Lecture Notes 13: Dissertation or Extended Written Piece: Library Research

• If you require aid when researching over the summer (With chances being that you won't be in Leeds during that period), do contact chris.graham@leeds-art.ac.uk
• The book loan limit has been upgraded from 10 to 15 for third years.
• eStudio >>> College Library (To the right)
• Notable Things that are available there:
• 1. Harvard Referencing- Comprehensive Guide
  Secondary Referencing Using Harvard, Pg 25 (For referencing the quote by an author different to the book's author itself) 
• 2. SCONUL ACCESS (Allows you to access other University libraries, such as University of Leeds)
  Step 1: Full Time Undergraduate
  Step 2: Leeds College of Art
  Step 3: Fill out a form
  Submit and wait for an email
  You won't have to repeat this process for other facilities once you have done it once
• Keywords when researching: Focus and Relevance
• Clearly define the area of study you wish to focus on before you actually begin researching, so to avoid wasting time looking into irrelevant material
• Examples of Dissertation Titles:
  Straight Forward Example: "The role of costume within the film "A Taste of Honey""
  A More Wooly Example: "Did western society ever need cars; are they a necessary and how have they contributed to the formation of the urban environment" (Practically two topics instead of actually one)
• Mindmaps help as always, to identify areas you should begin to research, it will obviously continue to expand as you go along with your research
• Primary Research - Gathering your own original data (Interviews, etc.)
• Secondary Research (Scholarship) - Reading up on the subject, making use of the research and findings of others for corroboration, disagreement, triangulation, theoretical underpinning, etc. (Books, magazine, the contextualising of your findings)
• Exciting stuff if you can actually contradict you secondary research
• Research methods:
  Visual practice, experiment, interest and enquiry (Research and critical diaries)
  Questionnaires/Survey (Qualitative/Quantitative), try to give a time limit (So people won't take their time when filling it out) and give a draft
  Interviews
  Case Study
  Site Visits
• Literature Search 1:
  Books and Journals (Try to go for text heavy stuff, instead of 'picture' books', though the latter would be of use for the practical response)
  Websites/Blogs/Online forums
  Videos/DVDs
  CDs/Tape Cassettes/Vinyl Recordings
  TV/Radio
  Newspapers/Maps?Reports
  Printed Ephemera (Flyers, Posters, things that aren't actually meant to last)
• Literature Search 2
  Knowing where to look most effectively
  Effective use of catalogues:
  - Narrowing and broadening search terms
  - Using related terms
  - Browsing using Dewey Decimal Classification
  Using of contents page and index
  Reading the introduction or abstract
  Using a book's own bibliography to inform further reading
• Book Search
  SCONUL (Again)
  The British Library in Boston Spa
• Journal Search 1
  InfoTrac (Available outside of college)
  - A store of online magazine articles
  - If at college, click the "proceed" button
  - If at home
• Journal Search 2
  - JSTOR
• Journal Search 3
  - EBSCOhost
• Internet Search 1
  - Athens
  - A store of password protected sites
  - Each student who wishes to access this site will need to ask the Librarian for a login and password
  http://www.athens.ac.uk
• Internet Search 2
  - WGSN (For fashion and textiles)
  - A database of fashion information and trends
  - www.wgsn.com
• Internet Search 3
  - Google Scholar
  - Some fill text PDF articles available:
  - scholar.google.co.uk
• Two Tips:
  - Keep the topic and title focused and manageable
  - Create a sense of momentum (Note taking, writing a draft section when you can, keeping your bibliography up to date)