LibGuides: English 102 Library Instruction: Topic/Terms

Finding A Topic

If you don't know what topic to research, here are some databases that might give you some ideas. You can browse their topic lists.

CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window
The CQ Researcher explores a single 'hot' issue in the news in depth each week. Topics range from social and teen issues to environment, health, education and science and technology.
There are 44 reports produced each year including four expanded reports. Every 12,000-word report is written by an experienced journalist and features comments from experts, lawmakers and citizens on all sides of every issue. Numerous charts, graphs and sidebar articles -- plus a pro-con feature, a chronology, lengthy bibliographies and a list of contacts -- round out each report.PDF files are available for full issues dating back to January 1996; for issues published since January 2001, PDF files are in color.
Opposing Viewpoints in Context This link opens in a new window
Multiple resources covering today's hot social issues, such as offshore drilling, health care and immigration explore issues from all perspectives.
Includes: * More than 14,000 pro/con viewpoint essays * 5,000+ topic overviews * More than 300 primary source documents * 300 biographies of social activists and reformers * More than 775 court-case overviews * 5 million periodical articles * Nearly 6,000 statistical tables, charts and graphs * Nearly 70,000 images and a link to Google Image Search * Thousands of podcasts, including weekly presidential addresses and premier NPR programs * A national and state curriculum standards search, correlated to the content that allows educators to quickly identify material by grade and discipline New reference content is added on an ongoing basis, and new full-text periodical and newspaper articles are added every day.

Refining Your Topic

Once you have a topic idea, you will want to begin to refine it into a question that can be successfully researched. You may need to do some reading or searching to gain enough basic knowledge about your topic to begin to refine it. Here are links to some other tips for improving your topic.

Using your topic to generate questions
Broadening your topic
Narrowing your topic

Commonly Used Boolean Operators

What are Boolean Operators?

Boolean operators are used in search engines in databases and on the web to define relationships between words and groups of words. They can help you refine your search to find the best possible results.

AND	Use AND to retrieve both search terms
OR	Use OR to retrieve either search term(s)
NOT	Use NOT to exclude search term(s)
" "	Use " " to keep the order of words intact
( )	Use ( ) to phrase search; this organizes the order of relationships in your search
*	Use * to the end of a term to search all ending of the root word, e.g. govern* retrieves government, government, govern, governs, governor
?	Use ? to find alternate spellings, e.g. wom?n retrieves woman or women

Tips for searching within search engines:

Searching is not case sensitive
Most search engines do not search punctuation or certain words, e.g. the, a, of, by

Visit Boolean Searching for more information.

Concept Mapping

Concept mapping is a creative and visual way to help you explore and refine your topic. It can also help you determine subtopics and to brainstorm search terms. Click on the link below to learn about concept mapping.

Learn about concept mapping through this step-by-step explanation.

Handout for creating your own concept map

Turning Your Research Question into a Search Strategy

To successfully search for information on your topic, it is best to determine the main concepts and then find keywords for those concepts. The keywords can become your search words. In general, you should search library databases with 2-3 keywords, rather than your whole topic question or a sentence.

For example, your research question is "Does fracking cause water pollution?" First underline the keywords as shown.

Then begin generating synonyms and related words to help you develop a search strategy.

fracking	water	pollution
hydraulic fracturing	underground water	contamination
drilling for natural gas	aquifers	toxins
natural gas wells	wells	carcinogens
directional drilling	domestic water supply	flammable water

In many databases, you could start your search by typing fracking water pollution and it would automatically turn that search into:

fracking AND water AND pollution

This is a search using Boolean logic.

A more advanced Boolean search could be done like this:

(fracking OR "hydraulic fracturing") AND (water OR aquifer* OR wells) AND (pollut* OR contaminat* OR carcinogen*)

In this example the * will also find different endings for the words, such as aquifers, pollution, pollute, contaminate, contamination, carcinogens, and carcinogenic.

Here are some more tips for choosing keywords.

You can also find additional keywords by searching your topic in a database, finding a relevant item and noting the terms used in the description of that item.