Fashion

Planning your search

Try not to search your entire question at once. This won't find many useful results. The techniques below can help you plan your search.

Break your question into key words

Start by breaking your question down into individual ideas and terms. We call these keywords.

Example topic: Analyse the impact of social media on ethical fashion choices by consumers.

From here, select what you think are the keywords or concepts. You can usually ignore verbs such as 'discuss', 'analyse' for your search. 

• Social media
• Ethical fashion
• Consumer choices

Find alternative terms

Once you have your keywords, take a moment to decide if there are other words that mean the same thing (synonyms). Not all authors use the same words to describe the same ideas.

If you're stuck, try Googling the term and seeing what comes up. You can look for words that mean the same thing, more specific terms or broader terms.

• Social media: social networks, digital marketing, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok
• Ethical fashion: sustainable fashion, green fashion, zero-waste fashion
• Consumer choices: consumer behaviour, purchasing intentions, purchasing decisions

Other ideas for keywords

• Acronyms and abbreviations - B2B, business to business
• British and American spellings - globalisation, globalization
• Terms you can write as one or two words - time frame, timeframe

Use limits and filters

There are millions of books, articles and websites available, and you won't have time to look through all of them. To help with this, you can decide on limits to your search. This can include:

• Publication date - depending on your topic, you may only want the most recent information available. 
• Language - you can limit your search to specific languages.
• Geography - you may only want research from or about a certain place.
• Sector - you can look at specific sectors such as the public sector or private sector, or industries such as healthcare or retail.

Information types

For this topic, you might be interested in the following types of information:

• Theories and models on consumer behaviour
• Definitions and concepts of social media marketing
• Journal articles with specific studies of social media marketing and ethical fashion
• Market research about ethical fashion

This is not a comprehensive list. Our information sources page has more details on source types and how they can help.

Choosing your own topic?

If you have chosen your own topic, it's important to start with some general searches to make sure there is information out there before you finalise it. If the topic is very specific or new, you may struggle to find enough information. If your topic is too broad, you will find too much information.