Course Outline (Talking Points)
1. Write down topic/question
- Example: How does sleep impact academic success in college students?
2. Identify key concepts: Keywords are most often nouns, avoid vague words (how, if, the, etc.)
- Example: How does sleep impact the academic success of college students?
3. Brainstorm synonyms, broader terms, and narrower terms to create a word bank (use a thesaurus to help brainstorm)
- Sleep: Rest, nap, sleep schedule
- Academic success: Grades, graduation rate, GPA
- College students: University students, students, college freshmen
4. Mix and match keywords while searching: Use different keywords together and keep track of what works for your topic
- Connecting the keywords with AND will tell the search engine to make sure all of your keywords are included in your search results.
- sleep AND academic success AND college students
- rest AND GPA AND college freshmen
- sleep schedule AND graduation rate AND students
Homework
1. Develop 2-3 Keywords to investigate your topic and locate 5 relevant resources.
2. Refection Post #3.
