Before you jump in to looking for articles on your topic take a moment to think about what you're seeking. This step is important, not just for this class, but for any research you'll do in the future, whether it's for school or your own interests.
Ask yourself some questions:
Planning your search strategy can save you time in the research process. It will help you focus your search so you choose the most useful indexes or databases with which to start. It certainly beats getting right into a general electronic database, typing in topic words you haven't thought about much and sorting through the, often extensive, list of results.
Above all, don't give up if you don't find material on your subject right away! Try thinking of other words to describe your subject.
You'll probably choose to do a keyword search. You'll simply type one or more words of your assigned topic into the search box. You may decide to include aspects of the topic about a particular demographic, location or time period. Keyword search results are usually grouped by relevance to bring the most likely titles to the top of the list. For example:
Spelling matters! The databases are getting better about suggesting spelling (as well as related terms) but, if you've put in a popular topic and get nothing, the spelling is probably wrong. Pop over to Google on a different tab and check your spelling! OR you can do the geeky librarian thing:
use '*' for 1-5 characters, '**' for open-ended truncation, or '?' to replace a single character anywhere within a word. For example: polic*, comput**, wom?n
