Research Basics at NCC: Choose a Topic

When picking a topic, consider:

• your professor's prompt and assignment instructions
• picking something that interests you and that you want to learn more about
• if you have opinions on current events, picking a current event to explore
• a personal issue, problem or concern, since you might have some existing knowledge about it
• if it's likely to have research about it   

Often, the initial topic or prompt you have will be too big in scope for the length of your paper or presentation. You will need to develop your topic further by finding a specific focus.

Watch the video below (from our friends at Kansas State University Libraries) to learn more about how to choose and develop a topic for your research.

Attribution: Kansas State University Libraries. (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US)

Before you start to search for information, you should take some time to think about what search words (keywords) will get you to information about your topic. Use your research question(s) or thesis to pull out important concepts and ideas that might become search keywords or phrases. 

For example, if your research question is:

How does anxiety affect the academic performance of teenagers?

The following might be useful keywords you can mix and match to get to sources of information:

• anxiety
• academic performance
• teenagers

Or, if your thesis is: 

Texting while driving is a dangerous activity.

Then these could be useful search keywords:

• texting
• driving
• danger

Most search tools default to a keyword search (even Google). This type of search looks for your search words exactly as you typed them. If those words appear anywhere in an item or website's title, summary, publication information, and sometimes even the text of the source itself, that item or website will show in your results. 

Because of this, you'll want to be direct, precise, and specific with your search keywords. Do not search using entire sentences or questions. Focus on important words that have the most meaning to your topic. Brainstorm a list of possibilities, including synonyms and related terms.

For example, with the research question:

How does anxiety affect the academic performance of teenagers?

You might also consider using these keywords or phrases, which can narrow or broaden your search:

• fear
• worry
• stress
• young adults
• high school students
• college students
• success
• achievement
• learning

You can also combine search keywords in a few ways to help make your search more precise.

Connecting search keywords using AND, OR, and NOT (known as Boolean operators) allows you to work with multiple keywords in one search.

• AND: all words must appear. Climate and chemicals and runoff will show results that have all 3 of those words. 
• OR: either word must appear. Climate or environment will show results that have either of those words. 
• NOT: one word will appear but another will not. Chemicals not microplastics will exclude any results that have the word microplastics in them. 

Most search tools automatically add "and" in between your search words, though you may not always see it in your search. If you have a phrase that you want to search for in its entirety, group the words in the phrase together using quotation marks so that the search tool will search for them as one idea instead of separately. Example: "climate change"

Sources may use different language to discuss the information you are trying to find than you thought of when brainstorming your keywords. Learn from the information you are finding to pick up new or different search keywords as you go. 

Our friends at Credo Reference have more suggestions for how to adjust your search to find relevant sources. Watch their video here.

To develop your topic and find your focus, do some brainstorming to break the topic into a smaller piece, by asking these questions:

• Who? - age groups, cultures, gender
• When? - time period (current or historical)
• Where? - a geographic region (international, national, or local)
• What? - causes, symptoms
• Why? - value, importance

Example: The American Dream > Home Ownership and the Economy > Economic Conditions Preventing Home Ownership for Millennials in America

It might also help to think about:

• what you already know about your topic
• what you need to learn about your topic
• what you intend to write about it

You might need to do some preliminary searching during this brainstorming to help you develop your focus. 

If you don't know a lot about your topic, doing some preliminary searching about it can help you find specific aspects and ideas to focus on throughout the rest of your research.

This is where Google and Wikipedia may help you gather ideas (but not information to include in your writing). 

Books, reference information, news articles, magazines, and credible websites might also help you at this point. Often the background information you find in these sources may be used in your writing. 

These searches may also help you find other keywords to use for more detailed information later on.

Expect to learn new things and make changes to your topic as a result of what you find. Your focus may change from what you thought it would be when you first chose your topic.