TOUR11013 Understanding Tourism

This guide is designed to help you find resources which will be useful for Assessment Item 1 (extended answer) and Assessment Item 2 (essay).

For both of these assignments, you are required to find and use a number of scholarly resources, in addition to your textbook and study guide.

Assessment Item 1 (extended answer) requires you to use a minimum of four additional resources; Assessment 2 (essay) requires you to use at lease seven additional resources.
 

This guide will show you how to plan your search, and how to access various types of resources:

• books
• journal articles
• newspaper articles
• government publications
• websites

The following topic is used as an example throughout this guide:

What are the positive and negative implications of an ageing population for the tourism sector of a Phase Four society?

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Planning your search

Whether you intend looking for information in a library catalogue, a journal database, or the internet, you will need a range of keywords  to search with.

Firstly, try brainstorming what you already know about the topic.

You might like to use concept maps, flow charts, lists or tables to organise your information.

The brainstorming process should make it easier to select keywords you can use in your search.

Your list of keywords should include:

• topic words - words from the assignment topic
  e.g. ageing population, tourism
   
• synonyms - words with similar meanings
  e.g. ageing population = elderly, aged, older people,
   
• related terms - terms related to the topic, such as places, people or concepts
  e.g. travel, leisure, grey tourism

Remember to also include:

• spelling variations
  e.g. ageing/aging
   
• plurals
  e.g. tourist/tourists
   
• word variants
  e.g. aged/ageing

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How to find books

You can use the Book Search in the Library catalogue to find books on your topic.

Example:

This search will return all records containing the word ageing or the word aging, as well as the word tourism.

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How to find journal articles

Journals are an excellent source of current information and research.

The easiest way to find journal articles on a particular topic is to search a database which contains references to journal articles.

Below are links to databases which you may like to try searching for tourism content - some of them have a search guide available:

Database	More information
APAIS: Australian Public Affairs Information Service
ATI: Australian Tourism Index	ATI only contains records for resources published between 1982 and 2000.
Expanded Academic ASAP	Search Guide
Humanities International Complete
JSTOR
ProQuest	Search Guide

 

Databases vary in the amount of information they provide about particular articles:

• Some will only contain a citation or reference.
• Some will contain an abstract or summary of the article's content.
• Some will contain a link to the full-text article.

If the article you want is unavailable in full-text via the database you're searching, you can use ArticleLinker to see if the article is available in another database or in hard copy on the Library shelves. 

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How to find newspaper articles

NewsBank provides full-text access to major Australian newspapers, as well as a selection of international newspapers.

All of the records in NewsBank will contain a link to the full-text resource.

Here are some directions for how to access and search NewsBank:

• Log-in to NewsBank
   
• You will be taken to the initial screen in NewsBank. Click on "Major
  Australian Newspapers".
   
• You will be taken to the "Basic Search" screen. Click on "Advanced Search".
   
• You will be taken to the "Advanced Search" screen - this is where you can enter in your keywords and apply any limits:

Example:

This search will return all records containing the word travel and the phrase older people which were published in the past 12 months.

• Click on the "Search" button.
   
• This will return a list of results. To access a full text article, click on the title of the article in the results list:

Example:

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How to find government publications

To find out which government publications (e.g. reports, policy documents) are held at CQU Library, perform a keyword search in the Library catalogue.

To help limit your search to government publications, include the words department and government as keywords.

Example:

This search will return all records containing the word department or the word government, as well as the word tourism.
(More information on how to perform a keyword search and phrase search.)

Some government publications will be freely available online.

There are a couple of ways to locate these publications:

1) You can go directly to a specific government department's website and browse to find a relevant publication. Check out Gov.au if you're not sure of the web address.

2) You can use a search engine, e.g. Google, and limit your search to government websites.

Example:

This search will limit your results to Australian government websites, i.e. all sites ending with gov.au.

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How to find websites

Anyone can publish content on the Internet, and many websites are not subjected to the same sorts of evaluative processes used in traditional publishing methods like books and journals.

For example, to publish in a journal, the author must submit their article to a board of editors who, read the article and make recommendations for change until the article meets the standards of the journals reputation - or simply reject the article if it is not appropriate. In contrast, web publishing is open to all.

As a result, you need to evaluate websites yourself to ensure they are suitable for inclusion in your academic assignments and research.

The online tutorial, Internet Detective, will help you develop your internet research skills.

You may also like to search the following scholarly subject directories for suitable web sources:

• Intute: Arts and Humanities
• BUBL Information Service
• OAIster