Going through this process can be the hardest part of doing research, but once you have a question that is realistically scoped (not too broad, not too narrow) it will guide the rest of your work.

The Process of Narrowing a Topic

But Avoid Getting too Narrow

For the above question about college tuition, the important questions to ask would be who? and what? Trying to find information on the impact of rising tuition in a particular city or province will be too restrictive, and the location may, in fact, be irrelevant to the search; a large-scale study across Canada or North America would likely yield applicable information.

The bottom line is, you will be working toward a balanced research question that is specific enough to guide you in your research, but not too restrictive.

ACTIVITY: Find the balanced topic

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It's important to understand that the search terms you use will have a direct correlation with the kinds of sources you find. And spending some time early on in your research learning relevant terms will save you time later on.

For instance, if you were going to do research about the risk of bird flu to humans, initial background reading would teach you that professionals and scholars usually use the term avian influenza instead of bird flu when they write about it. (Often, they also use H1N1 or H1N9 to identify the strain.) If you didn’t learn that, you would miss the kinds of sources you’ll eventually need for your assignment.

Take a look at the Google search results using the terms "bird flu" and human risk vs. "avian influenza" and human risk. Compare the kinds of sources listed.

(Click on the thumbnail image for a larger view.)

If you were to follow the linked results, you would see that the sources on the right come from government agencies and scientific journals, whereas the sources on the left come from news outlets or consumer health websites.

A note about Wikipedia

What you can do with a Wikipedia article is look at the external links, the references, and the suggestions for further reading and try to follow up with those, either in the Library's collection or elsewhere on the internet.

Try a Library encyclopedia or dictionary instead

You will find a list of KPU's reference books here. You will also find links to individual [pb_glossary id="875"]reference book[/pb_glossary]s when you do a search using Summon. Think of Summon as the library's search engine; it's the main search box on the homepage.

Encyclopedias and handbooks will provide:

- a broad overview of your topic

- sub-topics and related issues

- controversies and criticisms

- key thinkers or researchers in the area

- references, recommended articles, and links to further reading

Dictionaries will offer a definition of your term and related terms that will be important as you develop your search strategy.

Activity: Use an encyclopedia article

The article below is from the Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Psychology, and was found using the library's Summon search tool.

Click on the hotspots to see what information the article provides on the general topic of "eating disorders."

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After this background work, you’re ready to start developing the research question you will try to answer for your assignment.

Steps for Developing a Research Question

Well done! You've completed the text and activity portion of Part 1 Getting Started on your Research. You are welcome to review any part of this module at any time.

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ACTIVITY: Match the resource with the research need.

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ACTIVITY: Explore the timeline

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ACTIVITY: Watch, listen, and learn

The following video describes the process of peer review.

ACTIVITY: Summarize the peer review process

But how can you, the researcher, recognize a peer reviewed article?

Fortunately, the library's Summon search and most of our databases have a filter or limit which will help you find the right type of information. Various databases will use different terms: look for "academic" or "scholarly" or "peer reviewed."

There are other clues you can look for.

Activity: Summing up Module 2

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Each of these types of sources has different content, written by people with varying levels of expertise, and written for different audiences. And each of these types of sources will have a different value for you, depending on the context and requirements of your research need. Some assignments will require that you use scholarly, academic sources that have to undergo a lengthy editorial process and therefore take longer to appear. Other assignments may allow you to use less formal, popular sources of information that may be more timely.

Newspaper		up-to-date current events, editorial opinion, commentary, general audience
Encyclopedia, Wikipedia		overview, background information, general audience
Website		possible commercial purposes, opinion, general audience
Magazine		current events, topics of interest to general audience
Government/NGO		reports, standards, statistics, more targeted audience
Scholarly article		new research by scholars for other scholars, expert audience
Scholarly book		in-depth coverage of a topic by expert/experts, targeted audience
Social media post, blog		real-time, opinion, commentary, general audience

The question is "Should vaccinations be mandatory for school-aged children?"

(Click on the thumbnail for a larger view.)

Only a little over 1,000 results come back, which is not as many as you might expect considering that Summon searches everything the library has in its collection. Furthermore, the results are rather evenly split between journal articles and books.

Now, repeat the search again, but with just the keywords that are central to the question you are researching. Removing the non-essential words in the question would leave you with something like this:

"Should vaccinations be mandatory for school-aged children?"

The search below was done using mandatory vaccinations children.

(Click on the thumbnail for a larger view.)

This search results in over 15,000 items, with many more journal articles. That's because in the first search, Summon is looking for items in which ALL of the words of the search query are present; in the second search, only those three terms need to occur in the results. Furthermore, the words left out of the question are not essential to the overall strategy of the query.

Remove bias

Avoid any words which may imply a bias in the results: negative, positive, good, bad, benefits, harms, effects etc. Remember, you are searching for a balanced treatment of the question, and including biased or leading terms could skew the results of your search.

