PSY 201 - Phineas Gage

3. Narrow Your Focus

Once you've done some initial exploration of the case of Phineas Gage, now it's time to narrow your focus to some concrete aspects of the accident and how it changed the personality of Phineas Gage and how this has impacted psychology. Take note of which aspects you want to focus on in your writing. Remember your assignment requirements and consider what you've learned thus far. Take your analyzing questions from the previous page and brainstorm / outline the elements of the case you think are most important. 

As you start to outline or brainstorm, you'll want to think about keywords that might help you find sources for your paper. See below for some help on brainstorming keywords

Keywords

For keywords, think of terms related to the case of Phineas Gage. Also think specifically of psychology terms. See examples below:

"Phineas Gage"

"Phineas Gage" and psychology

"Phineas Gage" and personality change

"Phineas Gage" and "prefrontal cortex"

"Phineas Gage" and neurology or brain injury

Keywords work best by trial-and-error. Never do only one search. Some keywords will work better than others, and some keywords may lead you to different articles than you found in your first search.  Search the databases with the keywords you selected to find relevant articles. And remember to ask a librarian if you need assistance coming up with keywords or looking for sources.