WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:05.260 --> 00:00:07.160 VOICEOVER: Searching for information on your chosen 00:00:07.160 --> 00:00:09.420 topic is a two-fold process. 00:00:09.420 --> 00:00:13.799 Not only does that searching allow you to see what sources and evidence already exist 00:00:13.799 --> 00:00:17.850 that relate to your area of study, but the accuracy needed for a good search 00:00:17.850 --> 00:00:20.020 helps you narrow down your title. 00:00:20.020 --> 00:00:22.100 Take this title for example. 00:00:22.100 --> 00:00:28.240 The problem with it is it's just too broad and vague to make a good academic research project. 00:00:28.240 --> 00:00:33.220 Good academic writing is mostly knowing a lot about a little, not vice-versa. 00:00:33.220 --> 00:00:37.079 You want to try and keep the theme of your research narrow, focused, and ideally 00:00:37.079 --> 00:00:39.534 something that's measurable. 00:00:39.540 --> 00:00:43.760 Take the first key term for example, cybercrime. 00:00:43.760 --> 00:00:48.180 At the moment if this were your title, you'd be committing yourself to write about 00:00:48.180 --> 00:00:52.380 any kind of cybercrime, so that means your topic relates to any crime 00:00:52.380 --> 00:00:55.200 committed using online technology. 00:00:55.200 --> 00:00:56.780 And that is not likely to be one you're 00:00:56.780 --> 00:00:59.940 going to be able to complete to a satisfactory standard within the typical 00:00:59.940 --> 00:01:03.980 time scale or word count of a research project. 00:01:03.980 --> 00:01:08.660 Having said that, it's not a bad starting point for a project. 00:01:08.660 --> 00:01:11.380 You've identified that you want to study online crime. 00:01:11.380 --> 00:01:15.000 So the next point is to begin exploding out this term to start 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:19.560 thinking about as many different kinds of cybercrime as you can come up with. 00:01:19.560 --> 00:01:23.680 So it might be that you want to study hacking or identity theft or 00:01:23.680 --> 00:01:25.040 spreading of viruses. 00:01:25.040 --> 00:01:29.040 Any of these are areas that you could pursue your research on. 00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:34.400 Next, let's take a look at these, two terms "businesses" in the "globalized economy". 00:01:34.400 --> 00:01:37.400 Again, this is far too broad. 00:01:37.400 --> 00:01:41.860 At the moment, this project is committing itself to look at the impact of cybercrime 00:01:41.860 --> 00:01:46.920 on any business anywhere in the world and that's just going to be impossible. 00:01:46.920 --> 00:01:50.400 So again, you need to start exploding out these terms. 00:01:50.400 --> 00:01:52.460 What kinds of businesses are you interested in? 00:01:52.460 --> 00:01:57.620 And in particular, you want to focus on the ones that are specifically vulnerable to cyber crime. 00:01:57.620 --> 00:02:00.620 So that might be that you're going to look at banks, or social networks like 00:02:00.620 --> 00:02:04.840 Facebook or maybe particular businesses and corporations like Amazon, 00:02:04.840 --> 00:02:06.960 eBay or Google. 00:02:06.960 --> 00:02:09.960 Now it might even be that during the course of this early research, 00:02:09.960 --> 00:02:12.800 you find that the impact of cyber crime on governments 00:02:12.800 --> 00:02:15.313 is actually more interesting to you. 00:02:15.320 --> 00:02:17.790 Now that's not a problem if you want to change the title and the 00:02:17.790 --> 00:02:20.160 direction of your research at this stage. 00:02:20.160 --> 00:02:24.220 The only thing you need to remember is that you make a note of it in your research log, 00:02:24.220 --> 00:02:27.740 and you explain the thinking behind that change. 00:02:27.740 --> 00:02:30.000 In terms of the location of the research, 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:33.360 just try to narrow it down to something that's manageable 00:02:33.360 --> 00:02:35.480 within the time scale and word count. 00:02:35.480 --> 00:02:38.520 That might be a specific country or an organisation. 00:02:38.520 --> 00:02:41.695 Just keep in mind access to resources and language. 00:02:41.700 --> 00:02:44.060 Make sure you're actually going to be 00:02:44.060 --> 00:02:47.700 able to read the material you're going to get hold of. 00:02:47.700 --> 00:02:50.560 The final term to consider here is impact. 00:02:50.560 --> 00:02:53.720 Again, this really needs to be something that is measurable. 00:02:53.720 --> 00:02:57.100 So what kind of impact are we talking about here? 00:02:57.100 --> 00:02:58.640 It might be that you want to look 00:02:58.640 --> 00:03:02.100 at the financial impact or the impact of the loss of specific data 00:03:02.100 --> 00:03:06.359 or the wider impact on consumer confidence of a company being hit by a 00:03:06.360 --> 00:03:10.560 hacking attack or identity theft. 00:03:10.560 --> 00:03:13.200 So ultimately once you've exploded out all 00:03:13.200 --> 00:03:17.380 of these terms what you'll have is a much more specific title. 00:03:17.380 --> 00:03:22.580 To give an example, it could be that what you end up here with 00:03:22.580 --> 00:03:28.100 is something like, "What was the financial impact of the hacking 00:03:28.100 --> 00:03:30.720 of Google's email service in China?" 00:03:30.720 --> 00:03:33.640 and you can see that's a much more manageable project 00:03:33.640 --> 00:03:36.600 than what was originally set out here. 00:03:36.600 --> 00:03:40.620 Ultimately, exploding out your terms is a really useful way of narrowing down 00:03:40.620 --> 00:03:44.250 your title and coming up with those specific terms that will allow you to 00:03:44.250 --> 00:03:47.145 search for evidence much more accurately. 00:03:47.145 --> 00:03:49.829 It also enables you to experiment with 00:03:49.829 --> 00:03:53.609 different combinations of terms and wording so you can come up with a title 00:03:53.609 --> 00:03:56.780 that you're really happy with.