Select a Topic

Suggestions for finding a topic

  • Select your topic based on your interest and available scholarly literature
  • Discuss your ideas with your course instructor.
  • Discuss your ideas with a reference librarian.
  • Look over the index and the article titles in a specialized encyclopedia that covers a relevant subject area or discipline.

Suggestions for Creating a Search Strategy

  • State your topic idea as a question. For example, if you are interested in finding out about Title IX (Title Nine) and women athletes in college athletic programs, you might pose the question, "How did Title IX impact women athletes in college athletic programs?"
  • Identify the main concepts or keywords in your question. These are potential search terms. In this case they are "title ix," "women," "athletes," and "college athletic programs".

Boolean Operators

Steps in a literature review

Develop A Search Strategy

This image depicts a chart in which researchers can track their searches, their relevance, their results, etc.

Download a copy of this research log, or Google "research log" to find examples to customize.

Identify Core Concepts and Keywords

It can be helpful to break down your research question into core concepts and keywords, tied together with Boolean Operators.

 

This graphic shows the breakdown of a research question into its core concepts and keywords.