Guide to Library Research  Tags: topic call number video tutorial evaluate find cite research tips hours bibliography background  

For some ideas on current topics, try our database CQ Researcher

If you need help selecting your topic:

• Think about what interests you in the course.
• Look through course readings for ideas.
• Discuss ideas with your professor.
• Look through specialized encyclopedias in the subject area. (e.g. SOPHIA keyword search for women and encyclopedias)

For topics related to current social issues:

• The following websites can help get you started thinking on a topic:
  • Almanac of Policy Issues
  • SpeakOut.com Issues section
  • Public Agenda Online
• Search for the series Contemporary World Issues in SOPHIA (title search). These books give broad overviews of various issues.

Identify your topic:

• Discuss your topic ideas with your class instructor.
• Discuss your topic ideas with a librarian. It may be wise to set up a research consultation, if your project is lengthy.
• Look over the index and the article titles in a specialized encyclopedia that covers the subject area or discipline of your topic (for example, sociology, United States social history, women's studies, etc.).
• State your topic as a question. For example, if you are interested in finding out about use of alcoholic beverages by college students, you might pose the question, "What effect does use of alcoholic beverages have on the health of college students?"
• Identify the main concepts or keywords in your question. In this case they are alcoholic beverages, health, and college students.

Test your topic:

• Test the main concepts or keywords in your topic by looking them up in the appropriate background sources or by using them as search terms in the McCain Library Catalog and in periodical indexes.
• If you are finding too much information and too many sources, narrow your topic by using the "and" operator: beer and health and college students, for example.
• Finding too little information may indicate that you need to broaden your topic. For example, look for information on students, rather than college students. Link synonymous search terms with "or": alcoholic beverages or beer or wine or liquor. Using truncation with search terms also broadens the search and increases the number of items you find. For example, alcoholic beverage? and student? (this will search for the terms beverage or beverages and student or students).

Refining

1. Get background information
   
   • Use a general or subject specific encyclopedia (e.g. SOPHIA keyword search for women and encyclopedias)
   • Find a handbook on the topic (e.g. SOPHIA keyword search for women and handbooks)
   • Do a preliminary search in SOPHIA for other books on the topic.
   • Do a preliminary search in some GALILEO databases to determine aspects of the topic in the literature.
2. Consider ways to narrow your focus. For example, for the topic abortion:
    

   Narrow by	Examples
   aspects of the topic	law and legislation pro-choice movement pro-life movement moral and ethical aspects religious aspects psychological aspects
   time period	19th century since Roe v. Wade
   geography	United States Europe
   population	teens Hispanic Americans

3. You may need to broaden your topic or search keywords, e.g. when searching for a subject encyclopedia, a statistical compilation or when choosing a database. Information on abortion might be found in resources related to women, to health or medicine, to ethics or to law.