, but importantly, a mind map will help you create a list of keywords. Keywords are going to be essential for the next stage of research, which is searching and locating sources.
