Information Literacy & Library Research: Picking a Research Topic

Picking a Research Topic

Coming up with a topic for a research paper might be one of the hardest parts of the research process. There are many different topics you might be interested in and making sure a topic is suitable for an academic paper takes time and effort. Picking a topic and refining it into something that will work for your research assignment makes the rest of the research process easier.
Some things to consider when choosing a topic:

• Scope - There has to be enough information on a topic in order to write an engaging paper about it. Conversely, if there is too much information on your topic, your paper might end up being superficial because it is difficult to cover your topic in a single paper. A broad topic covers more general things (e.g college students) while a narrow topic covers specific things that are a subset of the broader topic (e.g. eating habits of college students). Narrowing a topic is like zooming in on a picture to a smaller section that you can then see more clearly. The more you zoom in or narrow your focus, the less information will be available to write about (e.g. eating habits of left-handed college students). Your goal is to find a scope that will allow you to write 10 pages on the topic.
• Researchability -  If scholars aren’t researching and writing about a topic, you will have a difficult time finding information on it. This can happen for many reasons, but especially if your topic is too new. Publishing in academic sources takes time, and if your topic is very recent there may not be enough research done to allow you to write a paper. Similarly, if your topic is very specific there might be very little research on that niche topic. Without sources on your topic you cannot write a research-based paper.
• Appropriate Level - Some topics are too basic for college-level work. Research questions at the university level are typically complex and multi-faceted without an obvious answer. Answers to these questions are not black and white but have a lot of nuance and often start with “it depends.” Academic research is more than writing a report on a specific topic. It is a deep dive into the scholarly conversation on that topic, which requires thorough investigation into what is known about a topic. It involves the use of sources written by researchers or other experts, generally called scholarly or academic sources.   
• Making sure it fits the theme of the class or parameters of the assignment - You want to make sure that the topic you choose actually works for the assignment and fits the topic of the class. If you are taking an American History class, your topic should be about the right time period of American History. If you are taking the English 2010 section on writing about health, your topic should be about health.
• Making sure it's interesting to you - Whatever you choose to write about, it is best if it interests you, because you will be spending a lot of time with the topic. You may not only have to read books and articles about your subject, but you will also have to write about it. If you aren't interested in the topic, or worse, hate it, engaging deeply with the research might be a struggle

Refining the Scope of Your Topic

The more broad the scope of your topic is, the more results you’ll get (i.e. pages and pages of links to articles). The results will likely be general and unfocused. There will be enough resources to write books on the topic.

 

The narrower the scope of your topic, the more specific your results will be. If your topic is too narrow, you might not get any results at all.

It's recommended to start with a broad topic you are interested in and then narrow it down to a manageable/researchable size, until it is just right for your assignment's parameters. 

For example:

Let’s say you are interested in dogs. Then think of things about dogs that are interesting to you and narrow it down. Do some background research to learn more dogs until you find one aspect about dogs that you would like to learn more about. Once you have a right-sized topic, you can even frame it into a question that will help direct your research (see Research Question section below).

Broad topic: Dogs

Narrow Topic: Dogs and mental health benefits.

Narrower Topic: Dogs and the mental health of college students.

 

 

As you are narrowing your topic, consider these points as ways to potentially focus it:

• Time: limiting your topic to a time period (This decade? Last decade? This year?)
• Place: giving your topic a geographic emphasis (In the United States? In the Western United States? In Utah?)
• Population: selecting the characteristics of the population you are researching (age, occupation, race or ethnicity, gender, etc.)
• Viewpoint: this could be discipline specific, looking at it from a medical, social, cultural, or political standpoint.

In the above example, the interest was in dogs. Then we added mental health, which is a psychological angle on the topic of dogs, and we further limited the question to the population of college students, to narrow the focus to something relatable to our demographic population.

Research Questions

As you progress further in your academic writing career and start researching in your discipline (e.g. nutrition or anthropology), you will find that research topics are typically formulated into questions, also known as research questions. A research question can take many different forms based on your discipline, but it highlights the fact that research is all about inquiry and finding out more about a topic. Especially if you are doing original research, where you carry out the research study yourself rather than synthesizing existing studies, you will need to ask yourself what you want to know and write a research question to capture that.

While you might not be asked to write a research question for INFO 1010, or ENGL 2010, it is good to think about your research as a question to be answered, which is why you are finding sources and capturing your findings in your ENGL 2010 paper. Curious about research questions and how to write them? Find more information in the supplemental Research Question reading.
 

Note for INFO 1010:

Your topic needs to be focused and narrow enough to work for a 10 page paper, and should relate to the topic of your ENGL 2010 class if you are taking INFO 1010 and ENGL 2010 together. The more you narrow down your topic, the fewer pages you will be able to write, so you want to have enough substance to fill those 10 pages without stretching. At the same time your topic has to be focused enough to make a good argument and fully discuss your topic. Take time to play with your topic to explore options on how to broaden or narrow it. The SUU librarians can help you with this process. Come to the Questions Desk or use online help.