Phi Theta Kappa: Honors in Action

One of the first steps to any research project is to choose a topic. Depending on your assignment, this could be a bit daunting. Once you have chosen a general topic, you will need to focus in on something more specific. This process, which is often referred to as narrowing your topic, will help make searching easier because it will help you identify more keywords. Check out this example:

Music --- Hip Hop Music --- Hip Hop Music & Dance --- How have hip hop music videos influenced dance moves in other music genres?

This video provides a few strategies to help narrow your topic.

Once you have a topic, the next step is to pull out the key words or phrases. This is important! While Google makes it easy to search for the answer to your full research question, many library databases do not work that way. Instead, you need to search using only the most important words or ideas.

Let's look at our previous example: How have hip hop music videos influenced dance moves in other music genres?

Some possible keywords would be: hip hop, music videos, & dance.

Check out the resources below for more help!

Generating Search Terms from OSLIS.

Generating Keywords Worksheet

Use this worksheet to help generate keywords for your search.

Generating Keywords Exercise

Create a research paper topic using the University of Texas at Austin's interactive exercise.

• Good sources for information about current or historical events and opinion pieces.
• Accessible in print or online.
• Some news articles are freely available online, but articles that require subscriptions may be available through MTC Library's website.

• Have eye-catching pictures or images and advertisements.
• The text is aimed towards general readers and doesn't have citations or footnotes.

• Professional or trade journals are not strictly research-related or peer-reviewed.
• They may contain research articles, reports, and practical articles applicable to the profession.
• They will often contain advertisements for items related to the professions they address.

• There are no pictures or advertisements.
• The text is more academic in nature and the author provides citations or footnotes to let the reader know where they found their information.
• Scholarly articles are accessible through MTC Library's website.
  • Use the OneSearch box on the homepage to find articles on your research topic.
  • Limit your results on the left to view only peer-reviewed journals.

• eBook stands for electronic book, and you can find them through the library's website by using the OneSearch feature.
  • You can use limiters to limit your search to only books.
• It's okay to use only chapters or sections of a book for your research. It often isn't necessary to use the whole book.

• Don't forget to check the quality of the information before including web sources in your research.

Online Research: Tips for Effective Search Strategies from Sarah Clark.