When and Where Can I Access Databases?
Databases are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can use them on or off campus. If you are using them from off campus you will be prompted to put in your SU username and password (the same one you use for Gull Net, MyClasses, or an SU computer).
Voting Image
Created by the Poster Project (2018), shared according to Creative Commons licensing. Accessed from https://powertotheposter.com/posters/theposterproject-us.
Keyword Exercise
Research Question: "How does media affect voting in young people?"
The first step is to identify the most important parts of the question, the keywords, that get to the base of what we what to research.
Keywords: media voting young people
Now we need to brainstorm some of the different ways we can think about these key concepts. Those alternate keywords can be synonyms, broader, or more narrow terms.
| For example: media might generate a list like: | Voting might generate a list like: |
And young people might generate a list like this: |
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Television is one type of media, and a talk show is one type of television program; the terms get more narrow. Civic engagement is a broader category under which voting might rest. And youth is just another way of saying young people. All of these are legitimate ways of coming up with alternate keywords. You never know which one will be best for a particular database or website until you start looking! What works well in one, might not go over very well in another.
You can use the worksheet below to explore options for your own topic.
Thesaurus
In addition to the link to Thesaurus.com below, MS Word has a built-in thesaurus:
