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Focusing Your Literature Search

When beginning your literature search, it is important to understand the amount and type of research you need to find. Look for these terms in your assignment instructions to provide clarity about what your faculty expects.

Level of Comprehensiveness

Level Description
Comprehensive  Students are expected to review all relevant literature on a topic, as found in Library collections and free (open) access publications, but also review relevant sources beyond what is immediately and freely available (e.g. foundational scholarly articles not available through Library collections). This requires interlibrary loan support.
Comprehensive (Locally Accessible) Students are expected to review relevant literature on a topic to the extent that may be found in Library collections and free (open) access publications. They are not expected to review relevant sources beyond what is locally and freely available. 
Exploratory Students are expected to review a small selection of relevant literature sources on a topic using Library collections and free (open) access publications.

Types of Acceptable Sources

Type Description
Academic Only e.g. academic and/or peer-reviewed journal articles and books produced by academic publishers
Academic & Authoritative Academic, as well as other high-quality sources, such as government websites, professional magazines, think tanks, data centers, educational videos
Any Relevant & Credible Academic and authoritative sources, as well as websites of any type if relevant and credible. Students evaluate sources for relevancy to their topic and credibility of the author or content producer before utilizing the source.