Before you begin your research, you should make sure you understand your assignment. See the Assignment Info tab on this guide.

Some good questions are:

• When is the assignment due?
• How many sources do I need?
• What kinds of sources? Books, articles, websites? Scholarly or popular articles? Sources come in many forms, such as magazine and journal articles, books, newspapers, videos, films, etc.
• Which citation format should I use?

Keyword are the words you will use to search for information, or sources. You can miss lots of useful information if you don't use keywords effectively, because computers will only search on the terms you provide.

You should think about:

• synonyms (e.g. mobile telephones, cell phones)
• plural/singular forms (e.g. women, woman)
• spelling variations (e.g. globalisation, globalization)
• variations of a root word (e.g. feminism, feminist, feminine)
• acronyms (e.g. non-governmental organisation, NGO)
• regional & historic variations (e.g. Native American or Indian)
• broader and narrower terms (e.g. clothing - blouses, pants, jackets)

When you start searching note any useful alternative words that occur during your searches and add them to your keyword list.

It is important to begin with some background reading in the related broad subject area to gain familiarity with concepts and vocabulary. For example, one the questions you need to answer in your paper is: what is space archaeology?  Start by reviewing the GlobalXplorer Site to answer this question.