Public Health

Selecting a Topic

Some instructors may assign you a specific topic, while others ask you to select your own. When deciding on a topic, there are a few things that you can do:

•     Brainstorm for ideas
•     Pick a topic that is manageable and material is available
•     Do some background reading
•     Make a list of key words
•     Be flexible. You may have to broaden or narrow your topic to fit your assignment or the sources you find
•     Pick a topic that interests you!

Selecting a good topic is not always easy. It must be narrow and focused enough to be interesting, yet broad enough to find enough information. Before deciding on your final topic, review your assignment so you know what your final project should look like. Don't lose sight of your end goal!
 
Brainstorming for a Topic

Always try to choose a topic that interests you. It will make the research process much more fun! The following questions will help generate topic ideas.

•     Do you have a strong opinion on a current social or political controversy?
•     Do you have a personal issue, problem, or interest that you would like to know more about?
•     Is there an aspect of your course that you are interested in learning more about?
•     Is there an information gap with the topic you've considered researching?

Write down any key words or concepts that may be of interest to you. These terms can be helpful in your searching and used to form a more focused research topic.

Be prepared to adjust your topic once you begin your research; your final research topic may look quite different! The research process is not a straight line to the end, it zigs and zags and turns back on itself - that is normal!

Once you have asked your question (using the PICO question format) the next step is to identify keywords and concepts.

To review how to create and answerable question please review the PICO format found here.

What are keywords?

Keywords or search terms are necessary when searching library databases.  Google allows you to type an entire sentence into it's search box and you still get thousands of results, a library database will likely return you zero!  Instead you must use keywords or specific search terms in order to retrieve the best results.

Finding Keywords

Identify the main concepts in your research question.

• Write out a brief description of your research topic - then, identify and pull out 2-4 words that best describe your question - these are your key concepts (key words, search terms)
• Take each of your key concepts and break them down into their synonyms (same meaning) and related terms
• To help with this you can use a thesaurus, also think of specific examples or types.
• If your topic is new to you or you don't know enough about it yet it can be hard to think of synonyms or related words - find some background information on the topic before you start.
  • Background information can be found in books, encyclopedias, popular articles (magazines and newspapers), videos or web pages.
  •  

Research question: Does the use of social networking in online classes help students learn?

• Some key terms in this question are students, online classes, social networking, learn
   

Key Concepts and Keywords

Bonus Tip:
 

Many databases will have a Thesaurus or Subject Heading feature built in, like CINAHL and MEDLINE. These subject headings are the official database definitions or descriptors of an article (the official hashtags).

Subject headings are assigned to articles based on their content and can be used effectively to find subject-specific results.

In some databases you can enter a search term and the database will "suggest" terms for you or you can click on a Suggested Search Terms box, this will get the the database "official" terms to search.

Boolean Operators

Using the Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT) to combine your keywords to create search strings.

They allow you to connect pieces of information to find exactly what you are looking for.

Cecelia Vetter, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

AND: retrieves articles that contain ALL the terms and helps NARROW down the search.
Ex., Depression AND anxiety

OR: retrieves articles with ANY of the terms and helps BROADEN the search.
Ex.,Depression OR anxiety

NOT: eliminates articles containing the SECOND term and helps NARROW the search.
Ex.,Depression NOT anxiety

Searching Tips
 

(     ) - Use parentheses (brackets) to tell the database to prioritize the terms in parentheses before moving on to the other terms. Like a math equation, what is in parentheses is done first.
ex., Searching for articles on teens and vaping you could try:

(teen OR teens OR teenagers OR adolescents) AND vaping

This tells the database to look for all these versions of teenager but only if they also include vaping.
 

"   " - Phrase searching, when you are looking for a specific phrase, use quotation marks to tell the database you want the terms searched together.
ex., "hand hygiene" - searches for hand hygiene, not hand or hygiene
 

Wild Cards - are used to tell the database that you aren't sure how a word should be spelled:
# is used to indicate a character may or may not be present in the term 
ex., colo#r - color or colour
? is used to show the correct term could contain a variable character in that position

ex., neutrali?e - neutralize or neutralise
 

Truncation - can be used to tell the database to search for all the words that begin with the shortened term you used. 
ex., child* (child, children, childhood)

Grey literature can be described as any information produced outside of traditional publishing channels--essentially anything besides articles published in scholarly journals. Grey Literature refers to a body of materials that cannot be found easily through conventional channels such as publishers.

Grey literature can include, but is not limited to: pre-prints, reports, white papers, theses, conference proceedings, technical specifications and standards, technical and commercial documentation, and government documents. For this reason, grey literature can be difficult to systematically search for and evaluate.

Grey Literature is a potential useful source of material, if you are prepared to do the extra work to use it.   Typically grey literature has to be searched using multiple tools.  The links below contain links to specific sites and search tools to find grey literature.

This is a good starting point produced by the University of Illinois at Chicago.
http://researchguides.uic.edu/c.php?g=252186&p=1684970

Starting a Grey Literature Search (Some Tips)

Infographic: How to read a scientific paper (to view full size click here)

Rodriguez, N. (2021). Infographic: How to read a scientific paper. https://www.elsevier.com/connect/infographic-how-to-read-a-scientific-paper?fbclid=IwAR2dM3rWrMaKDHoMIxmPBhjcJp4MCebWQc7IKLxOPfX6Vg5DQHzIJ_ufpaE

  You are required to use the American Psychological Association (7th Edition) citation style or APA 7

Helpful Hint

Many databases include a Citation or Reference tool that will allow you to click a button and receive a pre-formatted APA 7 citation for the material (another great reason to use library databases!).

NOTE: while this is a super handy tool there can be mistakes made by the database in the formatting, as a student it is YOUR responsibility to double check and make sure the citation is accurate.