Now that you have a research question, keywords, and a general idea of what kinds of sources you might look for, it's a good idea to do some initial searches to test the waters.
Keep track of the terms and queries you use in your research so that you can figure out which approaches are and aren't yielding useful results. Scour relevant resource records for useful keywords and subject terms.
Using controlled vocabulary will make it much easier to search the library catalog or databases. A controlled vocabulary refers to pre-determined terms used to describe specific concepts, usually assigned by a specialist to a source. These terms could be different from the keywords supplied by the author of a source. By using controlled vocabulary in a database search query, a user could still find sources that were described with unknown author-supplied keywords, whether these terms were synonyms or variant spellings.
Once you find a relevant source in the catalog, click on it to go to the source record, where you will find more information about it. Scroll down to the "Details" box, and look next to the "Subjects" to look at the controlled vocabulary subject terms associated with that the source. Incorporate these terms into your search!
Truncate roots of important words* to find plurals and more
*Truncation works differently in different databases. Check the help section of the database to learn what symbol to use and how to properly use it.
Use "Double Quotes" to find exact phrases
Exclude irrelevant concepts with NOT
Scholarly articles:
Review the differences between scholarly and popular articles, see how scholarly articles are organized and review the process of peer-review: