EDUCATION

Planning & Reflecting at Postgraduate Level

Table of Contents

Introduction2

Search Strategies2

Search Terms2

Database and Journals3

Project Planning4

Work-Breakdown Structure4

Gantt chart5

Examination of the Project Plan6

Presentation of Assignments6

Conclusion9

Planning & Reflecting at Postgraduate Level

Introduction

The effective planning of the postgraduate assignment requires that one should collect the wide range of information from many sources about the topic and main area, which can easily be done by planning a search strategy. The topic aims to understand the research planning and management of assignments at the postgraduate levels. This will enable the postgraduate students to understand the basic researching needs in planning and managing the assignments. The search strategy in this assignment focuses on involving in searching the relevant information without wasting a lot of time. Further, the search helps in identifying the relevant and up-to-date information on the topic. Simply the search strategy helps in explaining the 5Ws which includes who, what, why, when and where of the research topic (Folster, 1995).

Search Strategies The search strategies for this assignment include the phases of the planning of search parameters, keywords included, search terms, identifying the sources and databases, searching the sources and database and evaluation and documentation of those sources. The planning stage involves the background readings about how postgraduate students research and manage their assignments using the method of reflection writing. The topic is then defined thoroughly by using the several keywords that help to search the topic in several encyclopedias and dictionaries or thesaurus (Folster, 1995). The topic is also searched through the usage of Boolean operators such as or, and, not. These connectors will help in relating the search terms and also expand or narrow the search items. The 'or' operator will be used between the parts of the topic for the expansion, while 'and' operator will be used for the topic relevant literature within the database used. For instance, the title of the assignment, “Planning & Reflecting at Postgraduate Level”, will be searched using the Planning 'and' Reflecting 'and' Postgraduate Level (Barras, 2002).

Search Terms

Search terms are the keywords which provide the related synonyms of the word or sentence of the topic one is using. This helps in getting the more relevant information by providing using the more expanding option of searching. The search term for this assignment can be used as the academic literature review or theoretical work instead of academic work on the researching and managing assignments at the postgraduate level. Further the postgraduate can be replaced by the high grad student and used simply as the study skills planning for the high school students (Folster, 1995).

Database and Journals

The knowledge of the particular database and journals is essential feature of the searching strategy which enables one find relevant academic material. For the purpose of this postgraduate assignment, it is imperative that one should know the resources before he will extract and build the relevant and past literature on the topic. Further, several special libraries will be accessed beyond those resources to find the relevant literature review (Line, ...