Choosing a research topic

Spend a few minutes learning more about your topic before you dive in gathering books and articles.  As you learn more about your topic, you'll discover its more complex than you may have guessed!  

Credo Reference (link below) provides more than 3.5 million encyclopedia articles to learn about your topic.  These are useful for understanding the following:

• Background and scope of your topic
• Definitions of specialized terms and vocabulary that will be used by the experts in the field
• Related topics that may help impact your topic ideas
• Bibliographies are often available for longer articles to identify key books and articles on the topic
• Variety of resources let you envision your topic through different "lenses."  For example, do you want to research food insecurity from an economic point of view, an historical point of view, an educational point of view, a psychological point of view, etc?

TIPS: As you read these articles make sure you are capturing important terms and phrases, timelines of events, and important people who are mentioned.  Take special note of areas where there are diverging opinions--these can be treasure troves for research!

Opposing Viewpoints in Context (link below) provides information on current events. 

The list of topics can be helpful to browse  to spark your own ideas.  Each "viewpoint" or "issue" has articles, opinion/viewpoint essays, and sometimes books and websites.

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