Not finding enough information? Think of related ideas, or read some background information first. You may not be finding enough information for several reasons, including:
- Your topic is too specific. Generalize what you are looking for. For example: if your topic is genetic diversity for a specific ethnic group in Ghana, Africa, broaden your topic by generalizing to all ethnic groups in Ghana or in West Africa.
- Your topic is too new for anything substantive to have been written. If you're researching a recently breaking news event, you are likely to only find information about it in the news media. Be sure to search databases that contain articles from newspapers. If you are not finding enough in the news media, consider changing your topic to one that has been covered more extensively.
- You have not checked enough databases for information. Use the "Finding Books & Articles" section of this guide to find other databases that might cover the topic from a different perspective.
- You are using less common words or too much jargon to describe your topic. Use a thesaurus to find other terms to represent your topic. When reading background information, note how your topic is expressed in these materials. When you find citations in an article database, see how the topic is expressed by experts in the field.
Content on this page adapted under a Creative Commons license from MIT Libraries.