Develop Your Topic (~7 mins) - LANG 2030 - Technical Communication I - LibGuides at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Library

Analyze Your Information Needs

Before you start searching Google or Library databases, you should clarify "what you really need to find". Read your assignment carefully and ask yourself these questions:

What is the assignment?
Devise an innovative engineering idea in your field.
What do I need to do?
Research and evaluate existing technologies
What sort of information will help?
Industry news, scholarly articles, product specifications, statistics...?

Try to have a clear picture of what you need. Examine your assignment topic. Break your innovation idea down into small components (concepts and keywords) to search more efficiently.

Think about what you already know and then what you hope to find out.

If you are not sure about the assignment requirements, talk to your instructor.

GitMind is a free web-based diagramming application that enables you to create a range of diagrams, including mind maps and flowcharts. With its AI-powered mind-mapping feature, GitMind can help you generate and visualize ideas. Below are the steps:

Creat a new mind map and add a central topic or theme.
Click on the AI button in the right corner of the menu bar. Select Ideas > At least 3 nodes.
A mind map with different ideas will be automatically generated for you.

Remember that the information you find on Generative AI might not always be reliable, so you should check it with scholarly resources.

Concepts & Keywords

Databases do not understand natural English well, they search by keywords. You need to "translate" your research question to concepts and keywords to help the database understand what you are looking for.

Example

Project topic:	Devise an innovative engineering idea in your field
Your field:	Electronic engineering, computer science
How is your field of study related to everyday life? Think of what area you want to focus on	design a lighter, cheaper and more energy saving cell phone develop mobile apps for smartphones
For example, you want to develop a speech recognition technology for mobile devices similar to but better than Apple's Siri Connect the main concepts by connectors like : AND - all terms should appear in the results OR - any one or all of the terms will appear in the result, think of what alternative terms others might use to describe the same concepts	speech recognition AND mobile (speech OR voice OR natural language) AND recognition AND (mobile OR cell phone OR smartphone OR tablet)

HKUST ChatGPT Platform can quickly find similar words to build effective search queries, for example:

Prompt: Build a search query using Boolean operator: speech recognition technology for mobile devices


("speech recognition technology" OR "voice recognition technology" OR "speech-to-text technology" 
OR "speech input technology" OR "mobile dictation technology" OR "mobile speech recognition" 
OR "mobile voice recognition")
AND ("mobile devices" OR "smartphones" OR "tablets" OR "wearable devices")

Remember that the information you find on Generative AI might not always be reliable, so you should check it with scholarly resources.

Search Smart

Useful tips on searching databases effectively to find more precise and relevant results.

Don't type in the whole sentence to search, pick the most important keywords.

Think of and use alternative terms and keywords to improve your search.

Phrase searching can help you refine a search and find more precise results.

Use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to connect keywords to search effectively.

Use truncation symbols to find words with a common root or stem.

Use parentheses to combine multiple keywords (prioritize orders of searching).