RESEARCH TIPS
Audio-visual material
Research expert Tarja Moles describes how to add texture to your writing by using sound and image files
Research is often associated with finding textbased sources. However, taking advantage of material that comes in the form of images, video and sound can be highly beneficial – indeed, these can bring people, places and objects to life in a way that textual descriptions cannot do justice to. Therefore, it’s often a good idea to consider explicitly adding the audio-visual element into your research plan.
Audio-visual material online
We’re very lucky that these days there is a multitude of audio-visual resources online, right at our fingertips.
Although it’s still easier to search for text-based sources, there has been a significant improvement in how various search engines find other types of material. If you combine your keyword(s) with the resource type you want to explore (eg ‘image’, ‘video’, ‘podcast’), you should get relevant results. Some search engines also allow you to choose a setting that will bring up your chosen types of material. For instance, Google lets you search for videos at www.google.com/ videohp and images at www.google.com/imghp.