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Bere McGuire
February 20, 2024
English 1302 283

Suppose You’re Researching

Suppose you’re researching climate change and come across NASA’s site sealevel.nasa.gov. Checking
out what others say about the source tells you that NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, and it is an agency of the US government that employs thousands of scientists and
publishes information on natural-science topics. If you were writing an essay about how climate change
impacts coastal communities, what kinds of information from this site would you consider citing? How
does the way information is presented make it seem more or less credible? For instance, compare the
site’s report “Melting Ice, Warming Ocean” with the infographic shown above. Is one source easier to
vet than the other? Does one seem more fitting to cite than other-and if so, why? I would consider citing
Sea-Level change and the effects. It makes it more credible by the amount of information it gives by putting a
map of the changes and the citations it gives when giving information. Yes, one source is easier to vet than the
other. The website seems more fitting to cite than the other because the website not only give numbers and
years but more detail.

Establish a Schedule

Working Title: Position on the Death Penalty

Working Thesis: Pros and Cons of the death penalty

Due Date

Choose a topic. ___X___

Analyze your rhetorical situation. ___X___
Do some preliminary research. ___X___
Narrow your topic and decide on a research question. ___X___
Plot out a working thesis. ___X___
Do library and web research. ___X___
Start a working bibliography. ___X___
Turn in your research proposal and annotated bibliography. _______
Plan and schedule any community-based or other field research _______
Conduct community-based or other field research. _______
Draft a thesis statement. __X____
Write out a draft ______
Get response. _______
Do additional research, if needed. _______
Revise. _______
Prepare your list of references or works cited. _______
Edit. _______
Write your final draft. _______
Proofread. _______
Turn in the draft. _______
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Chapter 24

What are the characteristics of an annotated bibliography? Identify and describe each
characteristic.
Summary of each work – Making sure the sources is what you’re looking for and is detailed.
Context about how or why the source was written- the detailed reason behind the source.
Accuracy of the source- Based on who wrote the source, is the source credited.

Choosing Keywords for Research

This guide demonstrates how to choose keywords for search engines, book catalogs, and library databases. You
can view a video of this topic at http://libguides.seminolestate.edu/tutorials/chooseterms. Some of this
information was taken from Seminole State College’s library website1.

Three-Step Process
From your thesis statement or research question, identify the main concepts or keywords. By creating a list of
keywords, you will be able to construct better and more efficient searches. These in turn will lead you to more
plentiful and relevant information supporting your thesis.
Follow the three-step process below for discovering keywords. It is helpful to keep track of the keywords on a
sheet of paper or a word processing document for reference.

1. Extract single words or short phrases.

You will not use complete sentences as you would in normal conversation to search. Leave out minor words
such as articles ("a," "an," or "the") and prepositions or verb phrases ("on," "in," or "going to").
Also, use nouns (person, place, or thing) as keywords. Avoid verbs (action words) and use adjectives
(descriptive words) sparingly.
Examples:
→ cat → dog → education
→ boat → car → carbon emissions

2. Experiment with different synonyms.

Try thinking of synonyms (words that have the same meaning as another word) of your keywords. For example,
you start with the word "trash," but you could also experiment with using the words "garbage" or “waste.” An
online or printed thesaurus is a great place to find synonyms.
Examples:
→ feline → canine → school

→ ship → automobile → greenhouse gas

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https://www.seminolestate.edu/library
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3. Think of related terms to describe your topic.

What are some other topics or areas related to your research? These may be worthy of consideration if you are
having trouble finding good keywords or if you want to further refine your research focus. For example, some
related terms to "pollution" are "acid rain," "global warming," or "refuse water." The related terms may be more
specific or less specific than the original terms in your thesis. Each combination will change the number and
type of your search results.
Examples:
→ animal → pet → teacher
→ watercraft → transportation → ozone layer

Now it is your turn to come up with search terms (or keywords) for your research. List as many as you can think
of in the space provided below. Highlights or circle the words that help you find what you are looking for when
you use them to search.
____Death penalty____________________________________________________________________________

____Pros of death penalty ____________________________________________________________

____Cons of death penalty____________________________________________________________________

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Creating Search Statements
This guide demonstrates how to create search statements for use in research tools like library databases, online
catalogs, and search engines. Some of this information was taken from Seminole State College’s library
website2.

Creating Search Statements

Search engines like Google allow you to type a question or sentence directly in the search box. This won’t work
in the library catalog or databases. Instead, use keywords, phrase searching and Boolean terms. Boolean terms
(AND, OR, NOT) are used to either narrow or broaden your pool of results. Boolean terms usually appear in all
uppercase letters to distinguish them from the keywords. Some search tools require capitalized Boolean terms.

Phrase Searching
Enclose phrases, proper names, and titles with quotation marks. Adding quotations keeps all the words
together so the search engine, database, or library catalog does not search for them as individual words.
Examples:
physical activity → "physical activity"
Affordable Care Act → "Affordable Care Act"
Ernest Hemingway → "Ernest Hemingway"

Boolean Term: AND

Use AND to connect keywords and narrow results. Select a keyword for each separate concept in your thesis,
and then connect them with an AND. Remember, every time you add a word you narrow your search and receive
fewer results. If you have too few results, eliminate keywords or substitute others.
Examples:
→ "weight lifting" AND obesity
→ exercise AND health AND elderly
→ "physical activity" AND diabetes AND "aging adults"

Boolean Term: OR
Use OR to search with synonyms and expand results. With OR, you tell the search system that you are equally
interested in multiple terms. This is an ideal to search strategy to use with synonyms and is very effective when
combined with an AND term.
Examples:
→ "physical activity" OR exercise
→ elderly OR "aging adults" OR "older adults"
→ running OR cardio AND obesity
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Boolean Term: NOT

Use NOT to eliminate unwanted keywords. This is helpful to eliminate topics that change the results. For
example, if you want to know about manatees around the word, but not Florida manatees specifically, you can
search for "manatees NOT Florida" to eliminate results that mention Florida.
NOT can be used with AND or OR. Just make sure NOT comes after the keyword you want to keep and before
the keyword you want excluded. Examples:
→ exercise NOT "weight lifting"→ walking NOT running AND obesity
→ exercise OR "physical activity" NOT teenagers *Some search
tools use a minus sign (-) instead of NOT to eliminate keywords.

Now it is your turn to come up with search statements for your research. List as many as you can think of in the
space provided below. Make sure to use the Boolean terms (and, or, not). Highlights or circle the statements that
help you find what you are looking for when you use them to search.
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_____Death penalty not capital punishment _____________________________________________

____Death penalty not statistics _______________________________________________________

____Death penalty good not bad______________________________________________________________

____Death penalty bad not good_____________________________________________________________

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