A guide to literature searching for your dissertation for students on the Social Work Dissertation Preparation Course. 

A literature search is an organised, thorough search of a range of literature e.g. books, journal articles, etc., on your topic. Literature searching can be broken down into a series of iterative steps, often referred to as a search strategy. 

This guide looks at the steps of a searh strategy including keywords/search terms, what databases and search tools to use for your search, and searching techniques and tips to do a better search. It also covers tools available to you to manage your search results and what to do when the Library doesn't have what you need.

A PDF copy of the slides used in the presentation can be downloaded from the Attachments tab above.