Contact Your Librarian
Contact Your Librarian
Choose a Topic
Great research topics are all around us! Start with your professor's instructions - is there a particular subject area you must stay within?
You may want to consult:
- Course materials - textbook, handouts
- Personal interests and experiences
- Various news outlets (TV, print, online)
- Library databases
- In Context: Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window Opposing Viewpoints offers material to support differing views to help develop critical thinking skills on thousands of current social topics in the forms of primary source documents, statistics, websites and multimedia. Find overviews, news, and opinions on hundreds of today's important social issues, including racism, capital punishment, global warming, and voting rights with reference sources, newspaper and magazine articles, scholarly journals, court cases, government documents, viewpoints, maps, images, audio, video and websites.
- Issues & Controversies This link opens in a new window Featuring a dynamic design and a wealth of features, Issues & Controversies helps researchers understand today's crucial issues by exploring hundreds of hot topics in politics, government, business, society, education, and popular culture. Issues and Controversies provides up-to-date, in-depth and objective information on prominent and hotly debated issues. It combines objective analysis with clear explanations of opposing points of view. Chronologies, illustrations, maps, tables, sidebars, bibliographies and contact information augment the balanced, accurate coverage of current and historical events.
Middlesex Students have free access to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal - instructions on how to set up your account are found here:
- Stop and JotThis tool will help you keep track of good ideas and questions as you do your preliminary research.
Identify Keywords
Keywords are the main ideas or concepts of your topic question. Keep a list of these words because you will use them when searching for information on your topic. You will also want to come up with related terms in order to expand your searching.
Example topic question: What are the causes of anxiety in children?
|
Keywords |
causes |
anxiety |
children |
|
Related terms |
agents origin producers |
fear panic stress |
boys / girls kids preteens |
When searching, string your keywords together with “and” rather than entering the entire research question. Mix and match terms depending on results.
Example: origin and stress and children
Remember: Once you start searching, you may need to modify your topic and/or keywords depending on your results!
- Generating Keywords WorksheetThis worksheet is here to save you time and help you find information through the power of keywords! Whether you are using Google or a library database, keywords help you find information.
This worksheet will help you to turn key concepts from your research question into keywords, and come up with some synonyms to more effectively search for the information you need.
This activity works best with a partner!