Research Topics: Narrowing, Broadening, and Revising
Accept, and embrace change! This is a process!
After generating ideas and gathering background information, it can still be tricky to strike the right balance with your research topic.
It is important to select a topic that not only interests you or sparks your curiosity, but also one that is neither too broad or too narrow in scope. For example, if you are interested in climate change and wanted to choose that as a topic for your research paper, you would quickly find yourself overwhelmed with search results and information. You may find millions of search results about all different aspects of climate change, like policy, history, and the environment, and feel lost about where to begin.
An important step in the research process is narrowing down your larger topic into a smaller, more researchable topic. What is it about climate change that is most interesting to you? Is there something in particular that you’ve learned in class that relates to this topic that you could explore with your research?
Watch the following video [3:10] to see how to recognize if your topic is too broad or too specific, and to learn some tips on what to do:
Pay particular attention to the concept of a cyclical, rather than linear process for choosing a research topic.
Citations and Attributions
Content adapted from Library 10 by Cabrillo College Library, licensed under CC BY 4.0 Links to an external site.