Research Steps:
1) Choose and develop your topic
2) Find background and overviews
(reference books & circulating books)
3) Find current information
(magazine/newspaper articles)
4) Put it all together!
(cite your sources in MLA or APA format)

Databases are not free Web sites…
They’re subscription Web sites:
 Original sources are not free: books and magazines
 No ads
 written by experts
– use more sophisticated search techniques…

1) Use the right-sized words:
To find: Search: Use:
Books online catalog big ideas:
(60,000 books) - Steroids
- Baseball
Articles article databases specific ideas:
(millions of articles) -Anabolic steroids and
regulations and baseball

2) Keywords vs. subject headings:
1) Use keywords you think may work : - steroids
2) Find best citations in your results
3) Click on the subject headings : - Anabolic steroids
- Doping in sports
- Athletes – drug use
4) Your new results are usually better!

3) Boolean logic:
 Named after English mathematician George Boole (1815-1864).
 The most common Boolean search uses “and”
 Overlap two or more ideas
steroids and sports

4) Truncation (wildcards):
 Wildcard symbol finds all word endings.
 Asterisk (*) is most common wildcard
 For books and article databases
steroid* finds… steroid, steroids, steroidal
steroid* and sports