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ENGL 199 - English for Engineering Students

Breaking Down the Question

Focus Your Search

  • Identify the main concepts of your search. What do you want to know about your topic? 

    • Frame your topic as a question

    • Identify the sub-topics and look for information on those 

    • Find synonyms and related terms that can be combined with your keywords to make your search either narrow or broad, depending on what you are looking

Let's make our topic:  What is the relationship between cell phone use and sleep quality in adolescents?

Possible Search Terms:

cell phone sleep quality adolescents
mobile phone sleep hygiene teenagers
portable phone somnolence youth

Putting the Search together:

("cell phone" OR "mobile phone" OR "portable phone") AND ("sleep quality" OR "sleep hygiene" OR somnolence) AND (adolescents OR teenagers OR youth)

 

 

Possible search results