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For your research paper, you will be given a topic pertaining to a current issue.
As part of your assignment, you will be asked to find 7 resources to support your research.
They can be from books, ebooks, journals, government documents, or reputable websites (typically those that end in .edu; .gov, or .org (depending on the organization))
The sources should be from the past 5 years unless they are for historical or policy purposes (need to have approval).
Please use a variety of sources. Do not use 7 websites or 7 articles from the same exact resource.
Do not use magazines or newspapers.
You also cannot use letters to the editor or editorials.
You are encouraged to look at what other professions are saying about your topic. For example if your topic is on healthcare for undocumented immigrants, what are the physicians saying about COVID-19?
You are also asked to look at what other countries are doing about this issue. What are they doing in Canada or in Europe?
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After you get your topic, you will want to start researching what your topic is about.
This is called "Background Information." This is a brief overview of your topic so that you can get a basic understanding of who, what, where, when, why, and how.
For example, if your topic is on the Affordable Health Care act find out what you can about the act. You will also want to find out the status of your topics as these topics are on current issues that may be evolving.
For information on this you can look them up on Google to find out basic information then this can lead you to nursing and medical agencies, unions, associations, etc...
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Once you get background information on your topic, then you can start making a list of keywords that you will use to look for your research.
The one thing you have to remember is that you do not want to put the entire sentence of your topic in the search box.
You want to take the keywords out of the topic.
For example: Should healthcare workers be able to refuse vaccines without losing their job?
Keywords: healthcare personnel; vaccines; employment
Then you will take these words and combine them to search for articles, ebooks, and websites.
This is why it is important to read about your topic before you just jump in.
Depending on your topic, you may find out the names of key people, researchers, drugs, names of laws, etc... Then you can use these as keywords also.
