Social Work Research Guide

1. Select a topic that interests you and do some pre-research. If you need ideas:
   • Look at course readings and class notes.
   • Find information using Google, Wikipedia, CQ Researcher, or Credo Reference.  
2. Consider the scope of your topic. If it is too narrow, you might have trouble finding enough information. If it is too broad, you can be overwhelmed with information. 
   • Think about your assignment prompt while determining the scope of your topic. It is important to consider the size of the assignment and the length of time you have to complete it in thinking about scope.
   • Find more on narrowing your topic.  
3. Turn your focused topic into a research question. Know that your research question may change slightly depending on what sorts of resources you find. While you should have a topic or question in mind, allow the sources you find, along with your interests, to help shape and refine your topic further.    

Questions to guide the development of your research question: 

• Is it focused enough to be covered in my paper or project? 
• Is there enough literature available on this topic? 
• What is the question that my research is answering? 
• Am I genuinely interested in this topic? 
• Is my topic going to be new and interesting to my audience?
•  How do you determine if a resource has quality, useful information?

Another search strategy is to use subject terms or phrases. Subject terms are standardized word(s) that describe the main idea of an article or other source. In many databases, but not all, you can use subject terms or phrases to capture the different ways authors refer to the same concept. For example, in the database Academic Search Complete, you will find the following subject terms representing “migratory animals”:

• Migratory animals
• Animal migration
• Home range (Animal geography)

You can identify subject terms by looking at a source citation or abstract in a database, or under the Details tab in OneSearch. Subject terms vary by database, they are not always intuitive, and it is common to use both keywords and subject terms in constructing a search.

Like searching with keywords, it is a good idea to keep track of which combinations of subject terms you have searched.

Brainstorming keywords for your topic will help you refine your topic, find the most information about your topic and save you time by helping you search databases in a more efficient and systematic way. (Why? Different authors will refer to the same concept in different ways. Having a comprehensive list of keywords to search will help you find more information about your topic in an efficient and systematic way!) 

1. Pick out the main ideas in your research question. For example, the main ideas in this research question are in bold: How is climate change affecting migratory animals in Montana?  

2. Take each of your main ideas and brainstorm as many synonyms, related words, acronyms, initialisms, and spelling variants as you can. For example, for “climate change”: 

• Climate crisis 

• Climate emergency 

• Global heating 

• Global warming 

• Greenhouse effect 

3. Do this for each of your main ideas. Searching all the variants you can come up with will give you a broader selection of relevant information. Consider making a chart to keep track of which combinations of keywords you have searched for. 

• Get more help in choosing and using keywords.  

4. Know that there is no such thing as a perfect search. Searching is a process, so having a list of potential keywords will help you begin your research. You’ll find that different combinations of keywords will bring up different results in different databases. You can still learn something from every search you perform, so know that this list of keywords can continue to grow throughout your research process.  

• You can also use what you learn from searching to redefine your research topic or question. 

5. Several other specific search techniques can help you use your brainstormed keywords. Take a look at: 

• Search Techniques, Part 1 

• Search Techniques, Part 2