These strategies are not "do it once in this order & be done". Instead, they are recommendations for approaches that are often done several times at different points in your research.
- Start with what you have been given
- Ideas, information, data, themes, methods of analysis from lectures & readings
- Main argument, & findings (in abstract? intext? in conclusion?)
- Keywords, special terms?
- Important authors (in references or bibliography)
- Examples fro your topics & relation to your course syllabus
- Think about the arguments & evidence from the readings and lectures and other info
- See if/how they apply to your topic
- What questions do they give you? Start to search for answers or evidence that might lead you to your answer, your theory, your argument.
- Search for more answers or evidence (or questions!) in recommended research tools
- Play around:
- Free associate with words, ideas, memories
- Look at the results for different keywords or authors
- See what looks interesting or intriguing, just via titles & journals
- Check for relevance or what seems fun or interesting in your results, triage, & read, think & search more
- Sample a few - look at the abstract - find one or two that may be good & citation chain