Information perspectives for your topic
R23–1016 SOAN20942
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Supporting materials
Practicalities
- Group: 65
- Length: 60 minutes
- Room: Lecture theatre
- Discipline: Social Anthropology
- Level: UG
By engaging with this support, you will:
Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different search tools
Identify an appropriate tool to use for finding information for your specific purpose
Develop an awareness of a wide range of information sources available to use in academic work
Develop appropriate strategies for current awareness in your field
Suggested online resources
Planning and reviewing your search
Getting started with search tools
Evaluating information sources
Understanding different information sources
Getting started with referencing
Slides 1–3: Session content
Outline to students what will be covered in the session, highlighting that these topics were identified by their lecturer in support of this course on the Ethnographer’s Craft and will focus on:
- Drawing on a range of perspectives
- Discussing your topic
- What next?
- Help and support
Slides 4–6: Drawing on a range of perspectives
Outline example topic:
“How did supermarket staff’s working habits change during the Covid-19 crisis in the UK?”
Highlight that this topic has been chosen as it spans various academic disciplines as well as being of interest to a non-academic audience
ACTIVITY (6 MINUTES)
Ask participants to discuss with the person next to them:
- Who might have an opinion on this?
- What kind of information might you look for?
Encourage them to use the Jamboard to record their thoughts.
Share Jamboard on screen to discuss responses before sharing Slide 6
Slide 7: Drawing on a range of perspectives
ACTIVITY (10 MINUTES)
Ask participants to discuss their topic with the person next to them and in pairs or threes consider:
- Who might have an opinion on this?
- What kind of information might you look for?
Participants can use the Jamboard or their own devices/notebooks
Discuss as a group:
- Were there any perspectives your peers suggested that you had not considered?
- Did you come up with any new ideas yourself?
- How easy did you find it to come up with ideas/responses for another person’s topic?
Slide 8: Supporting content
Outline that supporting content will be available in their Blackboard area
Slide 9–14: Finding information
Once you have identified the types of information that are useful to your project you can start thinking about where to look for them.
Slide 10: Library Search is the Library’s main search tool. It’s particularly useful for finding books and journal articles. It’s a good place to start and returns results from all subject areas.
DEMONSTRATION:
Library Search, Advanced Search, how to save searches
Slide 11: You can find a curated selection of subject specific databases on your subject guide: http://subjects.library.manchester.ac.uk When you use a subject database you know that your results will be from that subject’s perspective, which can help improve the relevancy of your results.
DEMONSTRATION:
Navigate to Social Anthropology subject guide from Library website, highlight key databases and that as their work might be interdisciplinary, they may want to look at other subject guides
Slide 12–14: Google Scholar is great for ease of use and when you want to quickly explore what has been written about a particular subject. It’s less useful when you want to focus your search as there are few options to refine your search. Outline advantages and disadvantages.
DEMONSTRATION:
Show FindIt@Manchester to locate the article/item in our collections
Slide 15: What next?
Ask participants to think about what their next steps may be in their searching and note these down on the Jamboard
Slide 16: Managing your sources
Highlight EndNote Online as a way to manage the sources that they find during searching, emphasising that taking some time to document and organise their searches and sources now will save time long term.
Slide 17–20: Further support
Link to further support and resources
