Guidelines

Systematic literature search

1. Draw up a list of sources (journal databases, subject-related websites, bibliographic catalogues and other lists your business librarian suggests).
2. Define the scope of the research.
3. Determine key words you can use for searching, including alternative spellings and synonyms.
4. Search each source, keeping a record of your progress (for example: Journal of Drinking Habits: Searched 1990–2009 using keywords ...) and full details of relevant publications so that you can read them later and, if relevant, reference them in your work.
5. Only collect literature that is relevant to your research in terms of the topic, theory and methodology. In the academic literature, select articles from high-quality journals that review the literature, describe the methods used, discuss the results and draw conclusions.
6. Start with the most recent publications and work back in time, using the references at the end of relevant publications to lead you to previous studies.
7. When you start to recognize the references cited in other works, you are nearing the end of your first search.
8. To keep up to date with the literature, continue searching the literature throughout the project.

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