Lesson: Creating an Effective Search Statementt

Lesson: Creating an Effective Search Statement

Description

The purpose of this lesson is to teach students how to turn their topic statement or research question into an effective search statement that can be used to search electronic databases or web search engines. This lesson assumes students have prior knowledge of Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT). This lesson is best used at the point after the teacher has introduced a unit requiring research and students have a broad topic area.

Learning Outcomes I Suggested Procedure I Assessment for this Lesson

Materials for this Offline lesson:

Topic and search statement worksheet
Transparencies with examples for guided instruction

Time allotment: 35 - 40 minutes

Grade Level: Grade 6 - 12

Information Literacy Standard:
1. The student who is information literate accesses information efficiently and effectively.

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to identify the keywords and phrases of their topics.
Students will be able to identify synonyms for the keywords in their topics.
Students will be able to create a search statement using Boolean operators to connect elements of their topic.

Suggested Procedure

Tell students they will learn how to take a broad topic area and develop a useful topic statement or research question. Then students will identify key words and phrases of their topic, along with synonyms that can be entered into a search statement for a library catalog, article database or for searching the general web.

Ask students: Why is it important to narrow a topic? Possible answers include:

So they won't be overwhelmed by information
So that they can focus on specific aspects of the topic
So that they can more easily evaluate the results
So they can save time.

Give an example of a broad topic related to the unit under study. Tell students that they need to find out what they already know about their topic and what they need to find out.

Answer these questions:

What do I need to know about my topic?
What geographical area or location do I want to focus on?
What person or group interests me?
What aspect of my topic interests me? Governmental, historical influence, economic, social, psychological, behavioral, medical, etc.
On which time period do I want to focus?

Complete a copy of the worksheet with an example and transfer to a transparency. Go to: http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/help/topic/index.htm for more examples.

Keywords and Synonyms

After developing a research question or topic statement, tell students that they need to identify the important elements of their topic.

Ask students to identify the important words or phrases of the topic. Circle them.
Ask students to identify synonyms for their keywords and phrases.
Ask students what words they would type into a database, library catalog or search engine.
After showing the class a few examples, have them complete the worksheet.

Assessment

Have students complete topic worksheet individually. Then have them share with a classmate sitting next to them. (Think pair share exercise)

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This page was last updated February 21, 2002
This lesson was created to support the AT&T/UCLA Initiatives for 21st Century Literacies.
Creating an Effective Search Statement was created by Stephanie Brasley