Call Us: 315-443-4083
Text Us: 315-464-0744
Email us: libref@syr.edu
Report an Electronic Resource Issue
1. Read "How to Refine Research Topics and Generate Search Terms" section.
2. Complete the "Choosing and Using Keywords" tutorial.
3. Complete Part 1 of the Research Practice Worksheet.
Research starts with a topic or a question. What do you want to learn more about? Once you have a basic topic, you will need to spend some time deciding exactly what you want to learn about it and describing it in a way that makes it possible to find information about it. This is called refining your topic.
For example, let's say you're interested in writing a paper about social media. Here are some questions you could ask yourself:
1. What?: What about social media interests you (e.g., user behavior, ethics, technology, specific apps)?
2. Where?: Is there a particular location you want to focus on (e.g., United States, Asia)?
3. When?: What time period do you want to focus on (e.g., present day, five years ago)?
4. Who?: What population would you like to focus on (e.g., teenagers, college students, adults, men/women)?
5. Why?: What is important about your research? What will it help us understand (e.g., impact on society, mental health, etc.)?
Once you've answered these questions, you can begin to think about keywords for a search. For example:
"social media" AND "college students"
TikTok AND censorship AND India
ACTIVITY: Complete the tutorial below and then complete Part 1 of the Research Practice Worksheet.