Developing a Search Strategy
Using your core text-- The Age of Migration - as your professor suggested is a great way to read and learn how scholars talk about your topic. That is one way to develop keywords for searching. Brainstorming and testing and tweaking are other ways. Use terms from the relevant articles, books, and reports that you cited in your preliminary bibliography and use the works cited from those articles and books. Use suggested keywords sometimes found in articles. All of these methods have also been suggested by your professor.
Brainstorming Example
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What? What is the topic? What are some related subtopics?
migration from Syria to Italy |
Who? Who are the stakeholders involved in this issue?
Syrian refugees/migrants, Italians, governments, politicians, economy |
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How? How are the stakeholders involved? How does this topic impact society, politics, etc.? humanitarian and health needs; fear; jobs; threats; terrorism; political favor; religion
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Why? Why does this topic matter? humanitarian crisis; security; social & cultural integration; religious freedom
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Common Keywords
ethnicity and race (these terms are not interchangeable)
state and nation (these terms are also not interchangeable!)
citizenship
gendered racism
nativism
diaspora
transnationalism
Test Your Topic Using your Brainstorming Keywords
Cast a wide net. Remember to use AND, OR & NOT between your search terms to broaden, narrow or exclude results.
"Syrian refugees" AND Italy if you're not sure what you want to focus on. If you have a particular focus-
"Syrian refugees" AND Italy AND religion NOT Christian
"Syrian refugees" OR "Syrian migrants" AND Italy
When researching topics that involve the United States, in order to focus on the other country involved, perhaps using NOT "United States" would be useful.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowProvides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research. Learn how to connect Google Scholar to the F&M Library here.
- CQ Researcher This link opens in a new windowPublished in print and online 44 times a year, the single-themed CQ Researcher report offers in-depth, non-biased coverage of political and social issues, with regular reports on topics in health, international affairs, education, the environment, technology and the U.S. economy. You can view and search across all of our CQ resources here.
- Sage Knowledge This link opens in a new windowIncludes an expansive range of Sage eBook and eReference content for students, researchers, and faculty. This collection includes scholarly monographs, reference works, handbooks, encyclopedias, textbooks and more.
Subject Terms
Use Subject Terms (assigned by the Library of Congress) to find like items in the library catalog and in journal databases. If you find a useful book or article, its catalog record usually will include Subject Terms that you can use to find related research material. Below is a screenshot of a catalog record with subject hyperlinks. Click on the links to find related material.
