The Research Process: Getting Started
"Exploring" by kevin dooley is licensed under CC BY 2.0
1. Explore your topic.
Before deciding on a research topic, learn more about your topic first. Has a lot of information been published on your topic? How old is the information you've found? Unless you're exploring a historical topic/concept/event, look for the most current information you can find.
Some good places to find information:
"Database" by christophe.benoit74 is licensed under CC BY 2.0
2. Find background information on your topic.
Library databases are a great place to find information on your topic!
For a tutorial on how to find articles at the LWLC, click here.
"Students researching in the new lab" by shersh is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0
3. Refine your topic.
Now that you've done some background research, it's time to refine your topic and make it more specific. Remember: the shorter your final paper, the narrower your topic needs to be. Here are some suggestions for narrowing and refining your topic:
Describe and develop your topic. Try filling in the blanks in the following sentence, as much as you can:
I want to research
____(what/who) and ____(what/who)
to find out ____(question you'd like to answer).