Finding a Topic

The first step when working on a research project is determining your topic.

Brainstorming

Write down all of the possible ideas for a topic. Pull ideas from:

• Personal and work experience
• Experiences of family and friends
• Browse the table of contents of professional journals, textbooks, handbooks, and subject directories
• Browse the Internet using a search engine

Finalizing

Once you have a list of topics you can choose one that interests you to use for your research project. It is helpful to explore the topic a bit to determine what it entails, and if you need to narrow or broaden your topic.

Narrowing a Topic

There will be times when the topic you choose is too large for one project. In this case you will want to narrow your topic.

• Brainstorm what you already know about the topic
• Sort your ideas into categories and sub-categories
• Make groups of things, places, ideas, people…
• Breakdown into time frames, locations, events or stages
• Think about causes, effects, opinions, arguments and spins on an issue
• Free write questions that come to mind about a topic
• Develop a question to answer

Broadening a Topic

There will be times when the topic you choose is too small for a research topic, there will not be enough information to work with. In this case you will want to broaden your topic.

• Consider other things, places, ideas, people…
• Expand the time frames, locations, events or stages
• Explore causes, effects, opinions, arguments and spins on an issue
• Make use of tables of contents, sub-headings and headings to discocwe larger context
• Use online catalogs and databases to find related subjects
• Scan “see also” links for related topics
• Free write questions that come to mind about the topic

Tips for Finding a Research Topic Handout (pdf)