Once you understand the big picture, you might start looking for specific aspects of your topic. At first, this might come from a class reading, a conversation with the instructor, a video you saw. Wherever the idea came from, there is a strategy to ensure your success:
It's in the language: How we talk about issues of language and culture is related to audience and locution. Social media is less formal than scholarly discussions. A great strategy is to match the words to the context when you are searching for information.
It's in the culture - database culture that is: Much like cultures, databases have common languages and contexts. They are called indexes and subjects. Databases are easier to search because they are specialized. They provide indexes. They use scholarly vocabulary that is more focused. Are you searching words in Google™? Are you searching for words in a specialized database?
Contrast the following search for "language diversity" in Linguistics & Language Behavioral Abstracts (LLBA) with Google Scholar™ [Click on Image to enlarge]:
| LLBA | Google Scholar™ |
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