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Design Theory: Starting your research

Starting your research

On this page we lay out some guidelines and point to additional resources to help you begin your research.

How to do research

A few notes about how to get started on your research: 

  • Start big, get smaller. Start researching the broad concepts first. This will not only yield the most results but will allow you to get more familiar with the topic. The more familiar you are with the broad concepts, the easier it will be to make connections, recognize themes, and gradually narrow down your research. 
  • Gather important keywords while you are reading about the broad concepts. Note the name of the architect or designer, the name of the building, design terms, artistic movements, historical periods, etc.  These are the words you will use to search the catalog and online journal databases.  
  • Think keywords not key phrases: The phrase “influence of classical architecture on Le Corbusier” is a Google search phrase.  This will not work when using catalogs and databases because the information has been indexed differently. The way to search library catalogs and databases is to use keywords and try different combinations of them to yield a variety of results: 
  • Instead of "influence of classical architecture on Le Corbusier" search: 
    • Le Corbusier AND Classical 
    • Le Corbusier AND Greek architecture 
    • Villa Savoye AND Parthenon 
  • If you are comparing two topics, begin by researching each topic separately. Through initial research of the separate topics, you will learn how to compare and contrast them. 
  • If you are having trouble finding results in your searches, read more about your topic generally and begin to use other keywords in your searches. Broaden the scope, open up the search to a larger pool of results, and spend time reading through the results.  There is something written about almost everything! It's just a matter of figuring out how to find it. 

Purdue Writing Lab: Writing A Research Paper guide

This handout from Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL) provides detailed information about how to write research papers including discussing research papers as a genre, choosing topics, and finding sources.

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/658/01/