Research Guides: Texas History & Government Overview: Start Here

Background Information

You might need to learn a little bit more about your topic before you really start researching it.

Gathering some background information can help you:

Become more familiar with your topic
Identify keywords you can use for searching
Think of ways you can refine and focus your topic

Start Here

Where do I start?

Start with your assignment

Read over your assignment and make sure you understand what it is you need to do. See if you can answer the following questions:

What is the assignment? Are you creating a presentation? Are you writing an essay? If so, what type of essay (descriptive, cause-effect, etc.)?
Did your instructor provide a topic or do you have to come up with one yourself?
What types of works (journal articles, books, etc.) can you use as sources and how many sources do you need?
What style do you need to use to cite your sources?

Choosing a Topic

Where to get ideas

If you are picking your own topic, you might get ideas from:

Class materials or discussions
Current events or news
Topics you are interested in

Check your assignment to see if there are any guidelines related to what your topic can be. Check with your instructor if you have questions about whether a certain topic is acceptable for an assignment.

Keywords

Researchers use search language like keywords to access relevant information. A keyword is a word or phrase that represents something essential about your topic. Keywords describe the content so that researchers can find relevant information to the topic.

As you develop your keywords, consider:

How does the language I use affect my ability to access relevant information?
Why does the language that I use matter?

The information on this page will help you know how to:

determine search language (keywords) that correctly describe an object.
make connections between keywords that describe an object.
identify keywords that would be most effective to finding relevant information on a topic.

For further practice, watch this video tutorial and take the short quiz to check your understanding and receive a certificate of completion.

General Search Strategies

Use an
asterisk

Known as truncation, using an asterisk at the end of part of your search word will pull different endings, searching for many different keywords at one time.

Example:

civil* will find civilian, civilization

govern* will find governs, government