Research Basics

It's time to write a paper, but what are you going to write about?  What sort of topic actually makes a good paper?

Make sure that the paper that you write meets all of your assignment requirements. Read your assignment closely.

Choose a topic that's interesting to you and would be interesting to others reading your paper.

When you choose a topic that you're interested in, you do better research.

Finally, choose a topic that others have written about so you will be able to find information.

There are many resources that can help you as you're developing your topic.

 

Take another look over the class readings. You'll probably find some good sources to start out with there.

 

Look over any notes that you've kept for the class. What topics did you talk about in class that seemed interesting?  If you didn't take any notes- this is a reason to start.

 

Next, websites like Google and Wikipedia might be helpful while you're doing background research.  While sites on the free web might be helpful while you're trying to get a broad idea about your topic, keep in mind that they may not all be authoritative.

 

Come up with some topic ideas.  Do some background research to find some more information about your topic ideas.

As you do background research, you might add ideas to your topic list or you might change them altogether.

After you've got some good topic ideas, it can be helpful to format your ideas into a question that can be answered.  You can think of this as the question you're trying to answer as you're doing in-depth research, which is the next step in the process.

As you're doing in-depth research, that is, looking for articles or other sources to include in your paper, keep in mind that you can change or further develop your topic question.

Research is a dynamic process, so don't be afraid to discover new things.  After doing some in-depth research, it's time to formulate your thesis.

Your thesis is the major claim that you'll make in your paper, and you'll use all of the sources from your research to support that claim.

If you think of your topic as a question, you can think of your thesis as the answer to that question.

Try to think of a few broad areas that you'd be interested in studying.  When you have a broad area or two in mind, brainstorm all of the possible associations that pop into your head related to those ideas.

   Broad topic: “Afghanistan”

   Associations: “history, war, Taliban, Soviets, economy, geography, class, women”

After you've brainstormed some ideas and associations, it can help to think about approaches that might help you to further develop your topic.

Consider the scope of your topic.  If it is too broad, it might be tough to find information that is relevant to you.  If your topic is too narrow, it might be tough to find any information at all.

Start out with a slightly broad topic that you can further develop and narrow as you find information.  While you're researching, keep in mind that you can always go back and change or further develop your topic as you discover sources.

Be open to discovering new ideas as you research. That's what makes it interesting.

Examples:

     Too broad: “History or women”

     Better: “History of female gender roles in Afghanistan during the 20^th century”

     Too narrow: “Current child-rearing practices of women in Kabul, Afghanistan

     Better: “How gender roles in Afghanistan impact the lives of women”

This guide is based on information from the Western Oregon University Hamersly Library CLIP Project.  Hamersly Library has made the tutorials available for adaptation via Creative Commons NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.