HNFE 2014 Research Resources: Explore a Topic
Learn more about a topic to prepare to research it in depth. Look for information about some of the following:
- What is the background or history of your topic?
- Who is involved? Who does it affect? Who is working on it?
- Where is it of most importance? Or, is this a global issue? What are local, regional, national, and larger approaches?
- When is or was this topic of importance?
- Why is this topic important to you and others?
- How is this topic being addressed? If it's a problem or challenge, how are others approaching it? What are current solutions that are being tried? How do you think it could be addressed?
Topic Overview Resources
Getting to know your topic - In addition to searching general information sources such as Google, try:
- Medline Plus
Produced by the National Library of Medicine, the world’s largest medical library, Medline Plus brings you information about diseases, conditions, and wellness issues. It offers reliable, up-to-date health information, anytime, anywhere, for free. Learn about the latest treatments, look up information on a drug or supplement, find out the meanings of words, or view medical videos or illustrations. You can also get links to the latest medical research on your topic or find out about clinical trials on a disease or condition.
- Consumer Health Complete from EBSCOhost
This link opens in a new window
Consumer Health Complete indexes citations, abstracts, and full text from many different source types: evidence-based reports, reference works including medical dictionaries and encyclopedias, fact sheets and pamphlets, news articles, drug information, and multimedia files. You can search by disease, condition, injury, or procedure. - Gale EbooksGale Ebooks is a collection of searchable ebook reference works. You can search within a particular work or across the entire collection. Individual articles from these sources are presented in HTML and PDF. Illustrations, photos, maps, and multimedia content is often included.
Use Discovery Search to find more about your topic!
Discovery Search includes records for most of the library’s resources: our physical collections, our journal and ebook subscriptions, streaming videos, reports, government publications, and much more. You can use limiters to narrow your search results by the format, date of publication, peer-reviewed, and availability online.
Evaluating Information Sources
As you use information sources to investigate your topic, here are some things to think about:
- Authority: Who wrote it? What sort of expertise do they have in this area?
- Coverage: Is it relevant to your topic?
- Objectivity: Is there any bias? If so, how much?
- Accuracy: Is the information correct? Is it in alignment with other research findings or articles?
- Currency: When was this resource produced? Does this matter for your topic?