Course Guide: PSY 315 - Human Sexuality

• Define your research question or topic.
  • Why? Understanding your topic before you dive into searching databases keeps you focused on your topic and less likely to get sidetracked by irrelevant material.
    • Example: What is the impact of air quality on children with asthma?
• Break it down.
  • Pick out the core concepts (usually nouns or noun phrases)
  • Tips: You want between 2-4 keywords. Avoid fluff words like impact and effect.
    • Why? Words such as impact are used all the time so you are more likely to get results that aren't relevant to your topic.
  • Example: air quality, children, asthma
• Identify 1 or 2 synonyms for each core concept
  • Why? Computers aren't that smart. They won't do any interpretations for you, which means they will spit out only what you put in
    • Example: air quality = pollution ; children = youth, adolescents ; asthma = "bronchial asthma"

(credit IUPUI)