Research Solutions: Solutions

Typically, your instructor will give you some guidance in the assignment for picking a topic (or will answer questions about what an acceptable topic might be). But here are a couple of approaches to use when you are just not sure where to start.

1. Talking out your ideas with a librarian can be helpful to test your assumptions about whether a particular topic is something that can be researched. Use these contact methods to get in touch with a librarian.
2. You can find a topic idea using The Idea Generator. at Old Dominion University Libraries, which guides you toward picking a topic within an academic area.
3. Follow this brief tutorial on Choosing a Topic from Credo that will help you find a research question within your topic and also make your topic more manageable to search (and write about).

To get started in thinking about a topic, you can enter a prompt into an AI tool and see what it suggests. Sometimes you will have very direct guidance from an instructor on the general area you should be researching, and other times you will have free reign to choose your own topic. In either case, you can use AI to help you think through the right topic to follow.

This guidance was originally written for ChatGPT, but we'll use Perplexity instead (since it does not require a login).

An effective prompt could look like this:

Act as an expert academic librarian. I’m writing a research paper for [course] and I need help coming up with a topic. I’m interested in topics related to [subject]. Please give me a list of 10 topic ideas related to that.

Here’s an example:
Act as an expert academic librarian. I’m writing a research paper for Sociology and I need help coming up with a topic. I’m interested in topics related to climate change. Please give me a list of 10 topic ideas related to that.

1. Paste your prompt into Perplexity.
2. Look over the list it gives you and find one topic that you’re interested in. If there isn’t one, ask Perplexity to give you more topics. Keep going until you find a topic you like. Here is the response to the prompt from Perplexity.
3. Now tell Perplexity which of those topics you want to use. 
4. Example: I like the topic, "Corporate social responsibility in the era of climate change."
5. Then it will give you some sub-topics or research questions. If it doesn’t, ask for some.
6. Choose your specific research question from the list. If you don’t like any of them, ask for more. Keep going until you find one you want to use. And remember that you can shape any of the questions in your own direction (you can combine things to fit your interests better than the AI can).

(This activity is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 CC-BY license by the University of Arizona Libraries.

Here are three aids to identifying search terms (or improving the search terms you are already using):

1. Follow this brief tutorial on Choosing and Using Keywords from Credo that will help you identify key concepts from your topic and other ways to find useful keywords you can search with.
2. This additional tutorial from Credo also addresses how you can find keywords and adjust thm by finding synonyms and related terms. 
3. Use the Building a Research Topic worksheet to think through your topic, identify keywords and related terms, and think about ways to make your topic more narrow or specific. You can make a copy of the worksheet to save in your own Google Drive to record your thoughts and answers to the questions.

If you've decided on a topic, but you are not finding the type of information you expected (whether articles, sites, books, etc.), let’s see if artificial intelligence (AI) can help us with this process. Go to the Perplexity AI tool (I chose Perplexity because it does not require you to set up an account). 

Enter an explanation of your search topic you are researching into Perplexity, maybe a sentence or two that explains what you are looking for. Then ask it to provide you with ten terms you could use when searching for information on that topic. Make note of any that could be helpful in your searching. Here is an example of a query or prompt to Perplexity (not perfect, but it gets at the idea of how to ask for this information):

If I were looking for information on the history and future of electric vehicles in america, paying attention to both technological developments, potential new suppliers, and marketing approaches, what are ten terms I might use to find articles and other information, in order to write an undergraduate paper for a college course?

You'll see in the example above that there is an explanation of the topic, but also the types of sources you are looking for, and what your purpose is (what you will do with information on the topic once you find it). The more detail you provide to the AI tool, the better your results will be (at least in terms of fitting your expectations and purpose).

Here is Perplexity's response to the prompt.

There are several ways to approach narrowing down your search results so that you end up with sources that match your topic and are relevant to your needs:

1. You can use search limiters to focus your search and narrow your results. The brief video Focusing Your Search in Articles & More - Two-Minute Tutorial will show you methods that are available in many of our databases, including Articles & More and Books & More.
2. You may find that you need to add additional keywords, dates, or geographical terms to your search to make the results more precise. Consult the solutions related to Identifying Search Terms for suggestions.
3. Sometimes, there is no escaping the requirement of reading or skimming the results you've found to see if the information sources are truly on the right track. For articles in our databases, you can always read a brief abstract that describes the article in greater detail than the title provides. You can also open up a full-text article or an e-book, and hold down the CTRL and F keys to open a search window for you to enter keywords and then see where (or if) those words appear in the source. Beyond actually opening up an article (or book) and having a look, you may find that the second part of this solution (below) can assist you.

