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Research Preparation Worksheet

A great way to prepare for your research before you begin to use the library, is to think about your topic and identify the search terms that will find the information you need.

Spend a few minutes with the worksheet provided here. Think about "Key Words" for your topic, and the types of information you want to find. Then, when you begin your search, a lot of your work is done. You just need to use your list of search terms to perform various searches.

Download worksheet (in Word format).

Trent University Library
Research Worksheet

Write your topic in your own words. What are you looking for information on? Keep it simple.


Divide your topic into concepts (words that should appear in everything you find).



List other terms to represent the same concepts (single/plural, synonyms, broader/narrower, noun/verb/adjective).









List the kinds of resources that you want to find (books, articles, maps, statistics, etc.).


 

Decide where to search for your information (TOPCAT, which indexes, encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc).


 

Put together some keyword searches to get started. Remember to use truncation and AND and OR.





Make additions and modifications to the above information as you learn from the results of your searches.

 

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Last Modified: November 16, 2009
Maintained by , Thomas J. Bata Library.