Skip to Main Content
Basic Research Strategies
- Start with a blank piece of paper.
- Write your thesis or research question at the top.
- Break your thesis or question up into key concepts or key words. These should be the things/words that supporting documents should have.
- Start to brainstorm your key words. List synonyms. Your first step is to try and match words the author(s) used.
- As you review your results, when you find articles that match your topic, look for alternative terms and try those.
- Keep track of which words get you results that are about your topic and those which do not.
- While you are working out your strategy, work in specific databases to help restrict results to your basic area of interest. e.g. CQ Researcher, Opposing Viewpoints, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences. THEN move to a bigger source of documents like OneSearch (all library content) or even the world wide web.
- You will probably be reading 2 to 3 articles for every article you actually use in your project
