Exploring Your Research Topic

If you are feeling confident in your choice of a particular topic for your research paper, you may only need to write about that topic. If you are unsure, explore two or three topics by responding to the following questions on your personal blog:

Part I: Exploration
1. Identify the issue or problem that you plan to focus on in your research project.
2. What is your personal connection to and interest in this topic?
3. What opinions do you already hold about this topic?
4. What knowledge do you already have about this topic. What are your main questions about this topic? What are you most curious about?
6. Within what scholarly discipline (such as history, biology, psychology) do you expect to do most of your research? How does this discipline approach or study this topic?
7. How could you research this topic outside the library (for example, through interviews and/or observations)?

Part II: Focusing
Write an initial claim, or an open-ended question, to guide your research on this topic. Make it specific but exploratory. Remember that a good claim opens up an area of inquiry about a topic; a claim should invite evidence, support, and debate.