Ali Bizzul used her interpretive question — Why do so many football players risk their health by adding extra weight? — to develop search terms for searches of her library’s databases. She knew from exploring her subject that it had been addressed in newspapers and magazines, so she searched databases such as LexisNexis Academic and Newspaper Source. Because she also wondered whether scientific studies had been conducted on the subject, she also searched the MedLine and PubMed databases.

Ali’s database searches produced sources in newspapers, magazines, and academic journals. She located one of the articles, about the rate of metabolic syndrome among retired NFL players, and printed it.