Skip to Main Content

Resources for Argumentative Writing

1. Identify Main Concepts

If your research question is "Does TV capture the diversity of America yet?" you will find articles on that exact topic in Google, but you also will find the same article repeated over different websites. 

Instead, get rid of the extra words and identify the important concepts or ideas in your question.

If your research question is "Does TV capture the diversity of America yet?

... your key concepts are TV OR TELEVISION and DIVERSITY and America or United States or USA.

Everything else in your research question has the potential for you to keep finding the same article and will make your search results less precise.

3. Identify Keywords

The keywords you use can have a profound impact on the results of your research. Using the “right” words will speed up the research process, while the “wrong” words can bring to it to a halt.

Before you can begin searching for information, you need to identify keywords related to your topic. Key terminology can be easily be found by scanning:

  • Your research questions
  • Articles found from background research
  • Bibliographies found at the end of books and articles

If you are still struggling:

  • Use a thesaurus to identify synonyms -- try the thesaurus search on this page.
  • Brainstorm keywords with a librarian, your instructor, or a friend.

3. Mix and Match Keywords to Create Searches

TV

  • television
  • streaming video
  • streaming services, mainstream television, sitcoms, drama, comedy

Diversity

  • minority
  • BIPOC
  • representation
  • multicultural

Possible search strategies

  • diversity AND streaming television
  • minority representation AND mainstream television
  • multicultural representation AND streaming services