You may have a clear idea of what you want to research for your paper. Or you may have a broad idea and need to narrow the scope. Wherever you are in your process, it is important for your topic to be specific enough to be researched but not too narrow that you cannot find any relevant articles. Sometimes this can take a little while to develop and you may not solidify your topic until you do some preliminary research to see what is out there. Some ways you can narrow your topic are by:
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Research Tip! |
Librarians are happy to brainstorm and walk through your topic with you. We can provide ideas or ask questions that you may not have thought of. Check out the links on the left side of this screen for ways you can get in touch with us (in-person, phone, email, live virtual chat, or by appointment). |
Hopefully you are able to choose a topic that interests you because you will be spending many hours reading, thinking, and writing about it. Follow your passions, interests, hobbies, career and research interests! You can also draw inspiration from the news, your community, your work, etc. We also have a variety of library subject guides with different topics and resources to get started.
It may help to create a concept map to draw out related themes or ideas. Check out the two videos below from the University of Guelph Libraries for tips on topics and concept maps.
It can be helpful to reframe your topic into a research question - that you will answer by analyzing the sources you find. Your research question will be influenced by the type of argument you are making.
Check out the links below for tips.
Knowing your topic or research question is important for the search process because this is where you will develop your keywords from. Keywords are terms that describe the most important ideas from your topic that are used in library searches.
When thinking of keywords, you should also think of potential synonyms that may be used to describe a topic.
You will find keywords from doing some pre-research or preliminary reading (when you are looking around for ideas for your topic), developing a concept map, and from articles you find. When searching, take a look to see what terminology the authors of the scholarly articles are using and try those terms when searching. Of course, you can always brainstorm keywords with a librarian!
