The Information Skills Modules can be used independently of one another. However, before you begin this module you will need the know the following:

• Your topic and thesis statement or organizing principle
• Your research questions, that is what do you need to know
• Which specific access tools you need to use

If you do not yet have a topic, a thesis statement or organizing principle and have not yet formulated research questions about your topic, the information in Choosing and focusing a topic will be helpful to you.

If you do not know which access tools to use, the information in Selecting information resources will be helpful to you.

The end product of this module is a working bibliography of relevant and potentially useful articles, books, graphics, statistics, web sites, etc. Although nothing will have been physically retrieved, you should have a list of relevant and potentially useful items.

After completing this unit, you will be able to:

• Identify the primary concept of your topic
• Identify the secondary concepts of your topic
• Identify the relationships between concepts
• List keywords, synonyms and/or related terms for each concept
• Write a search statement
• Select relevant items from your search results
• Revise search statements to obtain better results