One way to help you quickly understand the articles or sites you find about your topic is to get a quick summary of them. It's true that many articles in library databases will include a brief abstract that summarizes the contents of the article. Now, what you can also do with these AI sites is to ask questions about a document related to your research, such as "does the article explain what carbon capture means?" or anything you are wondering whether the document includes. The following links will take you to AI tools that summarize PDFs or other text:

You certainly want to find information sources that are relevant to the topic you are researching: specific enough to the topic, and also accurate. Here are some considerations to make when searching for and then assessing the information you find:

1. If you find that your information sources are not relevant, you may need to narrow down your sources further using the methods suggested in the first part of Narrowing Down Sources. There may be an aspect of your topic that has not been added into your search terms or search limiters.
2. If accuracy is in question, you should check the information sources you are considering with the methods listed in Choosing Credible Sources, especially the SIFT steps. Checking the information in your sources against that provided in other sources can give you confidence that your information is accurate.
3. If you still have questions about relevance or accuracy, please consult a librarian for assistance. We are very happy to talk through the issue you are seeing with the source(s) or to suggest an alternative route to finding more relevant information. A good thing to remember, too, is that you can fall into an expectation known as the "one perfect source", a single article that exactly captures the elements of your topic. Watch this video from North Carolina State University Libraries (Video: One Perfect Source?) for more details. 

Many of the articles listed in our databases are available in full-text, but not all of them. Here are some tips you may use to find the full text that is available for you:

1. When searching one of our databases, you will see links marked as "PDF Full-Text" or "HTML Full-Text" underneath the article citation in the results list, or on the left side of the article record page when you click the title of the article. 
2. In the database search results, you may also see an icon labeled "Find It!" Clicking this icon will open a new tab that shows where the full text of the article is located, or if there is no full-text available. 
3. If you come across an article outside of our databases that you would like to find in full-text, it is best for you to search the article's title in one of our larger databases, such as Articles & More or Academic Search Complete to see if it is both in the database and also in full-text. You may also consult our list of online, full-text journals and search the journal's title in the Journal Finder. If the journal is available in full-text, you may browse the journal's available issues to find the article you need, or "search within the journal" to locate the article.
4. You may search the OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center, which is entirely composed of full-text articles. They are primarily scholarly articles on a wide array of subjects from over 11,000 academic journals.
5. You may also search Google Scholar for scholarly articles that may be available at no charge, or may already be licensed for Miami University users. Follow the directions in Does Miami already own a Google Scholar article? to enable Google Scholar to show a "Find It!" icon next to articles that may be available in full-text through our library subscriptions.

Here are two approaches to evaluating information sources to make sure that the information within them is credible:

1. Follow this brief tutorial on Evaluating Information from Credo that will help you assess whether an information source and its creator are trustworthy.
2. Use the SIFT steps (Stop, Investigate, Find, Trace) to make sure your source is on track. You may also consult our Avoid Bad, Misleading, or Fake News guide for additional tips.

*Design layout for SIFT based on shared image from the University of Oregon

Here are three suggestions that can help you with citations:

1. When you're searching in Articles & More, Books & More, or our individual article databases you can find a citation in the format you need. In the Books and More library catalog, look for the Cite link to show the item you're looking forward formatted for APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and Turabian. In Articles & More or other EBSCOhost databases (e.g., Academic Search Complete), you'll also see a Cite choice when you view an individual article that will format citations in several styles. Most of our other databases have their own internal citation formatters as well.

2. The Miami University Libraries Citation Resources guide has excellent information on creating a bibliography or reference page and on formatting in-text citations, or choose from the following list of individual citation style information:

• Modern Language Association (MLA) - MLA Citation Style Guide.
• American Psychological Association (APA) - APA Citation Style Guide.
• Chicago - Chicago Citation Style Guide
• American Chemical Society (ACS) - ACS Style Guide, University of Wisconsin's ACS Style Guide

GHL also owns print copies of most citation manuals (search Books & More for specific titles or contact our library staff for more assistance).

3.Credo Information Literacy has a module on Citations and Academic Integrity that includes videos, step by step tutorials, and quizzes on citing sources in APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian, and Harvard.

Now, these resources are a bit of a cheat, in that they are not examples of generative AI tools. But these citation generators do contain a lot of knowledge about how different citation systems work, and how to incorporate the information you provide into a working citation. We are fortunate that many of our library databases will automatically provide you with citations, but if you are citing a website or an article or book you find elsewhere, these do an excellent job. 

One thing to note: each generator asks you to fill out a form with your citation elements (like title, author, date of publication, etc.). If you have any difficulty in finding an element to include, ask a librarian!

Use the following sites to quickly build a citation in the citation style you need to add to your bibliography/source list:

Citefast - free citation generator

ZoteroBib - build a bibliography instantly from any computer or device, without creating an account or installing any software.

Citation Builder - free citation generator from North Carolina State University Libraries

Using databases and other library resources can be difficult, and it is our goal to make searching work well for you. We have access to over 500 databases, catalogs, and other items, and while there are some common designs among them, they can differ quite a bit. Aside from the alphabetical list in the prior link, you may find our Subject and Course Guides a better way to locate databases related to your topic or a field of study. The options below can be helpful ways to learn how to navigate these important tools:

1. Some of our databases will have a "Help" or "Search Tips" menu choice or link available that you may use to find answers about that specific resource.
2. Take a look at the instructional videos produced by the Gardner-Harvey Library, the Rentschler Library in Hamilton, or Miami University Libraries in Oxford. We have several videos on how to use specific databases or to search for particular subject areas.
3. If you have questions about a particular database or search you are working on, please consult a librarian for assistance. We can answer specific questions you may have and help guide you through the database in question.

