Narrow a topic idea
You may not know right away what your research question is. Gather information on the broader topic to explore new possibilities and to help narrow your topic. Brainstorm some search terms and try likely databases to see what scholars are saying about the topic.
Ask yourself:
Consider your audience. Who would be interested in the issue?
From Topic to Research Question
After choosing a topic and gathering background information, add focus with a research question.
Write down a few exploratory questions
Determine and evaluate your research question
Hypothesize
After you’ve come up with a question, consider the path your answer might take.
Adapted from George Mason University Writing Center’s How to write a research question and Indian University Bloomington’s Develop A Research Question.
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Justina Elmore, University of Rochester.
Here are a few criteria for determining if your source is scholarly:
Author(s) credentials - are they experts working or teaching in this field of study?
Length - is it a few brief paragraphs or a longer, more substantive article?
Language - is it written for other scholars in the field? Do they used specialized or technical language specific to this field of study?
References - is the author(s) citing other scholars in this field of study? Do they have a robust reference list?
Journal or Book Type - If it's a journal article, what kind of journal is the article is published in? Is it a scholarly journal, or even peer reviewed? If it’s a book, is it published by a university press or other well-respected commercial publisher known for publishing scholarly works?
Once you have one (or more) useful article on a topic, use the references at the end of article to find more sources on your topic using our Citation Search tool. This helps you see what was written previous to your current article, often called citing backward.
Use Google Scholar to see who has cited your article after it was published. This helps you see what has been written after your article was published, citing forward.
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Justina Elmore, University of Rochester.