Brainstorm the causes and effects of a local social problem in Polk County/Florida
Now, think of synonymous terms for your topic and combine them with OR. Wikipedia may be helpful for finding terms. Use quotation marks to keep phrases together. Here are some examples:
homelessness OR unhoused OR "housing first"
poverty OR poor OR "low income" OR "low socioeconomic status" OR "low SES"
"public transportation" OR Citrus Connection
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And now consider the geography, both local Polk County and throughout Florida. For example:
"Polk County" OR Lakeland OR "Winter Haven"
Florida OR Orlando OR Jacksonville OR Miami
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Lastly, organize the two ideas in parenthesis and combine with AND. For example, if I was doing a local newspaper search on homelessness, I might focus geographically on local areas:
(homelessness OR unhoused OR "housing first") AND ("Polk County" OR Lakeland OR "Winter Haven")
If the search is in a database for journal articles, like Academic Search Complete, it might be helpful to search for anything pertaining to Florida, so I might search:
(homelessness OR unhoused OR "housing first") AND (Florida OR Orlando OR Jacksonville OR Miami)
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You can also get help from Ask a Librarian.
Newspaper sources: (search for your issue and how it relates to poverty). You can also do a separate search for your organization and the work they do regarding poverty.
Journals/Magazines: (these are good for getting an overview of your topic)
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Step 1: Understand the assignment
Step 2: Select your topic (or use the one assigned to you)
Step 3: Initial planning, investigation, and outlining
Step 4: Accumulate Research
Step 5: Make a final outline to guide writing
Step 6: Write the paper
Step 7: Revise and Proofread