It's often very hard to know just where to start when you've been given your first assignment. This Trek will help you prepare before you begin searching for information by making you look carefully at your topic. Begin by analysing your question. Pick out the main ideas - these will be the basis for your literature search. Sometimes, if your topic is hard to analyse, it can help to rephrase it as a question.
Concepts describe the main idea or ideas in an assignment.
A concept or idea may be expressed by a single word or several closely related words. Understand your question In working out the main concepts of a question, you can disregard the 'extra' words, but you DO need to make sure you understand exactly what is required of you. These instructional words tell you what to do and what type of material to look for. Remember that sometimes you will be asked to limit your search to one type of resource. For example, you may be asked to look for newspaper articles only, and you'll need to keep this in mind as you plan your library search.