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Management

MPL700 Leadership Practice with Impact


This guide is designed to help you find and use quality resources to support your research for MPL700. Look at search tips and suggested strategies on using Library Advanced Search and selected databases to locate scholarly and non-scholarly resources.


Planning your search

Before you begin looking for resources for your research, invest some time planning your search strategy. Spending a small amount of time now will save you time and frustration later. To begin searching you should be clear about the topic of your research or assessment. Ensure you review your assessment instructions. You may already have received a topic, a statement or clues to guide your search. So write down the keywords and concepts. Check that it's clear and focused.
 

Related Links

Referencing and Academic Writing is not the Library's area of expertise. For assistance, please contact Study Support to find out drop in times for Writing Mentors or to make an appointment with a Language and Learning Advisor.


 

Finding scholarly sources

The assessment requires you to use scholarly sources to support your discussion. Academic books, conference publications and peer review articles are common sources of scholarly sources. Scholarly sources contribute to new knowledge by sharing new research findings, theories, analyses and insights. They are written by academics and experts who adhere to strict publishing standards and guidelines. Due to the level of authority and credibility in scholarly sources, they are essential to the overall quality of your assessments. Use of scholarly sources is an expected attribute of academic course work.

Related Links

Guide to Peer Review


How to locate peer reviewed articles

When searching for articles, you can limit your search to peer reviewed content using a limiter checkbox. Look for the checkbox on the library search results page, an Advanced Search page, or a database search page. Click the tabs below to see examples showing where to find the limiter checkbox when using different search tools.

Deakin Library search results showing peer review limiter checkbox highlighted Here is a screenshot of the Deakin Library search results screen which shows the peer review checkbox highlighted.

You can use this limiter to restrict your search results so they only show content from peer reviewed journals.

 

Deakin Library Advanced Search screen with peer review checkbox highlightedThis image shows the Deakin Library Advanced Search screen with the peer review checkbox highlighted.

In this example, the researcher has entered their search criteria on the Advanced Search panel and has selected the peer review limiter before pressing the Search button.

 

If you prefer to search individual databases, these databases are recommended.  Also see Management Resource Guide

Finding non-scholarly resources 

This assessment requires you to also find non-scholarly (or popular) sources to support your discussion. Non-scholarly resources are typically  geared towards a general audience and aim to inform or persuade on issues of interest and are much more informal in tone and scope.  But they provide excellent background information as well as stories, opinion pieces and personal points of view on a topic and can be helpful depending on research needs. Examples of non-scholarly sources include  general news and business publications such as Harvard Business Review, Australian Financial Review, Forbes, Psychology Today. 

 

Related Links

Guide to Types of Information Sources
Guide to Primary and Secondary Sources

Search Deakin's newspaper databases as recommended below or use A-Z Journals and Newspapers

Using Library Advanced Search to find non-scholarly sources

1. Limit your search by date, and resource type e.g. academic journals, industry profiles, magazines etc.

2. Limit your search by Subject: Thesaurus Term and Subject for more keywords and concepts to use in your research

            

Search Tips

Phrase searching narrows a search to show results that contain an exact phrase e.g. "transformational leadership"

To conduct a phrase search, add double quote marks around two or more words you want to search for.

For example: searching for "transformational leadership" will only return records that contain this exact term. 

Truncation searching broadens a search to show results that include words with variation.

To conduct a truncation search, use an asterix character * to signify where the variation should exist.

Use this when you want to show results that include words with different endings. For example, searching for project* will return records that contain any of these words:  'project', 'projects', 'projection', 'projector', etc.

Truncation can also be useful when spelling variations exist. For example, searching for organi*ation will return records that contain either of these words:  'organisation', 'organization'.

Truncation searching is sometimes referred to as wildcard searching or stemming.

Boolean searching is a type of search that allows users to combine keywords with operators AND, OR, NOT to produce more relevant results. They connect your search words together to either narrow or broaden your results. Using the correct Boolean operator can make all the difference in a successful search. 

Using the word AND between two search terms narrows a search to show results containing both terms.
Example: "leader member exchange" AND influence

Conversely, using the word OR between two terms broadens a search to show results containing either term.

Example: "leader member exchange" OR LMX

Using NOT will narrow your search by excluding certain results from your search, however as the video on the next tab shows it should be used with care as this technique can remove relevant results.

Example: recruitment NOT HR