The first task of this semester involved reading and preparing our research topic for the book that we will be writing as a class. After going through this task in detail I have split my approach into sections.
Section 1
This
section involved evaluating my selected research topic.
I have chosen
the chapter titled “Why Humans Play Games”, I chose this chapter because I was
drawn to the title and I myself wanted to delve further and understand the
scientific and psychological reasons behind
this.
I was
then tasked with delving further into this chapter by narrowing down this broad
topic, identifying an intersection and relationship in the topic that can be further
discussed and then defining the section that I will be choosing to engage with
the most.
The intersection
I have found and will further develop is called the immersion component. This involves
creating and customizing a character to play in the unique story of the game as
well as wanting to create an escape from real-life. More about this component
and other components can be read here
Section 2
This
section involved creating a search strategy
When it
comes to researching information, it is important to have multiple keywords and buzzwords
to use when research. I’ve learnt that it is simply not enough to directly
enter the research question into the search bar. Instead, it is advised to use synonyms
and identify keywords in the question, using search strings can also provide useful.
Another useful tool I learnt is looking
at the reference list of articles related to the chosen research topic because oftentimes
they will provide more resources that can be used. An example of how I implemented
this in my research is by rephrasing the chapter title. Instead of using the original
phrase of “Why do humans play” I Rephrased this in two ways “ The psychology of games” and “Reasons People Game” by doing
this I was able to access a broader range of results that that I would have
if had just used the original chapter
title.
Section 3
This section
involved citation management
I had very
little knowledge of citation managers prior to this week reading, I often stayed
away from them because I often found the idea of using them daunting and complicated.
I have
now learnt that there are many advantages to using them, some of these included
time management and saving time as it will be quicker to cite sources, particularly
in long documents, it can also allow for consistent referencing throughout the
work. I have started completing tutorials and improving my knowledge of the reworks citation manger.
