Hot Topics: Find Sources

1. Brainstorm Keywords

Now that you've picked your topic and done a little background research, it's time to brainstorm relevant keywords. Think of synonyms and words related to the main nouns in your topic. For example, if my topic is

minimizing concussions in youth football

I might come up with some additional keywords I came across in my background reading:

2. Use Keywords to Search

Once you have your keywords, try combining them in different ways to search in different library resources.

1. Combine synonyms using OR and parentheses: (protection OR prevention OR helmet)
2. Combine the different ideas of your topic using AND: (protection OR prevention OR helmet) AND (concussion OR head injury) AND (youth football OR school football)
3. Use your combined terms in different library resources.

The Discovery search is a good place to start. The following box is the same as the one on the library homepage:

You might also try any of the following databases:  

3. Review Results

Once you've gotten your search results from your combination of keywords, scroll through them to see how relevant they are to your topic. 

My first few search results are academic journal articles, but there are plenty of news and magazine articles on this topic also.

Even all the way on the second page of results, at result #41, there's a promising looking article:

Didn't get many good search results? Jump down to step 5, Refine Keywords and Search Again.

4. Select Relevant Sources

As you scroll through your results, click into any that look like they might be relevant.

Tip! The title might not have all your keywords in it.

Tip! When using the main library search box, try limiting your results using the Limit To box. Books can give an overview of a topic. Articles will provide news, magazine and academic journal items. You can use the refinement options on the left of the results page to focus in on the types of materials you want. News and magazine articles might be a good place to start since they are less technical than academic journal articles.

The following is the database record for my result #41, "Head Impact Exposure in Youth Football." 

1. When you click on the Details link, more information about the item is displayed.
2. The subjects are the main concepts the article is about. These can help you think of new keywords too, like "medical ethics."
3. The abstract is a summary of the article to help you decide if you want to read the whole thing.
4. Use the tools to help you save the source for later: email it to yourself, use cite to format the citation in MLA and other styles, or copy the permalink to come back to the record later.
5. If there is a highlighted Full Text PDF, you can click on this to go directly to the article.
6. If there is not a highlighted Full Text link, you can click on Find Full Text  to find the full text of the article online or through Interlibrary Loan.

5. Refine Keywords and Search Again

Whether or not you found some good results in your first search, it can always be worth it to search again--by changing around your keywords or searching in a different database.

• If you didn't get many results the first time, try broadening your search by using fewer or less specific keywords.
• If you got too many results the first time, try narrowing your search by using more or more specific keywords.
• Try using new keywords from relevant results you did find, like sports rules or regulations from the example article above.
• Try searching in a different database. Our different databases have different sources in them, so you might find different or more relevant sources in a different database.
• Ask a librarian if you're not happy with what you're finding. We're here to help!

Found some promising sources?

Move on to the next step of evaluating bias.

Selected Books

Here are a selection of recent book in our collection on concussions in sports: