Research Process: Explore
Off-Campus Access
When accessing databases off-campus, you will be prompted for login information. You will log in with your Blackboard information.
If you have any problems logging in, please contact Stan Price during normal business hours.
Exploring Your Topic
The hardest thing about doing research is knowing how to find the information you're looking for. If you've chosen a topic you know little or nothing about, it's difficult to know what words to type into the search boxes to retrieve the information you need.
Once you've chosen a topic, you need to begin reading general information about that topic, such as:
- background
- major concepts, issues, and controversies
- key people and events
By doing this, you can begin thinking about how to narrow your topic to something researchable. You will also begin to collect specific keywords or concepts you can use as search terms to find more specific information.
To find general information on your topic, try exploring the topics lists in these databases:
- Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window
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Provides full text access to differing points of view on current social issues. Brings together viewpoint articles, contextual topic overviews, government and organizational statistics, biographies of social activists, court cases, profiles of government agencies and special interest groups, newspaper and magazine articles, as well as links to more than 1,800 reviewed and subject-indexed web sites.
- Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
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Use to find quick facts, images or background information on various topics in dictionaries and encyclopedias.
- Gale In Context: Global Issues This link opens in a new window
Global Issues in Context offers international viewpoints on a broad spectrum of global issues, topics, and current events. Featured are hundreds of continuously updated issue and country portals that bring together a variety of specially selected, highly relevant sources for analysis of social, political, military, economic, environmental, health, and cultural issues.
- Points of View Reference Source This link opens in a new window
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Essays on controversial issues to develop debates or be a starting point in writing a position paper.
- Gale In Context: Biography This link opens in a new window
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Includes full-text biographical information on more than one million people from throughout history, around the world, and across all disciplines and subject areas.
- Gale in Context: Enviromental Studies This link opens in a new window
Gateway to understanding global environmental issues that includes case studies, reference materials, journals, news, and multimedia content. The resource offers nearly 400 topic, state, and province pages across the science, social studies, and humanities curriculum, including water privatization, ecotourism, air pollution, green economy, and more.
For the purpose of finding general information on a topic, Internet sources are perfectly fine to use as a launch point for your research. Even if you would not use them as sources for your assignment, they can be useful in helping you get started.
Brainstorming
Sometimes your research will involve a topic you're already somewhat familiar with or about which you already have an opinion. In these situations, it's helpful to figure out what you already know about your topic. Here are some exercises you can use to that end: