2. Secondary Research

When conducting secondary research, it is important to select relevant and accurate data.

Secondary data

Data collected and compiled by somebody else for another purpose

Data collected from published sources

Examples:

• • Books

  • News articles

  • Reports

  • Documentaries

  • Websites

Take note of the following when using online data:

• • Keywords

  • Search strategies

  • Evaluating websites

Keywords

Use keywords or phrases to narrow your search

Example: Search for the keywords ‘flood’, ‘Singapore’ and ‘prevent’

Search strategies

Use double quotation marks to search for words in the exact order you typed them

Use Boolean commands to search more effectively

‘Or’

‘And’

‘Not’

Evaluating websites

Evaluate a website’s credibility via the REAL approach:

• Read the URL

• Examine the content, facts and coverage

• Ask about the author and objective

• Look at the links and data

Evaluating websites

When evaluating websites, ask:

• • Who are the authors and what are their objectives? Watch out for possible biases (e.g. an organisation promoting a product)

  • Who is responsible for the website? Websites by governments or NGOs tend to have more reliable information than user-generated websites

  • How frequently is the site updated? Information should be as current as possible

  • Does the website cite a list of works from authoritative sources?

  • Is the information on this website a comment, an opinion or news? Learn to distinguish between fact and opinion

Writing a bibliography (quoting the source of your secondary data):

(a) How to write a bibliography for information gathered from a book:

i. If the book has one to four authors,

Format: Authors, Initials., Year. Title of book. Edition. (only include this if not the first edition) Place:

Publisher.

Eg: Goh, L. H., Clarke, M. C., Yu, S., and Wong, P. P., 2015. All about Geography Secondary Two Urban

Living. Singapore: Pearson Education South Asia Pte Ltd.

ii. If the book has more than four authors,

Format: First author, Initials. et al., Year. Title of book. Edition. (only include this if not the first edition)

Place: Publisher.

Eg: Grace, B. et al., 1988. A history of the world. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

(b) How to write a bibliography for information gathered from websites:

Format: Author/name of organization, Year. Title of web article. [type of medium] Available at: <Webpage

URL> [Accessed date].

Eg: HDB InfoWeb, 2015. Government to release 2 residential sites with estimated yield of about 1,180

housing units in April 2015. [online] Available at: < https://www.hdb.gov.sg/fi10/fi10296p.nsf/

PressReleases/2C78C309FE98A5F148257E36000A0457?OpenDocument > [Accessed 17 May 2015].