Discovering Information for your Research

The Library can provide assistance on searching for information from looking at the components of building a search strategy, identifying where to search and what types of information you are looking for, to advanced search techniques. Once you have conducted your search it is important to evaluate the information you have found and to ensure that any new relevant research does not escape you.

Search strategies

The Library offers training on advanced search techniques for Research Staff and Doctoral Researchers: Planning your search (on demand) and Conducting your search (in person). These can be found in the Discovering information for your research section of Research Central on Learn.

Effective literature searching is an interactive tutorial for new researchers which covers strategies for overcoming common issues faced when searching for literature such as finding too much information, or not enough. It also includes a quick start guide on how to access information at Loughborough University.

Systematic reviews use explicit methods to identify, select and critically appraise relevant primary research.  They require more comprehensive search techniques and the on-demand course Planning your Systematic Review covers these and the major stages important in effectively planning your systematic review. Training on Finding evidence for your Systematic Review for Research Staff and Doctoral Researchers can be booked through the Doctoral College Development Portal.

Additional sources

Alongside traditional platforms to search such as catalogues and databases there are many additional sources of information such as grey literature (defined as information that is not produced through traditional and/or commercial publication channels), AHSS specific sources (including primary sources and archives), STEM-specific sources (such as patents, pre-print repositories and code).

Information on Additional sources can be found in the Discovering information for your research section of Research Central on Learn.

Literature mapping tools can help you identify other relevant studies for your research. They work by identifying connections between scholarly articles. while they do not replace a manual search they can increase the discoverability of other relevant studies for your research. 

Sources of datasets provide a listing of data repositories that house data sets from a wide range of research areas. 

Open research sources lists open platforms and open collaborative tools.

The ability to critically evaluate information is an essential research skill in our vastly expanding digital world. There are useful frameworks that can be used as prompts to weight up the value of the resources you have found. These can be found in the slides on Evaluation in the Discovering information for your research section of Research Central on Learn.

Once you have performed your initial searches you need to ensure that you keep up to date with the literature. You can do this by setting alerts across some platforms. Alerts can be set for authors, citations and keyword searches. You can also create an alert for a journal's table of contents. Information on Keeping up to date can be found in the Discovering information for your research section of Research Central on Learn.