MECM90038 Chap.3 Searching and Judging Scholarly Literature
Searching and Judging Scholarly Literature
A literature review is only as strong as the sources behind it, and this chapter covers both halves of getting them right. It starts with the Week 2 lecture's definition of literature and its advice to search at the level of topic areas rather than your exact case.
It then works through the library's three-step search strategy: keywords, Boolean operators, and techniques such as phrase searching, truncation, wildcards and filters, repeated in an iterative loop. Next come the lecture's markers of credibility, including peer review and searchable authors, and its checks for relevance, timeliness and disciplinary fit. Finally it maps the recommended databases and citation trails.
Together these steps produce the peer-reviewed, field-relevant readings the introduction and literature review assignment requires.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Literature as previous studies plus existing knowledge in a field
- 02
Starting a search at topic areas rather than your exact case
- 03
Building a search string with AND, OR and NOT
- 04
Phrase searching, truncation, wildcards and filters as refinement techniques
- 05
Judging credibility through peer review and searchable scholarly authors
- 06
Recommended databases, citation trails and library access tools
Worked example · free
Turning a scoped question into a search string
- 1Lift the search to topic areas: news coverage of urban mobility and media framing of new technologies.
- 2List synonyms for each concept and join them: (e-scooter* OR "micromobility") AND (news OR journalism) AND (framing OR coverage).
- 1Run the string in Discovery and in Communication & Mass Media Complete, with a peer-reviewed filter.
- 1If the list is too long, add a concept with AND, such as city*, or narrow the publication years.
Key terms
- Topic area
- The broader inquiry within a branch of knowledge that surrounds your case. Literature searches start here because few studies match a specific case exactly.
- Boolean operators
- The linking words AND, OR and NOT used in databases. AND narrows a search, OR broadens it across synonyms, and NOT removes a term.
- Truncation
- A search technique that uses an asterisk after a word stem. It retrieves every ending of that stem in one search.
- Peer review
- A quality-control process in which independent experts in the field assess a work before publication. Most credible academic sources have passed through it.
- Cited by search
- A feature in Google Scholar and other databases that lists later works citing a given article. It helps you find newer research and judge an article's influence.
- Subject database
- A database that indexes one field's journals, such as Communication & Mass Media Complete. Its narrower coverage often yields more manageable result lists.
Searching and Judging Scholarly Literature FAQ
Why does my literature search return nothing about my exact case?
Your case is usually too specific to have its own body of research. The Week 2 lecture tells students to search topic areas instead: for a case about international students' social media use in Melbourne, that means youth media, migrant media and transnational digital research. Studies from those areas supply the concepts you then apply to your own case.
How recent should sources be for a media and communications literature review?
The Week 2 lecture says the field changes fast, so literature on your topic area should be recent, ideally from the last five years, and warns that work from the television era may not transfer. Older foundational studies can still frame a concept, but the core of the review should reflect current platforms and practices.
Can I use generative AI to find sources for my literature review?
The lecture lists Copilot among possible places to start, alongside subject reading lists, the library and Google Scholar, but adds that every source must be credible and truthful and that links should be checked repeatedly. Treat any suggested reference as unverified until you have opened it in a database and confirmed its author, journal and year.
Which library databases suit media and communications research?
The subject's library pages recommend Discovery as a starting point while also searching at least one other database. Communication & Mass Media Complete covers journalism, media, advertising and public relations and often returns manageable lists. Scopus is multidisciplinary and very current, with times cited links. Google Scholar works best after setting its library preferences for full-text access.
How do I tell whether a journal article is credible?
Check that a respected academic publisher put it through peer review, and see whether the journal has an impact factor. Then search the author through an institutional profile, ORCID or Google Scholar. Finally read the abstract and confirm the journal sits in media and communications, since a credible paper from another field may still be off-topic.
Assessment move
Start by writing your case, two or three topic areas above it and the field above those. Turn the topic areas into concept lists with synonyms, then build one bracketed string per round and record it in a search log with the database, date and number of useful hits. Run each string in Discovery and one subject database, read abstracts before saving anything, and check each author's profile.
Keep a shortlist with publication year and journal field beside each entry so timeliness and discipline are visible. Finally, avoid chasing every reference list: follow citation trails only from your strongest two studies.
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