Get Started With Research

Okay, you've gotten your research assignment now what do you do? Begin by thinking about your project and planning your research strategy.

Here's what you should do before you ever start looking for books, articles, or websites:

1. Understand your assignment
2. Select a topic that interests you
3. Develop research questions to drive your search for information
4. Focus your topic so it is manageable and meaningful
5. Find search terms
6. Get help at the Library & Learning Center

It may sound simple but understanding your assignment is one of the most important steps you take towards writing a good paper. Your instructor carefully crafted the assignment and may have even used language you can use to guide your search for useful information.

Pay special attention to:

• Language - Pay close attention to verbs like argue, analyze, compare, or describe to guide your approach to a topic. For example, an assignment that asks you to argue requires you to take a position and support it with facts, statistics, and quotations. An assignment that asks you to analyze, requires you to critically examine your topic. Also, look for descriptive words your instructor uses because you might be able to use them as key terms in searching for relevant information.
• Scope - Look for "multi-part" assignments in which instructors ask you to do more than one thing. Listing or outlining separate parts of an assignment can help you divide a daunting assignment into manageable parts. You also may see which sections will require research beyond what is covered in class.
• Instructions - Take note of special instructions regarding format or length restrictions, information source requirements (does he/she require primary source materials or articles from scholarly journals), and grading criteria.

Generating Topic Ideas: Five Good Strategies

The best topics are those that are personally meaningful to you, meet your assignment guidelines, and have plenty of sources to support the points you want to make in your paper.

Let's see how you can achieve that "sweet spot" of a topic idea.

1. Real World Brainstorming.

Answer these questions and compile all your answers into a list of potential topics:

Question: What interests, activities, and aspects of your life define you outside of school?
Question: What problems--physical, emotional, economic, etc.--affect you or those close to you?
Question: What do you think are the biggest problems facing our community/country/planet?

2. Brainstorming on the Web

Use your favorite generative AI tool (if you teacher allows its use) or Google a broad topic you've thought about, has been suggested by your professor, or has been discussed in your classroom or textbook. This is a quick and easy way to get a snapshot of how other people are addressing your topic. Write down any ideas you find intriguing.

3. Using a Pick a Topic Database

The Library subscribes to several databases providing ideas for topics.

4. Meeting with your Professor

Your professor literally invented the assignment and has read lots of successful responses to it. They can likely offer you great ideas from past semesters, plus advise you on pitfalls to avoid. Plus, taking advantage of an office hour is a great way to get to know your professor better. 

5. Collaborating with MJC Librarians

Your MJC research librarians collaborate with thousands of students every semester, and they also work closely with classroom faculty. They are a strong and creative source of topic ideas and can also help you get started finding sources.

Databases to Help You Pick a Topic

You can get ideas for research topics from several library databases and from the Web. 

To make your topic manageable and meaningful you need to focus on particular aspects of it.

You'll get too much information if you stick with an overly-broad concept like global warming; you'll get too little information if you just try to answer a narrow question like What are the causes of global warming.

This short video to see how this is done:

This video, created by The University of Guelph McLaughlin Library, is being shared unchanged using the CC By-NC-SA 4.0 license.

Why Create Research Questions?   

Think of research questions as your shopping list for information. Just as a list keeps you focused in a crowded store, your questions keep you on track in the vast “supermarket” of sources. They help you:

• Locate the most relevant information quickly and efficiently.

• Stay focused so you don’t get lost or sidetracked while exploring.

• Stay organized as you gather evidence and start shaping your paper.

And just like a grocery list, your research questions aren’t fixed. They may grow, change, or shift as you learn more and further refine your topic.

Sample Research Questions

As you shape your research, different types of questions will help you focus on different parts of your paper: introduction, body, and conclusion. The following are sample questions to help you get started. Think of them as a menu of possibilities—some will fit your project, others won’t. Use them as a starting point to spark ideas, and adapt them to fit the scope and goals of your research.

Use these to get background information and define your topic.

• What is ___?

• Why is ___ an important issue?

• What background information is necessary to understand ___?

• What are the different types of ___?

These guide you into deeper analysis and evidence.

• What causes ___?

• What are the effects of ___?

• What are the arguments for ___?

• What are the arguments against ___?

• What is being done about ___?

These help you pull your thinking together and point toward implications or solutions.

• What conclusions can you make about your topic, and why?

• What can you argue about your topic, and why are those arguments valid?

• What should be done to address your topic, and why?

Using the correct words to search will help you find information that is relevant to your topic.

Different authors and search tools use different words to describe the same concepts, so it is useful to have a list of similar and related terms in your arsenal when you set out to search for relevant information. You can use the key terms in your research questions as a start for creating your list of search terms. You should create synonyms for those key words and keep track of useful search terms as you begin your search for information.

In addition, when you search for information you can search using Keywords or using Subject Headings. What is the difference? This video from the University of Otago, Wellington explains the difference well.