- General
1. Identify and Develop Your Topic
Identify Your Topic:
State your topic as a question. For example, if you are interested in finding out about the impact of stress on high school students, you might pose the question, "What effect does stress have on the health of high school students?"
Identify the main concepts or keywords in your question:
e.g., stress, health, high school students
State your topic as a question. For example, if you are interested in finding out about the impact of stress on high school students, you might pose the question, "What effect does stress have on the health of high school students?"
Identify the main concepts or keywords in your question:
e.g., stress, health, high school students
Develop Your Topic:
Discuss your topic ideas with your Teacher
Discuss your topic ideas with a Librarian
Discuss your topic ideas with your Teacher
Discuss your topic ideas with a Librarian
Protip:
- Narrow your search - If you are finding too much information and too many sources, narrow your topic by using the AND operator:
e.g., stress and health and high school students - Broaden your search - If you are finding too little information may indicate that you need to broaden your topic. For example, look for information on students, rather than high school students.
Link synonymous search terms with the OR operator:
e.g., stress or anxiety or mental pressure - Use Truncation (i.e. stress*) with search terms to broaden the search and increase the number of items you find.
- Phrase searching - look for phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks, for example, "healthy eating"