Reading previous studies provides an important source for identifying current research in the area. This also ensures that the gaps in research on the subject are better filled, and a more complete picture on a given subject is made available. Finding previously published studies begins with a thorough literature search. It is important to use relevant keywords (using a proper search strategy) while you look for related literature. See this video on search tips and techniques. You can also find the subject databases related to your field in order to make your search more precise. Alternatively, you can contact your Faculty or Information Librarian to find out which databases, journals, authors, and articles would be the most relevant for your research topic.
You might want to use existing data for your research to do a meta-analysis, to re-evaluate findings, to perform new analysis on existing data or to validate a model. The UJ Research Data Repository contains datasets created and published by researchers at the University of Johannesburg. See a list of other data repositories below:
To learn more about data for research, please visit this short video on Research Data.
Finding previous work done in your field is very useful and important as this helps you to understand the foundation already built in your field. To locate UJ Theses and Dissertations please search the: