It can be tricky to identify a research topic and narrow your topic into a specific research question. There are a few ways to come up with a topic:
Once you have identified a few topics you may be interested in, test them by searching in the databases (covered within this guide). Is there a lot of research out there on your topic? Consider narrowing it to a different focus or try another topic. Is there absolutely nothing available on your topic? Considering broadening your topic or changing directions. To broaden or narrow your topic, answer some of the basic questions:
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Once you've decided on your topic, you can start creating keywords by answering a few basic questions and coming up with different ways to describe your topic. The sample topic here concerns exercise and higher altitudes. Potential questions and keywords that can be used include:
When searching in databases, there are advanced search strategies that can help you narrow or broaden your search results. You may know the basics, like narrowing by publish date or language, but below are further strategies that will help you get the best possible search results.
Advanced search strategies can be crafted from the developed keywords to target the most pertinent research within the given databases. Several techniques, including boolean operators and truncation, can help develop your advanced search strategies.
At the graduate level, pay particular attention to Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), described below.
BOOLEAN OPERATORS (Connector Words)
These terms (AND, OR, NOT) can help you broaden or narrow the results you receive when searching within the databases.
For more information on these strategies, visit this guide from the Priddy Library.
TRUNCATION
Using the * (asterisk symbol), truncation uses the root of a word to find results that contain any variation of the root.
For more information on these strategies, visit this guide from the Priddy Library.
Unlike keywords, Subject Headings are the major content in the article; they're also called "controlled vocabulary." A search on the topic altitude training as a keyword may retrieve some articles with 'altitude,' some with 'training' and some with the phrase 'altitude training.' But if the subject heading is 'altitude training' then the article is focused on that topic. Your search may be much broader retrieving more articles with keywords, but in searching with subject headings, you are likely to get fewer but more precise results. Subject headings are also referred to as 'descriptors' in some databases.
More specifically, PubMed and MEDLINE utilize Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), a controlled vocabulary created by the National Library of Medicine.
Thesaurus
Some databases have a thesaurus - a powerful collection of subject headings or standardized terms created by the indexers. Controlled vocabulary provides more effective searching capability in databases where a thesaurus is available. For example you may think of the word 'substance abuse,' but the database thesaurus indexes it as 'drug abuse.'
Use the thesaurus to find keywords and phrases and apply these search terms in the subject field (SU or DE). The results may be better for searches of thesaurus terms in the subject field than for a simple keyword search of the title or abstract of an article.
Make sure to consult the following thesauri when searching these databases:
MEDLINE- MeSH terms (Medical Subject Heading)
CINAHL - subject headings
PsycINFO - thesaurus from APA