Research Starter:
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Enter your research topic in the box below. Try to limit your topic to one sentence or phrase that best represents your research. For example:

• Does drinking diet soda increase your risk of diabetes?
• Ergonomic workstation trends in higher education
• Impact of sugar on E. coli longevity

Now, identify 2-3 key concepts within your research topic. Each concept might be one or two words.

For example, let's say your research topic is "Does drinking diet soda increase your risk of diabetes?" Your key concepts might be:

• diet soda
• diabetes
• risk factors

Your research topic is:

Your key concepts are:

Now, try to list up to 3 related keywords for each of your key concepts. These might be broader terms, more specific terms, synonyms, etc.

For example, let's say you are thinking up related keywords for the concept "diet soda". You might use:

• "diet coke" as a more specific term referring to a specific brand of soda
• "soft drink" as a synonym for soda

Let's start with your first term, .

Your key concepts are:

Now, try to list up 3 related keywords for each of your key concepts. These might be broader terms, more specific terms, synonyms, etc.

For example, let's say you are thinking up related keywords for the concept "diet soda". You might use:

• "diet coke" as a more specific term referring to a specific brand of soda
• "soft drink" as a synonym for soda

And now for your second key concept, .

Your key concepts are:

Now, try to list up to3 related keywords for each of your key concepts. These might be broader terms, more specific terms, synonyms, etc.

For example, let's say you are thinking up related keywords for the concept "diet soda". You might use:

• "diet coke" as a more specific term referring to a specific brand of soda
• "soft drink" as a synonym for soda

And now for your third key concept, .

Here's the list of keywords you have generated:

Now that you've come up with your keywords, you need to combine them using Boolean operators (AND and OR). For the terms you came up with, that would look like this:

Here's what that looks like in a format a database can understand.

Next it's time to select which database to search within!

Select one database from the list below, then click "Search!" to perform your search.

Academic Search Complete: A very large general academic database covering a broad range of topics.
Business Source Complete: Articles from business journals and magazines, plus industry, company, and market research reports.
ERIC: Covers journal and report literature in disciplines related to education.
MEDLINE: One of the best sources for scholarly medical information on a huge range of topics.
PsycINFO: Information on psychology and related disciplines, including journal articles and book chapters.
SPORTdiscus: Contains information on all aspects of sports, physical education, health, etc.