For your final assignment
At the end of this tutorial, you will start picking and researching a controversial nutrition question of your choice, and ultimately will be looking for evidence that both supports and opposes the sides of your controversy and producing your own public contribution to the discourse on the topic via Wikipedia. Your first step is picking a topic and doing some preliminary searching for background information. Start broad and narrow!
Choose a controversial nutrition topic
Choose a nutrition controversy
If you don't have a topic idea, try these:
- Review your course readings or think about your personal interests!
- Check out news sites and blogs like New York Times Health Section for recent or disputed topics
- Browse sources like Journalist's Resource, CQ Researcher, Public Agenda, and ProCon.org for reports and analysis of controversial issues.
- Explore a scholarly journal like the New England Journal of Medicine
If you already have a general idea of your topic:
- Find an article on Wikipedia (Yes, really! Check the references for scholarly sources and the Talk page for controversies.)
- Use Google or another search engine to find more background information (Look for credible sources!)
- Search or browse through popular news and magazines like Time or Newsweek using the library's Articles and Full Text search or a database like ABI Inform (NOTE: You can search for your topic and narrow down to certain magazines using the Source Type or Publication Title options to the right.)
- CQ ResearcherCovers the most current and controversial issues of the day with summaries, pros and cons, bibliographies and more.
- Public Agenda OnlinePublic Agenda provides unbiased research that bridges the gap between American leaders and what the public really thinks about issues ranging from education to foreign policy to immigration to religion and civility in American life.
- ABI/InformABI/Inform, an extensive international business and management database, contains bibliographic citations, abstracts, and full text of articles appearing in professional publications, academic journals, and trade magazines published worldwide. ABI/Inform covers the areas of accounting, banking, computers, economics, engineering management, communications, finance, health care, human resources, insurance, international trends, law, management, marketing, public administration, real estate, taxation, transportation.