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FORMULATE YOUR QUESTION At this point in the process, your topic ideas should be fairly general and broad in scope. With this broad topic idea in mind you will want to begin the process of formulating your research question or topic idea. Background reading will give you a basic survey of the issues and scope of your general topic idea. Background reading is essential unless you are an authority on your chosen topic. Your library's REFERENCE COLLECTION will be the most likely place to start the general survey of your topic. Reference collections contain encyclopedias, handbooks and dictionaries that will provide you with the established body of knowledge on your topic. These resources can explain how your subject is subdivided and help you select a manageable topic. They will also help you to check facts, find statistics, and learn about people. Every discipline has encyclopedias with articles that range from dictionary-type definitions to comprehensive essays complete with bibliographies. Encyclopedias are good starting points, but they should never be included as a bibliographic source for a college-level paper. Another helpful place to start may be an in-depth article published recently on your topic. These kinds of articles can establish the most authoritative points of view or arguments surrounding an issue and identify experts and major constituencies who are affected by the subject. Background reading is your first opportunity to survey your topic. Pay close attention to the main issues discussed; list each issue separately. They can often be used as a starting point for narrowing your topic. Begin to note any questions that arise from your readings; what are the core questions that surround your topic? The answer to these questions can form the basis for your eventual thesis statement. Express your topic idea as a question or a hypothetical statement. For example, if you are interested in finding out about the consumption of alcoholic beverages by college students, you might ask the question "What effect does the consumption of alcoholic beverages have on the health of college students?" If you are interested in the health benefits of exercise, you might want to prove the hypothetical statement "Vigorous exercise reduces stress." broaden or narrow the focus Sometimes your first topic questions or statements will not lead to the results you anticipated. You may not find enough information on your topic, or the type of information you find may not be helpful. In this case, it may be necessary to change or redesign your topic question or statement. When there are too few sources on your topic, you may need to alter or broaden your topic. If you perform a search for the nerve agent VX but do not find sufficient material, you may want to perform a broader search for terms such as chemical warfare, biological warfare, chemical weapons, or biological weapons. When your search results are too broad or too many unrelated documents are retrieved, you will need to narrow the search, or try a synonym as a search term. For example, if your research topic is welfare, you might find too much information. In this case, you could narrow your search down by choosing a type of welfare, such as food stamps or a by focusing on a subtopic of welfare such as welfare reform. |
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