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HON: Honors College Program

This guide was created to support undergraduates doing research through the Honors College program.

Coming up with Keywords

We are going to use a sample topic to show how you might come up with keywords. For this example, we will use the topic:

"Alcohol abuse on college campus."

We will start by circling our two keywords or key concepts:

So we are starting with the keywords 'alcohol abuse' and 'college campus'. This is a very broad topic, we will probably find a lot of articles, and we will need to narrow our topic down. So we will need to add a third keyword. Let's say that we are interested in treatment. So now our topic might be:

"The Treatment of alcohol abuse on college campus."

 

Example Topic/Keyword Worksheet

Example topic: The treatment of alcohol abuse on college campuses.

 

KEYWORD

SYNONYM-narrow

SYNONYM-broaden

RELATED TERM

Treatment

Alcohol detox, Alcohol detoxification, Alcohol Treatment

Intervention, Therapy

Detox, Detoxification, Suport, Al-Anon

Alcohol abuse

Alcoholism, Alcohol addiction, Alcohol dependence

Alcohol

Alcohol use, Addiction

College Campus

Living on Campus, Living in Dormitories

College, University, Campus

Higher Education, Dormatories


Step 1: Identify keywords.

Step 2: Identify synonyms.

Step 3: Identify related terms by thinking of both broader and narrower ideas.

Choosing a Topic

You won't go anywhere without a topic. Choosing a good topic makes a huge difference in how well your writing process will go. A good topic meets the requirements of the assignment, intrigues you, and leads to an interesting thesis statement that can be supported by reputable sources. In many ways, the hardest part of research is not the writing, it's not the research itself, it is choosing what you want to write about. Some tips for choosing a topic:

Step 1: Get Ideas

  1. Your class readings or textbook can be a good source of ideas.
  2. For current topics, watch the news, or browse internet news sites, the newspaper, or news magazines.

Step 2: Get Background Information to Focus Your Topic

  1. Subject-specific encyclopedias have a wealth of background information that can provide you with a strong foundation upon which to build your research.
  2. Once you have a topic idea, it's time to focus on your topic. You may need to narrow or broaden your topic.

Step 3: Identify Search Terms and Strategy

  1. The library catalog, databases, and search engines don't answer your questions - they return search results. To get the best results, you need to enter good search terms.
  2. Identify the key concepts of your topic, then brainstorm other terms that are related to these key concepts.

Keyword Worksheets

These are copies of keyword worksheets. Use these worksheets in class or while refining your topic on your own. Just click on the link!