Handout 1 - Planning Your Research Topic

I. Always make sure you understand your assignment (save yourself time and headaches)

• read/listen to the assignment in detail, as it is introduced, to insure that you understand it
• determine exactly what your instructor wants you to do and how s/he wants it done—ask questions if you are not certain what is required

II. If you have a choice of topics, pick a couple of ideas and do some preliminary (exploratory) research. Review which databases are best for your subject/topic in Handout 3. Considerations:

• your preliminary research should include broad and general reading about your topic, e.g., articles from newspapers, journals, magazines, encyclopedias, and book browsing (you may end up using some or none of these resources in your actual project)
• there must be enough information and the correct kind of resources to fulfill the requirements
• what kinds of resources are you required to use/forbidden to use
• how many sources can you/must you use (always obtain more than is actually required—an article that looked good initially may turn out to be unsuitable
• if you locate an overwhelming amount of information, your topic is too broad and you will waste time trying to decide what to use—narrow or re-focus your topic
• if you find very little information on your topic, it is probably too narrow—broaden or expand your focus
• there must be a clear focal point to your research project—state what it is you want to investigate, discover, question, compare, argue, etc., and how you will go about it. You must present a well-defined idea capable of being supported by your research: this is your thesis statement. What is a thesis statement? See the following for examples:
  • OWL at Purdue University's Creating a Thesis Statement
  • LEO at St. Cloud State's Thesis Statement
• decide whether to include certain demographics: age, gender, ethnicity, etc.
• familiarize yourself with associated issues, events, or key players to "flesh out" your topic, if needed

III. Give yourself sufficient time to do a thorough job. DO NOT wait 2-3 days before your paper is due to start doing your research:

• you may need to revise your original search strategy or thesis statement
• you may need a resource that is not available full-text online or in print in the library; we can try to get it for you via interlibrary loan (ILL), but it may take 2 weeks to arrive
• you will need plenty of time to write, edit and polish your paper and cite your sources, after you have finished your research

IV. Identify the key concepts in your thesis statement: these will become your search terms (your search results will only be as good as the search terms you have identified!)

• search terms can be combined with "and/or/not" to target your search (this is called Boolean searching), e.g., dogs and cats will search for both, dogs or cats will search for one or both, dogs not cats will search for animals and dogs, not cats; wildcard*/? searching allows you to look at all possible variants of your search term, e.g., librar* will show library, libraries, librarians, etc.
• think up a few synonyms for your search terms; they may yield more results than your original search terms. All databases use "controlled vocabulary" which dictates what results will be retrieved—if the database does not recognize the search term you use, it may offer few results, even though there may be a lot of information on your topic. Use "See also," "Refine your Search," and "Find More Like This" links to further target your search
• when searching for scholarly journal articles, make sure you check any scholarly/peer-reviewed boxes on the database search screens