These reference databases offer overviews of your issue, and offers ideas to narrow your topic.
The ProQuest Central database searches millions of articles from newspapers, magazines and scholarly journals. Use it to fill in gaps in your research.
These databases cover a wide range of world events and topics:
Here are links to two article searches and an example of a peer-reviewed (scholarly) article.
This is an example of a scholarly article, found by clicking "Peer-reviewed" on the search page.
How do you know a "Scholarly Article" (also referred to as academic articles or peer-reviewed articles) when you come across one?
Articles in different fields may differ slightly. A scholarly article comparing two works of literature will lack data, graphs, and discussions of methodology. A scientific paper about a new medication SHOULD have all of these things:
Put it all together:
Here are database-friendly searches, with unnecessary words removed:
Instead of: "What are the causes of test anxiety?"
Use: "test anxiety" AND cause*
Instead of: "What's the effect of the pandemic on mental health of college students?"
Use: COVID-19 AND "mental health" AND "college students"
Instead of: "Does using social media increase anxiety among teenagers?"
Use: "social media" AND anxiety AND teen*
Database searching summary: