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Northwest Missouri State University


Library Home » Course/Subject Guides » Owens Library Steps in the Research Process

Steps in the Research Process

 1. Develop a topic sentence.

 2. Pick out keywords from the topic sentence.

Keyword: Keyword: Keyword:

 3. Think of synonyms and variant endings for the keywords, for example educat* will retrieve
      educate, educating, education (truncation).

Keyword:

Synonym:
Keyword:

Synonym:
Keyword:

Synonym:

 4. Create a search combining keywords & synonyms using Boolean Operators.

     >> Connect synonyms with OR and enclose them in parentheses
 
     >> Connect ideas with AND

 5. Try your search.

     >> Too few results? Add another keyword.

      >> Too many results? Delete the least significant word.

 

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