Website Search
Find information on spaces, staff, and services.
Find information on spaces, staff, and services.
Before you begin researching your project, you should spend some time exploring your topic.
Start by answering the simple questions: What? Why? Who?
For example, if your topic is "stress," you might be interested in the effect of stress on "academic success."
For example, if your topic is the effect of "stress" on "academic success," you might be interested in how this impacts "college students."
Let's summarize what you have so far. Here are you your potential search terms:
For instance, here is an example question:
Or, as a statement:
Now that you have a research topic, let's brainstorm some words with similar meanings (synonyms) to come up with additional search terms.
Congratulations! You have successfully developed a research topic. If you are not satisfied with your statement, remember that you can edit the terms you entered in any of the previous steps.
Here is a summary of your search terms:
Now that you've defined your research topic, you can begin searching in library databases. A library database is a searchable collection of scholarly information that you can use for research and study purposes.
The library offers access to numerous databases , but let's start with these:
Most databases will either have multiple search boxes, or a single search box. Here's how to enter your search terms for each type.