ENG 111 - Burnett

Step 1: Pick Your Topic

No job or occupation is without some controversy. In our ever-changing world, no job or occupation is stagnant. As growth and change occurs, disagreement or controversy arises. 

But if you aren't already in a particular career field, how do you find out what those controversies are? There are a few ways: searching the library's databases and doing a simple Google search. 

Step 1A: Pick Your Career

Not sure about what job or career you want to pursue?

Try these tools:

Step 1B: Pick Your Controversy

There are a couple different ways to find out what controversies and debates are going on in your chosen field:

• Think about the news. Have you heard of anything in the news that's affecting your chosen career? For example, there are lots of news stories lately about books being challenged or banned in school classrooms and libraries. This topic affects both the teachers and librarians. And another example: There are always news stories about censorship on social media platforms, which affects software engineers and app developers. 
• Search the library databases. The library databases contain articles from academic journals, trade magazines, newspapers, reports, and more. These sources often contain information about the latest debates and trends in a particular field.
• Search the Internet. Still stuck? Try a simple Google search. 

Searching the Library Databases

Start at the library's homepage (opens in new window). You'll use the search box in the center of the page to search all of the library's resources. 

Type in your search terms. 

For example, if you're looking controversies in the nursing field, your search would look like:

After you click GO, you'll be given a list of search results. You can browse through them to see if anything stands out to you. Or you can refine the results using the options on the left side of the screen. You can narrow down the results in a number of ways. Limiting to a certain date range will help narrow your results to only current controversies. 

What search terms should you use? There are lots of options. And you should try more than one.

To find a topic, you'll need to create a search string. This search string will consist of your occupation, the word AND, and then an additional search term, such as:

controversy

debate

ethics

current issues

current trends

Search Term Tips & Tricks:

• "Quotation Marks." When searching for a phrase, such as higher education, put quotation marks around the entire phrase. This lets search engines and research databases know that you want to search for the whole phrase.
• Boolean Search Operators. When using multiple search terms, combine them using a capitalized AND. This lets the search engines and research databases know that you want results with both search terms.
• Wildcards. Use an asterisk* when you want results that include multiple variations of a search term. For example, if you want your search results to include the words controversy, controversies, and controversial, you could just type in controvers* and it would include all variations in your results.

For example, if you are looking for controversies in the higher education field, your search would be: 

"higher education" AND controvers*

Searching for Internet Sources

You can search Google in the same way you search the library databases:

The search results will be from websites rather than from publications within the library databases. Not every website is trustworthy or relevant. Look for professional organization websites, government websites, and news sites.