Consider what would happen if you included the term "anti-vaxxer" in your search. You would most likely end up on websites with inaccurate information.

ACTIVITY: Focus on the keywords of a research question

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ACTIVITY: Selecting the best limits

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Consider that scholarship is a conversation among researchers on a particular subject, with everyone offering evidence, theories, and criticism to advance what is known, and what might not be known, about a topic. Your task is to understand what connections are being made between these viewpoints, how you will integrate them in your own work, and what conclusions or advances you might be able to add.

In practical terms, as a researcher, this means paying attention to the reference lists or bibliographies of the works you find in your initial searching. This is known as citation tracking, and is an important strategy to use to find additional resources.

There are a couple of ways to do this:

1. Follow the authors and works mentioned in the introduction or literature review section of your first article
2. Use the links that Summon, library databases, and sometimes Google Scholar provide to locate any articles that cite your article, as well as other recommended or related works. Look for:  Cited By, Recommended, or Related articles

ACTIVITY: Click on the hotspots

The image below is taken from the introduction of an article on populism, found in one of the library's databases.

(Source: Moffitt, B., & Tormey, S. (2014). Rethinking populism: politics, mediatisation and political style. Political Studies, 62(2), 381–397. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9248.12032)

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As a researcher, asking yourself how these narrower and alternate terms relate to what you want to find out will be an important part of your search strategy.

Tip: Results ranked by relevance Summon and most of the library's databases will return search results ranked in order of relevance. After performing a search, always examine closely the top few items for more precise search terms, synonyms, or other related pieces that you might add to the next search.

Move to an article database

Our earlier keyword search showed us that vaccine hesitancy might be a useful concept for finding information about what motivates some people to refuse vaccinations for their children. Doing a search with the term "vaccine hesitancy" in Academic Search Complete, the library's largest, multi-disciplinary database, yields the following results.

See this page for a list of article databases the library subscribes to.

Try the library catalogue

Access the library catalogue directly.

ACTIVITY: Analyze the details of a book 

Outside of the scholarly community, there are other indicators of an author's credibility; other communities may recognize authority or expertise by means of specific credentials or practical experience. For example, we rely on articles in the mainstream press because professional journalists generally abide by a code of ethics and have a lengthy publishing record. We see a certified physical therapist to address a sports injury.

When it comes to verifying an author's credibility within the scholarly literature, library research tools can help us to make a quick determination of authority. Recall that in the last module we looked at using the scholarly or peer reviewed limits in Summon and databases to find results that are published in academic journals.

But looking a little more closely at the author and the journal, and perhaps doing some quick Google searching, can help us to make a better decision about the author's expertise in a particular area. Having an advanced degree in theoretical physics does not necessarily make someone an expert in evolutionary biology.

Activity: Check the authors

Take a look at the record for an article from the library's Academic Search Complete. Click on the hotspots.

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Learn to ask the following kinds of questions:

• What is the publication or copyright  date?
• Is it a reprint of a previous work? a new edition or revision?
• Is there newer information available on the topic?
• How might ideas and perspectives have changed since the work was published?

Activity: Decide whether the following sources are current enough for the topic

Putting it all together

The following poster illustrates the process of determining the credibility of sources you find on the internet. It is also a useful reminder of the critical questions you should be asking of all the sources you find in your research, including those you find in the library.

Activity: Summing up Module 4

Your research question is: What are the potential harms and benefits of e-cigarettes?

Decide which of the two sources is better. Use the arrow on the right to move to the next question.

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Well done! You've completed the text and activity portion of Part 4 Evaluate your Sources. You are welcome to review any part of this module at any time.

But evaluating sources from your Google search requires close scrutiny. Ask why a site exists. Are the authors or creators likely to be using unbiased information? Might they be motivated to spread inaccuracies or misinformation? What evidence do they use to support their claims?

Take the following example. You decide to research the topic of whether municipalities should add fluoride to public drinking water.

A Google search produces a mix of government health and consumer advocacy sites, including this one from a popular natural medicine website Natural News[New Tab].  (Keep this tab open to answer some of the following questions about the site.)

1. Start by examining the URL

2. Look around the site

Further evidence of a commercial purpose is clear by the striking presence of advertisements for natural health products and apps, many of which are not related to the topic. Also note the online store. What might this tell you about the intent of the site?

Is it possible to determine the accuracy of the information? The external links provided at the bottom of the article simply refer back to other articles on the same website. A check of the two studies referenced do not conclude that fluoridated water causes the purported health problems, but suggest that further investigation is warranted.

3. Leave the page

Open a new tab or window and do a quick Google search of the owner's name (find this on the About Natural News page)  and the website. How is it regarded by other sources, namely the mainstream press, Wikipedia, and other fact-checking sites?