If the information you find is unclear or hard to understand, that can stand as a barrier to you understanding the topic or deciding on whether a source is helpful to your research. Scholarly publications are usually written to an audience of scholars who understand the jargon or terminology of the field. Here are some strategies to help you navigate this language in the sources as you read:

1. For articles in our databases, you can always read a brief abstract that describes the article in greater detail than the title provides. You can also open up a full-text article or an e-book, and hold down the CTRL and F keys to open a search window for you to enter keywords and then see where (or if) those words appear in the source.
2. You can try to identify concepts or terms that you do not understand, and find definitions of them through Google searches. That might help you clarify the meaning of specific terms and give context to the discussion in the article. Please consult a librarian if you have difficulty finding the meaning of a term.
3. You may find that the second part of this solution (below) can assist you in providing a summary of the information in the source.

One way to help you quickly understand the articles or sites you find about your topic is to get a quick summary of them. It's true that many articles in library databases will include a brief abstract that summarizes the contents of the article. Now, what you can also do with these AI sites is to ask questions about a document related to your research, such as "does the article explain what carbon capture means?" or anything you are wondering whether the document includes. The following links will take you to AI tools that summarize PDFs or other text:

Time is fleeting, and this feels most true when we are facing a deadline. To avoid losing track of your research tasks, and possibly losing sleep, try these suggestions to help manage your time:

1. Watch this brief video on Creating a Research Plan from Credo to think through the steps involved to complete your research work.
2. For a practical timetable of steps to follow when working through a research assignment, try the Assignment Calculator from the University of Minnesota Libraries. While it refers to some library resources only available to Minnesota students, the Gardner-Harvey Library also has access to identical or similar resources. Take a look at our Subject and Course Guides list to find subject-specific resources, or our Databases A to Z list of databases. And, be sure to ask a librarian if you need any assistance. Be sure to try the suggestion below for a similar approach.

Planning your time to complete a research assignment can be tricky. It's important to understand the steps involved and a rough idea of how much time to allow. We all work differently, so an average estimate of the time may not fit your abilities or available time. But having a rough idea of time to allow can help you fit the tasks into your own perspective and calendar.

I suggest trying a prompt like this with Perplexity:

I am an undergraduate student working on a five page research paper. I am trying to plan the best way to organize my time and get research tasks done. Could you create a list of steps for me that would be needed to create a topic, research the topic, and write a paper on the topic, along with estimated time needed to complete each step?

Here is Perplexity's response to that prompt.

Try changing out the length of the assignment, and also entering your topic as part of the prompt. You can also try entering an amount of time that you have available to work on the assignment, and see if you can get suggestions on how to best fit your research work into that time period.

One thing to be careful about: keep in mind that any personal information you enter into a generative AI tool can be saved and become part of other responses. Just be aware of this before you post your daily schedule with your name and address.

This question arises when the information sources in your search results do not appear to cover your topic exactly, or appear to be out of date. Here are some possibilities on how to proceed:

1. If you find that your results do not address your topic specifically enough, rely on the suggestions in Narrow Down Sources, which can help you adjust your search limiters or keywords to increase specificity. Likewise, if your results do not seem current enough, there are limiters which can lead you to more recently published sources (so, if everything you are finding appears to be 10 years old, you could adjust the date limiter to articles published in the last three years, for example).
2. You may find that the creation process of information sources can impact how current the published information on a topic might be. For instance, it might take a year or more after an event occurs for a scholarly article to be published, or multiple years for a book to become available. News sources or online reporting on events may be immediate, but may not contain a deeper analysis or a lengthy account of the event or topic.
3. You may also find that your research topic is so specific that not much has been written about it, even if it is not a recent happening or discovery. There may be sources that still have useful information, but they do not make your exact topic their main focus. Making your search terms a little less narrow and specific can help you find related information. As always, please consult a librarian for assistance.
4. A good thing to remember, too, is that you can fall into an expectation known as the "one perfect source", a single article that exactly captures the elements of your topic. Watch this video from North Carolina State University Libraries (Video: One Perfect Source?) for more details. 

This question could possibly be solved with a variety of suggestions about avoiding distractions (of all kinds), but it is a distraction unique to gathering information: how to put aside unrelated articles on Y when you are writing a paper on X. Unlike being distracted by your neighbor's music or text notifications, it's hard to remove your inquisitive mind from your head (as you can put on noise cancelling headphones or turn off your phone for the other distractions). Here are a few ideas on addressing this:

1. There's an article in Medium by Raymond Sawe entitled Scroll Less, Create More: How Endless 'Research' is Hijacking Your Best Work. It gets at the idea of being distracted by finding one more and then one more piece of information when you need to take what you have and start creating an argument or a paper or a presentation.
2. You can use this video and this tutorial from Credo on synthesizing information. They can help you put many different sources of information together and make sure that you are staying on track with your original goal. The tutorial also makes note of the need to let your research question evolve with new sources that you find while not absolutely losing track of your goal of completing the assignment.