Coming up with ideas/concepts is an important starting point to begin researching and formulating a good research question.
Brainstorming is a great way to start to help narrow down ideas and make links and recording these ideas on a Mind Map helps visually see and make connections between information and sources.
One digital tool is to use bubbl.us to create a mind map and brainstorm at the same time.
There are a number of online tools that can be used to assist in your search for information about your topic/area of interest.
Examine your question, identify key terms/words, look for alternative(similar) then use these words in your key terms/word search.
Breaking down a topic
Thinking about definitions and synonyms can help with identifying keywords. See:
Related Words is a website that searches similar words. It is helpful in finding additional key words/terms for your search which may provide additional sources on your topic not previously generated in your initial search.
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Carrot2 is an Open Source Search Results Clustering Engine. It can automatically organize small collections of search results into thematic categories. You can see these results in a list, as a pie-chart, or a treemap, and have the documents in your results be organized into labeled folders.
In the example above two key terms/words were searched in Carrot2 which provided a wide range of related papers/information to investigate. There are a number of related topic areas that can be explored with links to digital resources.
Lets say you are interested in researching wildfires and your topic is:
Wildfires in the Rocky Mountains (United States) have grown worse due to climate change.
Step: 1 What are the key ideas in your topic of interest? Define and explain them.
Step 2: Look for alternate words (synonyms) that can be used instead. These words could be swapped out and may provide additional resources to review in your research (global warming, climate crisis, forest fires, fire management, forest health, forest management etc)
Step 3: Start a mind map and add other words/concepts/facts/information. Use key terms from your mind map to search additional information.
Use a Thesaurus.com to look for similar words.
Use Dictionary.com to find the definition and correct pronunciation of a word, its word origin and history, examples of the word's use on the Web, the British definition, and varying meaning of the word in specialized areas of study, such as medicine, science, and culture.
OneLook will check through "18,955,870 words in 1061 dictionaries indexed " for you! It also provides lists of words similar and related as well.
Adapted from West Sound Academy Library - Libguides