Try not to search your entire question at once. This won't find many useful results. The techniques below can help you plan your search.
Start by breaking your question down into individual ideas and terms - we call these keywords.
Example topic: Discuss the ethical issues around cryptocurrency
Highlight what you think are the key words or concepts.
- Ethical issues/ethics
- Cryptocurrency
Now list words that mean the same thing (synonyms). If you're stuck, try Googling the term and seeing what comes up. You can look for synonyms, more specific terms or broader terms.
- Ethics: Financial ethics, accountability, transparency
- Cryptocurrency: blockchain, Bitcoin, digital currency
- Abbreviations and acronyms - NFT, non-fungible token
- British and American spellings - globalisation, globalization
- Terms you can write as one or two words - time frame, timeframe
For this topic, you might be interested in the following types of information:
This is not a comprehensive list. Our information sources page has more details on source types and how they can help.
If you have chosen your own topic, it's important to start with some general searches to make sure there is information out there before you finalise it. If the topic is very specific or new, you may struggle to find enough information. If your topic is too broad, you will find too much information.