Research Guides: Real Estate Overview: Create a plan

Brainstorm keywords

Brainstorm keywords that represent the main concept(s) of your topic. Think about what words you would want to see in an article that may indicate it would be useful for your research.

Topic:	gentrification in urban communities
Key concepts:	gentrification	urban	communities
Related keywords:	restoration	inner city	neighborhoods
	low income displacement	metropolitian	areas

Develop a search strategy

Combine the keywords you brainstormed into a search strategy. Put phrases in quotation marks and/or use AND, OR, NOT (Boolean operators) to get more precise results.

Broad Search

Search for information using the single most important term related to your topic.

Narrow Search

Search for information by combining keywords you brainstormed.

Too many irrelevant results?

Add more keywords.

Too few relevant results?

Remove or change keywords

Still not there? Try:

The Boolean Machine
A visualization tool for using boolean operators for better search results.
Phrase searching
A short YouTube video from North Carolina State University explaining phrase searching.

Narrow Your Topic
This worksheet from Houston Community College will help you work through the process of narrowing your topic.

Adapted from: UT Arlington Library

Types of Sources

Good research usually involves using a variety of information sources.

Reference Books include detailed overviews and general information on a topic.
Circulating Books contain more in-depth information on a subject.
Periodicals (journals, magazines, and newspapers) provide the most recent information on a subject matter.