Collecting Information from Secondary Sources

This section will take you through the stages which you need to locate and collect information from secondary sources.

Stage One: Developing a search strategy

In order to develop an effective search strategy you will have to:

Identify the key issues for your subject

Choose the relevant information sources

Decide on keywords for your searches

Construct a keyword diagram

Exercise 1: Developing a search strategy

Look at the question below. Consider how you might go about developing a search strategy around this particular topic. Try to work through each of the 4 stages outlined before you click on the links to see an example of our suggestions as to how you might go about conducting the search.

Question Account for the rise of the inner-city gang over the last two decades.

Identify the key issues
Area 1.

To account for something means to explain the phenomena so this question asks you to explain the rise of inner-city gangs, but before you do this there are some other issues which you have to address:

• What exactly is a gang?
  
  You need to find a definition of the term “gang” which you can work with

• Are gangs really on the increase?
  
  You should investigate this claim rather than just take it for granted

Then in order to account for the alleged rise in this phenomena you need to:

• Look at the various theories which have been put forward to explain the existence of gangs

Choose the relevant information sources
Area 2.

Now you need to find information on:

• Definitions of gangs
• Numbers of gangs and whether these are increasing
• Theoretical perspectives on gangs

You will need to conduct your searches using:

• the library - link
• relevant academic journals - link
• reliable databases - link

The library: You should start your search in any library to which you have access. The library attached to your university or college will almost certainly have relevan material which will have been ordered by the teaching staff.

Relevant academic journals: You should check which journals are bought by your university or college library and to which you have access electronically. Electronic searches are easily the most efficient way of accessing journal material.

Reliable databases: Use a social science gateway to your subject, this will ensure that your searches are more focussed. A general “Google” search might come up with similar material but it will also come up with a lot of material which is not useful to you. See Part [link] for a list of suitable gateways.

Decide on keywords for your searches
Area 3.

Think here about which aspects of the issue you would like to focus your answers around and tailor your search to meet these requirements. What might you add as a keyword and also what might you take away?

The main keyword for your search is obviously GANG, but remember the question also denotes that it is interested in INNER-CITY gangs so you might want to add this in to your search or take out RURAL or SUBURBAN, for example.

You might also find that a search on the word GANG alone will throw up references to CHAIN GANGs or WORK GANGs so you might want to use a phrase such as GANG NOT WORK as your keyword phrase.

You also have to decide which area of the world you are interested in. Perhaps you have decided on a North American perspective. You could add USA or CANADA as a keyword and you might also want to take out gangs from other regions of the world, NOT TRIADS or NOT YARDIES, for example. this is all about refining your search, narrowing your focus and making your searches more efficient.

Construct a keyword diagram
Area 4

In order to find the information which you will need you should now construct your keyword diagram. You can use the words you have come up with in the previous stage and use these for your related, narrower and broader searches – but remember you will have to know something about the subject in order to construct a keyword diagram which works. So constructing such a diagram is an ongoing process.

Narrower You could narrow this down to find particular gangs in US inner-city neighbourhoods e.g. Bloods/Cripps/South Central Los Angeles

Keywords These are the more obvious words which you will start off with Gang* NOT Chain Inner-city USA OR Canada

Related These are the words which could replace your keywords e.g. “hood” “posse” instead of “gang” or “North America” instead of USA and Canada

Broader These widen your search e.g “urban” is a wider term than “inner-city”. Or removing USA OR Canada will widen the search considerably

Now put together your own keyword search on this subject. Try out the keywords you have chosen in:

the library
relevant academic journals
reliable databases

and see how successful they are. How would you refine your search? Do you have to narrow or broaden your search depending on what information source you are using?

The more practice you get in constructing these diagrams the more focused and efficient you will become at finding relevant information.