To summarize, learning to incorporate these questions when assessing a source of information will lead you to make good decisions about whether it should be used in your assignment.

Trade or professional articles

• books/ebooks
• journal/magazine/newspaper articles
• government documents
• reference books
• videos

• books/ebooks,
• government documents
• videos

• peer reviewed journal articles
• some trade/professional publications
• some newspapers

• scholarly journals articles
• conference proceedings
• research/government publications

Activity: Which research tool is best?

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Activity: Summing up Module 3

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Well done! You've completed the text and activity portion of Part 3 Developing your Search Strategy. You are welcome to review any part of this module at any time.

If you feel you are already an experienced researcher, consider this guide to be a refresher.

Technical requirements: The modules  work best in the most recent versions of Chrome or Firefox; Internet Explorer is not supported at this time. If you experience difficulties, check your browser version and update.

A note to instructors: This guide is informed by the Association of College and Research Library's Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, a new approach to teaching and learning research skills through a set of integrated core concepts and knowledge practices that emphasize the reflective nature of information discovery, the understanding of how information is produced and valued,  and the ethical use of information in creating new knowledge.

Each module has been developed around one of these core concepts (Key Takeaways), and utilizes one or two of the knowledge practices (Learning Objectives) associated with it.

For more information about how the Framework is being implemented at KPU Library, please visit this page.

It's useful to think about this early stage of your research project as a process of exploration, one that will help you develop a research question that is going to be searchable. If a topic is completely new to you, you will likely want to find some background information in order to understand the context of your topic, and how it relates to a larger picture. This exploratory process will also help you with any specialized terms associated with your topic that you might use in developing a search strategy. And sometimes, this initial exploration will also lead you to realize that your question might not be searchable, or that you are going to have to modify it a little. That's ok. A little work up front will save you time later.

Even if you already have some familiarity with a topic, some additional background work can help to bring a fresh perspective to your understanding of it.

With so many sources available, the question is usually not whether sources exist for your project, but which ones will best meet your information needs.

It's useful to understand that the research process is iterative, which means the results of initial searches will help shape and improve your subsequent searches. You will likely perform a sequence of searches several times and use various tools, including Google and library resources, before getting a set of results that will meet your needs.

Your search strategy should consist of the following:

1. keyword searching
2. examining the results of initial searches
3. using filters or limits
4. citation tracking

At this point in your research, you've likely found several sources of information that might work for your assignment. Now it's time to take a closer look at these sources and make sure they are the best fit. This is true of information you find in a general Google search, as well as the library resources. Whether you are considering a blog post or a journal article, you will need to pay attention to several factors, including not just the expertise of the author, but also the purpose, quality and relevance of the information, before deciding whether or not to include it in your assignment.

The bottom line is that most experienced searchers view the information they find with a degree of skepticism as well as an open mind.

There are many checklists available to help guide you through this critical process; you may have heard of the CRA(A)P test, RADAR, or something similar. All of these are essentially devices to help novice researchers remember the criteria by which they should evaluate the information they find.

The following list is meant to be a starting point for you to develop your own, internalized set of questions.

Click the arrows below.

1. Get Started on your Research
2. Recognize Types of Information
3. Develop your Search Strategy
4. Evaluate your Sources

The modules are ordered, more or less, as though you are conducting a research project, starting with developing research questions and ending with using sources in your writing. In between, you will learn how to figure out what kind of sources to look for, where to find them, and how to evaluate them.

Some instructors may assign one module or all of them, depending on the requirements of your class.

Each module consists of:

• written text
• activities to try out your skills and test your understanding
• short quizzes (linked in a Moodle site) that will be marked and contribute towards a badge acknowledging your completion [STILL UNDER DEVELOPMENT]

The modules should take roughly 20 minutes each to complete. You will be able to revisit the text and activity portions as many times as you like; however, you will only have one opportunity to do each quiz.

Use the arrows at the bottom of each page to move forward and backward through the modules. Or, use the Contents menu in the top left hand corner to go to a particular section.

Upon completion of each module, you will receive certification that will be attached to your Moodle profile, visible to instructors and others in the Moodle community [STILL UNDER DEVELOPMENT]

Any questions?

Please contact librarian Celia Brinkerhoff at celia.brinkerhoff@kpu.ca.

Members of the Kwantlen Polytechnic University English Department were helpful in shaping the development of the content and establishing learning objectives for each module; specifically Jennifer Williams, Elizabeth Gooding, and Julia Grandison were enthusiastic in their support of the project. Several KPU librarians were also generous in providing their feedback.

Many thanks to Rajiv Jhangiani, Caroline Daniels, and Karen Meijer-Klein for their help with this project and to Todd Mundle for the time to work on it. Where indicated, supplementary videos were created by Graeme Robinson-Clogg through the generous support of a BCcampus Open Education Grant. And many thanks to David Hauck, who lent his image-editing skills.