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PAPB 501: Understanding and Implementing Clinical Research Library Guide

This is the course guide that accompanies the Your Path to Discovering resources literature searching lecture of PAPB 501: Understanding and Implementing Clinical Research.

Identify Your Topic

The very first step in your research process should be identifying what it is you want to find. May students become frustrated with the process of searching because they do not stop and think what they need to search for. 

Identifying a topic can be very simple, and to begin this process do these two things.

Direction Example

Ask yourself:

What question do I want to answer by searching for information?

Does aspirin alleviate joint pain due to osteoarthritis?
Extract Terms from the question and write them down. Aspirin, Joint pain, osteoarthritis