What is a research guide?
A research guide is a curated academic resource prepared to help researchers locate and use information relevant to a particular subject, discipline, assignment, project or research methodology.
- Introduces important information sources within a discipline.
- Identifies relevant databases, journals, books and repositories.
- Provides guidance on developing effective search strategies.
- Explains how to evaluate scholarly information.
- Directs researchers toward authoritative academic resources.
How to begin your research
A successful research process normally begins with a clearly defined problem or question before searching for literature.
- Define the research topic or problem.
- Identify major concepts and keywords.
- Develop alternative search terms and synonyms.
- Search library databases and scholarly resources.
- Evaluate the relevance and credibility of results.
- Organise useful literature for later citation.
A Computer Science student researching artificial intelligence in Nigerian higher education could begin with terms such as "artificial intelligence", "higher education", "Nigeria", "machine learning", "educational technology" and "student learning".
Evaluating academic sources
Not every source discovered online is suitable for academic research. Researchers should evaluate authority, accuracy, currency, relevance and purpose.
- Identify the author and institutional affiliation.
- Determine whether the work has been peer reviewed.
- Check publication date and relevance.
- Examine the evidence supporting major claims.
- Compare important findings with other scholarly sources.
Building an effective literature search
Advanced searching allows researchers to retrieve better evidence while reducing irrelevant results.
- Use Boolean operators such as AND, OR and NOT.
- Use quotation marks for exact phrases.
- Use truncation where supported.
- Combine keywords with subject terms.
- Apply filters for publication date, subject and document type.
Worked example
Suppose a postgraduate researcher is studying cybersecurity awareness among university students. Instead of searching only for "cybersecurity", the researcher could combine terms such as ("cybersecurity awareness" OR "information security awareness") AND ("university students" OR undergraduates) AND Nigeria. This produces a more focused scholarly search.
Advantages
Improves research efficiency.
Develops information literacy.
Reduces dependence on unreliable web sources.
Helps researchers discover discipline-specific literature.
Improves the quality of literature reviews.
Supports evidence-based academic writing.
Consequences of neglect
- Poorly designed searches may produce incomplete literature reviews.
- Researchers may overlook important scholarly evidence.
- Reliance on unreliable sources can weaken academic arguments.
- Poor information evaluation can introduce factual errors.
- Weak literature discovery can reduce research originality.
How the Library can help
- Database selection guidance.
- Keyword and search strategy development.
- Subject-specific research consultations.
- Source evaluation assistance.
- Literature review support.
- Library database orientation.