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Understand the Assignment
- Review the assignment sheet.
- Do this as soon as you can.
- Take your time to understand the goals of the assignment and what, exactly, you will need to deliver.
- Make notes on the assignment sheet or in your calendar to highlight any areas you think you might struggle with. Try to determine any workarounds ahead of time (if possible).
- Ask your professor if you have questions or concerns.
- Outline your goals for how you want to complete the project.
- Example: Goal 1: find all information for describing my micronutrient. Goal 2: perform preliminary research to determine which aspect of my micronutrient I want to focus on. Goal 3: outline a rough draft. Goal 4: Determine which tools I will use to make the infographic, etc.
- Create a timeline with clear due dates for each goal.
- Example: Choose a micronutrient and brainstorm possible research avenues by Wednesday. Find all peer-reviewed articles by Friday. Begin first draft on Tuesday. Practice Presentation on Friday, etc.
- Doing this at the beginning will ensure:
- That you have given yourself enough time to successfully complete the project.
- That you will not miss any major components of the assignment.
- That you will confidently complete the assignment in a focused and stress-free mindset.
Understand your Research Needs
- What search terms or search phrases should you use?
- Make a list of each term(s) or phrase(s) you think would be relevant to your research.
- Often, this will come from the assignment's requirements.
- Keep track of which searches you have performed and how successful they were (or weren't).
- This will be helpful if you have to do your research over the course of a few different dates/times.
- What Summon filter options should you select?
- Review the assignment sheet to determine the type of sources you should use (for example, scholarly books versus peer-reviewed journal articles)
- Review the assignment sheet to determine if a specific publication date range is required (for example, only results that were published within the last five years).
- What Discipline or Subject filters (in Summon) should you use?
- Remember to choose Diet & Nutrition from the Discipline field in Summon
- Review the list of Subject Terms to find the related research to your specific needs.
- If you have not used Summon before, and are unfamiliar with the context of Steps 2 and 3 above, please review:
- The Finding Peer-Reviewed Sources tab above, which has a how-to video
- The image below, which introduces you to a Summon results page and what you can expect to see there.
How to use Summon (slideshow)
