April 4th-13th: The Library Student Survey is active!
All students should have received an e-mail invitation to take the survey with the subject line “Your Opinion Matters: Take the Library Student Survey!”
Please take a moment to fill out this short, anonymous survey and help us improve library services.
Welcome! This module will walk you through the process of choosing a viable topic, and transforming that topic into a research question.
Review the boxes on each tab, including the questions at the bottom to check for understanding. Once you have reviewed the tabs, complete the quiz at the end.
The word topic originates from the Greek word topos, meaning place or location. Finding a topic means locating your subject within a discipline, or subdiscipline (Gibson & Lipton, 2014). Even the most seemingly trivial areas of interest can find a home in at least one field of study or practice. For example, the subject of parking on campus is not very substantive at face value, but a deep dive into parking issues on a campus might be supported by research in the following areas:
If anything can be explored as a research topic, how do we choose from so many possible candidates? Review the video below for tips on how to pick a research topic that is right for you.
Can you list at least two disciplines (fields of study) related to your potential research topic?