Health and Physical Education for Teachers

Choosing the right topic is the key to research. If your topic is too big, or too broad, you'll find too many articles. If your topic is too narrow, you won't find enough information for your assignment.

Watch this video to learn more about how to brainstorm and create a research question and topic:

Keywords -- or search terms -- are the words you use to search in the library's databases. OneSearch and the library's databases will search for all the words you type into a search box. Instead of searching for a whole sentence or question, you need to break your topic down into keywords. You can mix and match different keywords to find different articles when you search.

Watch this video for more information:

Use these questions to determine whether the source is credible. Many websites are not "good" or "bad," but somewhere in the middle. These questions will help you decide whether the website is trustworthy.

Who created it?

• Can you tell who wrote or created the content?
• Is there an "about us" page?
• Are they an expert on the topic? How can you tell if they're an expert? [Hint: Google their name to see if you can find out anything else about them.]

When was it created?

• When was the web page created? Or do you know when it was last updated?
• Was it published recently? Can you tell how old the information is? [Hint: For some topics, this is very important.]

Who sponsors the information?

• Can you tell who funds the web page?
• What can you tell about the organization sponsoring the information?
• Do they have any conflicts of interest? [Hint: Google the organization to see if you can find any other information about them.]

Is it relevant?

• Is the information relevant to your topic or assignment? 
• What is the purpose of the website or information? Entertainment? Education? Something else?

Peer-Reviewed articles are included in OneSearch and most library databases. You can narrow your search to only include articles in peer-reviewed journals.

To limit to peer-reviewed articles in OneSearch select "Peer-reviewed Journals" from the Availability menu on the left. Other databases have similar filters.

Looking for something else? Check out these related guides for more resources: