The course formerly known as Mi512, is part of a series of Workshops from the Methodology Institute| and is taught by staff from the Library and Centre for Learning Technology|.
The aim of the course is to introduce research students to essential sources and tools when undertaking research, and the skills required to use them. It should help research students take full advantage of the wealth of material available at LSE.
Availability
First and second year research students and MSc Social Research Methods students.
Course content
MY592 is a six week programme of 2 hour workshops which aims to develop students' research skills and introduce the essential sources and tools when undertaking research, and the skills required to use them. It is ideal for research students undertaking an extensive literature search and review.
Students receive detailed advice on the most appropriate Library resources for their research topics. Materials, online activities and assessment will be available in Moodle to support the teaching.
Programme
Workshop 1 Introduction & undertaking a literature search
The first session provides a course overview and will explore literature searching principles, tips and techniques for your literature reviews including devising appropriate search strategies. Discover how to identify and use relevant online resources for your subject. These will include IBSS, Scopus and the Social Science Citation Index and further subject specific resources. We will look at how to start managing the literature that you find and setting up alerts and saved searches.
Workshop 2 Using the internet for your research
This workshop discusses the range of content available via the web, contrasting the strengths and weaknesses of web-based research, including: comparing advanced features of search engines such as Google; finding relevant scholarly literature on their research topic; contrasting bibliographic database and specialist search engines with internet search engines and discussing the appropriate merits of each valuating material on the internet using standard criteria. You will also have a chance to set up alerts and a feed reader to enable you to keep up to date with wealth of online information.
Workshop 3 Finding theses, conference papers & specialist research materials
This session examines a number of specialist search engines to locate research publications appropriate to your topic. We will discuss the concept of 'open access' materials and demonstrate how to locate these materials. We will use databases such as EThOS and Index to Theses for finding theses and specialist search engines to locate conference and working papers.
Workshop 4: Dealing with Data, news, archives and official publications
This session examines the value of primary sources most particularly data and newspapers, official publications, archives. You will examine methods for searching for, using and exporting quantitative datasets and explore the major data archives available from LSE's extensive Data Library. You will also learn how to identify and find the key primary sources for your topic and how to use these specialist materials, such newspapers and official government and IGO materials.
Workshop 5 Managing information
Session five covers good practice techniques when citing and referencing in your thesis and other written academic work. You will explore some of the tools available to save time and manage your research materials such as EndNote, Mendeley or Zotero all of which can be used to store your references and enable you to create instant consistently formatted bibliographies in Word. You will examine the different features of these citation management tools and consider which will work for you.
Workshop 6 Next steps, sharing your research and building a network
Your initial literature review is only the start of the research process. In this session you will have a chance to review the materials you've found to date and refine your searching. We'll also consider how you might start to extend your academic network and explore appropriate ways of sharing some of your early research findings. We'll look at how to find suitable conferences or forums for disseminating your research, the use of email discussion lists, blogs and how to build a suitable web presence to support your future work.
Follow on workshops on using EndNote, archives and data sources will be scheduled for those students who wish to develop a more in-depth understanding of these tools and resources.
Places on the entire programme can be booked using the LSE Training and Development System. |
Assessment This course is non-examinable. .