Research Strategies Step-by-Step An Introduction to Library Research Questions about this activity? Contact Kimberley Stephenson at Note: This presentation is based on a handout created by Deborah Moore of Glendale Community College

This brief presentation will guide you through the process of selecting a research topic and developing a research strategy. Research Strategies Step-by-Step

1: Details of the assignment Identifying the amount and types of sources your assignment requires will help you choose the right online research tools. Before you begin developing a strategy for searching the library catalog and databases, you should clarify several things about the assignment.

1: Details of the assignment 1.What type of assignment is it? (Research paper, essay, opinion paper, review, or other?) 2.How long does your paper need to be? 3.How many sources do you need for your bibliography? 4.What types of information do you need? (Statistics, Web pages, books, articles, images, audio/video clips, or other?) 5.Do you need current or historical sources? Or both?

2: Selecting a topic Now you’re ready to begin library research. All research begins with choosing a topic. Research topics can come from many sources: personal interest, current events, or course assignments. The hardest part of this stage of the research cycle is selecting a topic that is appropriate in scope and complexity for the intended result—not too broad or too narrow.

2: Selecting a topic For example, a topic like “special education” is much too broad for a basic term paper. Hundreds of thousands of books, articles, and web sites have been published in this field. You can narrow a broad topic by adding additional concepts to it, like examining your topic in the context of a particular place, time period, population, or event.

2: Selecting a topic Limiting your topic (special education, for example) to a particular aspect—such as special education for English language learners—will help you get more focused results from your research. If your topic is too narrow and you are not finding enough information, try using fewer concepts.

3: Research questions & keywords After you’ve identified and narrowed a research topic, you should re-state it in the form of a research question. Phrasing your topic in the form of a question helps to direct your research process. Asking whether a fact or statistic directly answers your research question can help you find the most relevant information for your topic.

3: Research questions & keywords A good research question also leads to a direct answer in the form of a thesis. A sample research question might be: What are some strategies for improving reading skills among ESL students in special education? This question might lead to the following thesis in the final paper: “Recommended strategies for improving reading skills among ESL students in special education include…”

3: Research questions & keywords A good research question also helps you pull out the different concepts your research will cover. Our example, “What are some strategies for improving reading skills among ESL students in special education?” has 3 distinct concepts: –Reading skills –ESL students –Special education

3: Research questions & keywords These concepts will become the search keywords you will use in the Library Catalog and online article databases. Keep in mind that not every author will use the same keywords to describe a topic: one author might write about “ESL,” and another might use the phrase “English language learners.” For this reason, you will want to identify some synonyms and related terms for each of your keywords before you start searching.

3: Research questions & keywords For example: Reading skills –Synonyms/related terms: literacy, reading comprehension, reading level, vocabulary ESL students –Synonyms/related terms: English language learners, bilingual Special education –Synonyms/related terms: individualized education, differentiated instruction

4: Search strings Once you’ve identified your search terms and synonyms, the final pre-search step is to combine those terms into search strings. Online search tools like the library catalog and databases require a specific format for search statements, including the use of words called Boolean operators.

4: Search strings Boolean operators are the words AND, OR, and NOT. Placing these words between your search terms will help you find books and articles that are targeted to your research topic. Let’s look at some examples.

In this tutorial, we’ve covered: –Identifying the details of an assignment; –Selecting a topic; –Identifying research questions, keywords, and synonyms; and –Developing search strings. Remember that you can contact a librarian any time for help with any of these steps. Just visit our Research Help page for more information. Research Help page Summary

4: Search strings The Boolean operator AND gives you more targeted results by requiring that two or more terms all appear within the title, abstract, or table of contents of a book or article. Let’s imagine we are looking for information on the performance of students in charter schools. –A keyword search in the library catalog for “charter schools” returns 50 titles. –A keyword search for “charter schools AND performance” returns only 4 titles—but those 4 are much more relevant to our topic.

4: Search strings

The Boolean operator OR is the opposite of AND. OR generally gives you more search results by requiring either one term or another to appear in a book or article. OR works best when you are looking for synonyms or related terms. –For example, a keyword search in the library catalog for “plagiarism” returns 28 titles. –A keyword search for “plagiarism OR dishonesty” returns 35 titles. –A keyword search for “plagiarism AND dishonesty” returns 2 titles.

4: Search strings

The Boolean operator NOT (sometimes known as AND NOT) reduces the number of search results by returning only those books and articles that don’t include a particular term. Use NOT carefully, as it could eliminate potentially relevant results. NOT works best when your search returns many irrelevant results, especially from a completely unrelated field.

4: Search strings For example, a keyword search in the library catalog for “teaching writing” returns 405 titles. Many of these titles are written for college teachers. The keyword search “teaching writing AND NOT college” eliminates any titles that address the teaching of college-level writing, and reduces our results list to 351 titles. These titles tend to focus more on K-12 education.

4: Search strings