G184 Dittmer Global Climate Change: Getting started

Before you research your topic, you should pre-search your topic to find good search terms.

The first step for successful research is to do some general reading to harvest the vocabulary that scientists and writers use to describe your topic.  Expect to do multiple searches trying different combinations of search terms to find the best results.

For example, think of all the different ways that writers and scientists might characterize global warming resulting from human actions:

• man made (man-made)
• human activity
• human caused
• anthropogenic

Text books, lecture notes, Wikipedia and other encyclopedia articles are good places to pre-search your topic to get the big picture and make a list of search terms for your list of potential search terms.

Watch the video Brainstorming Keywords (to the right) for valuable tips for successful research. 

Find tips for researching climate change denial in the box below the video. 

You know that there are deep, dark pockets of the web where climate change deniers spin conspiracy theories.  How do you find those pockets?

The secret is to use the vocabulary that deniers use as search terms.  For example:

• global warming (or climate change) hysteria
• global warming (or climate change) alarmist
• global warming (or climate change) myth
• global warming (or climate change) hoax
• global warming (or climate change) junk science

Learn more at the library's research guide:  climate change denial