Choosing your topic IS research!

Choosing your topic is the first step in the research process. Be aware that selecting a good topic may not be easy. It must be narrow and focused enough to be interesting, yet broad enough to find adequate information.

Pick a topic that interests you. You are going to live with this topic for weeks while you research, read, and write your assignment. Choose something that will hold your interest and that you might even be excited about. Your attitude towards your topic will come across in your writing or presentation!

Choosing a topic is not always easy. Topic selection is an iterative process of selecting, searching for information and refining the focus.

Resources for Topic Selection

Use the following resources to browse around to different topics that might be of interest to you.

Learn More About Your Topic

Learning about your topic through subject encyclopedias

One way to see how broad or focused your topic is would be to look the topic up in a subject specialty encyclopedia. These are not like the encyclopedias you used in high school; instead, they are already focused on a particular subject and explore the topics within that area more fully and in a more scholarly way than the general encyclopedia can.

Find such an article, look it over, and ask yourself how long the article is and how many subsections it has. Do you understand all the concepts that are included in this article? The answers to these questions might help you decide if you are still trying to accomplish too much in your paper.

While you are looking the article over, ask these questions, too:

Is there any jargon used you need to make a note of?

Does the article mention any important people or organizations you might want to note?

Are there any books or articles in the bibliography you should check into?

Are there any “see also” or “cross-references” that are more interesting to you?

Where to Find Subject Encyclopedias Online

In OneSearch, put the discipline or broad subject on the first line and on the next line choose “Subject” and type in “encyclopedia” to find subject encyclopedias (in both print and electronic form) that we have in our collection.

Focus and Refine your Topic

Narrow your topic's scope

Too much information? Make your results list more manageable. Less, but more relevant, information is key. Here are some options to consider when narrowing the scope of your paper:

Theoretical approach: Limit your topic to a particular approach to the issue. For example, if your topic concerns cloning, examine the theories surrounding of the high rate of failures in animal cloning.

Aspect or sub-area: Consider only one piece of the subject. For example, if your topic is human cloning, investigate government regulation of cloning.

Time: Limit the time span you examine. For example, on a topic in genetics, contrast public attitudes in the 1950's versus the 1990's.

Population group: Limit by age, sex, race, occupation, species or ethnic group. For example, on a topic in genetics, examine specific traits as they affect women over 40 years of age.

Geographical location: A geographic analysis can provide a useful means to examine an issue. For example, if your topic concerns cloning, investigate cloning practices in Europe or the Middle East.

Broaden your Topic

Not finding enough information? Think of related ideas or read some background information first. You may not be finding enough information for several reasons, including:

Your topic is too specific. Generalize what you are looking for. For example: if your topic is genetic diversity for a specific ethnic group in Ghana, Africa, broaden your topic by generalizing to all ethnic groups in Ghana or in West Africa.

Your topic is too new for anything substantive to have been written. If you're researching a recently breaking news event, you are likely to only find information about it in the news media. Be sure to search databases that contain articles from newspapers. If you are not finding enough in the news media, consider changing your topic to one that has been covered more extensively.

You have not checked enough databases for information. Look for other databases in your subject area which might cover the topic from a different perspective. Also, use excellent searching techniques to ensure you are getting the most out of every database.

You are using less common words or too much jargon to describe your topic. Use a thesaurus to find other terms to represent your topic. When reading background information, note how your topic is expressed in these materials. When you find citations in an article database, see how the topic is expressed by experts in the field.

Once you have a solid topic, formulate your research question or hypothesis and begin finding information.