Literature Search and reference management

Literature search and reference management is a crucial part of every research, irrespective of subject discipline. It is particularly important during the thesis writing of the doctoral study because of the higher level of complexity compared to many independent research, and longer yet time-constrained nature of this tertiary education. Although I realised the importance of efficient management of these tasks, I did not have the idea that it could be achieved in a systematic way until I came across the notetaking workshop, conducted by Translational Health Research Institute of Western Sydney University in conjunction with Western Sydney University Campbelltown campus library. As a Ph.D. student of this institute, I had the opportunity to attend this workshop, which brought a significant difference in my approaches in carrying off these arduous tasks of searching and organising literature. The workshop lasted for two hours facilitated by the school of medicine librarian, relevant experts, and the Higher Degree by Research (HDR) director of the institute. I benefited from the workshop in several ways, some of which deserves mentioning. Firstly, I was introduced to PICO (P=patient, problem, or population; I=intervention; C=comparison, control or comparator; O=outcome) method of developing literature search that enlightens me with efficient and effective strategies not only for my doctoral thesis but also for my future research. Compared to my earlier approach, i.e., searching with keywords, this technique seemed to be more organised and time-saving in the long run, although it requires investing more effort and time in the shorter horizon, unlike my previous approach. Secondly, I learned to keep myself updated with the relevant literature in my research area though setting up search-alert, a method which remained completely unexplored until the point of attending the workshop. I expect that it will save me a lot of time to keep looking for a new journal in my research area, making the process more enjoyable, and allowing me to allocate the precious time to some other aspect of the thesis during this Ph.D. journey. Finally, I updated my knowledge by learning “End Note,” a better reference manager compared to “Mendeley,” from this training session. The fascinating feature of the software which proved to be the most useful was its auto-finding literature search, again giving me the hope of managing my time of Ph.D. study efficient. Overall, I found the workshop quite informative and useful for my research, thanks to the facilitators’ interactive way of delivering the lecture to its audience. However, I felt that it would have made a more positive impression on us if they could integrate some practical sessions besides delivering lecture. The organiser took our feedback to improve the future workshop. At the same time, they also welcomed us to have a one-to-one session to improve our understanding whenever needed. Later, I planned to go through the materials they provided to clarify any confusion that might exist in the workshop. Further, I requested my institute specific librarian to organise a one-to-one meeting which would enable me to learn more aspects of this amazing subject matters. As such, I am thankful to my University for hosting such in-research training workshops through which I expect and believe to be more competent.