Essay #4 Topic Sheet
Personal Inquiry Project Over a Topic of Interest from The Surgeon General’s Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health
The Surgeon General’s Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health discusses some of the benefits of social media, but details many of its dangers and harmful effects as well. For this project, you will pick some topic generated from your reading of the advisory which you want (or even need) to know more about. The more you have a personal “felt need” to know regarding this inquiry project the better. Learning more about this topic will benefit you in some way personally. This isn’t a project to support what you already know but to investigate and discover something you don’t already know.
For this project, you will pick your own research topic. Then you will research it both through library and web sources, and perhaps from field research where you talk to people or experts. The goal will be to find out or answer whatever it is you set for your “Research Question.”
This is not a large research project—you aren’t writing a Dissertation or Report for Congress. The research paper you will write will be prospecting a 4-6 page paper that uses a minimum of five research sources. Your final project will be accompanied by an Appendix in which you evaluate the sources you used and why you selected to use them.
Students will understand how to create a flexible search strategy and select the best tool for an assignment
S.1. Understand how search tools are organized;
S.2. Brainstorm keywords and select sources;
S. 3. Match information needs to a search tool; and
S. 4. Create and revise a search strategy.
K. 1. Information sources vary greatly in content and format and have varying relevance and value;
K. 2. Recognize the value of browsing and persistence;
K.3. First attempts don't always produce good results.
Credit:University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Undergraduate Library. https://www.library.illinois.edu/ugl/howdoi/informationcycle/#Text Information Cycle
Try an all-in-one search for topics to get articles, books, and more. Use quotation marks "for phrases" and the * to pick up alternate endings in your search string.
Library databases require a login from off-campus!
What does the login page look like?
