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DA125 Hiatt

A course guide to support Kari Hiatt's DA 125 course.

Getting started

When starting research, start out with what you know. It can be helpful to write these things down in a place where you can keep track of your research and goals.

  • What you are your assignment requirements?
  • What is the microorganism you are researching?
    • What do you already know and what do you need to know about your microorganism?
  • For paper two, what 4 transmission modes are you discussing?
    • What do you already know and what do you need to know about transmission?
  • For paper three, what potential health and safety risk are you writing about?
    • What do you already know and what do you need to know?

Write out your research topic/thesis statement

The first step to brainstorming search terms is having an initial topic or thesis statement to work with. Not there yet? Spend five minutes choosing a focused topic, then come back here.

Ready?

Step 1. Take a piece of paper or open up a document and write down your topic or thesis statement.

Example:

Topic sentence

Step 2. Circle or highlight the most important individual ideas that make up your topic.

Example:

Words you don't need to search for and why: 

  • it, to, and, of - articles and prepositions can usually be ignored because they are so common.
  • should, be, use, for, relationship - adjectives and words that indicate a relationship between two ideas can usually be ignored because they may eliminate otherwise relevant results from your search. The more search terms you add to your search, the fewer results you will get.
  • pro, con, for, against - rather than using words that convey opinions about topics, use nouns that help you learn about your topic(s) from every angle.

Brainstorm search terms

Step 3. Think about other words or phrases that have similar meanings to each idea – basically, brainstorm synonyms. Write down at least one similar or related term for each idea.

If you’re having a tough time thinking of terms, do a basic search on the main idea. (In this example, animals in entertainment might be the main idea.) Skim through an article or webpage for additional or alternate terms – sometimes seeing how an author writes about a topic helps.

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