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ENC 1101 - Professor Martinson: Researching Social Problems

Social Problems

Brainstorm the causes and effects of a local social problem in Polk County/Florida

  • hunger
  • drugs/alcohol
  • homelessness
  • lack of education
  • housing market
  • transportation
  • food desert/access to healthy food
  • cycle of poverty
  • inequality
  • lack of infrastructure
  • the government
  • mental health
  • PTSD
  • etc.

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

___

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 

-----

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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If you have trouble, try resetting your Passport pin, sending an email to HelpDeskRequests@polk.edu, or calling the Help Desk at 863.292.3652

You can also get help from Ask a Librarian

Ask a Librarian

Databases

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)

MLA Help

Steps to Writing Research Papers

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

Questions? Use Ask a Librarian

 

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