Your assignment may require you to pick a topic from a broad theme or subject area, such as entertainment and media.
When your topic is too broad:
Here are some strategies for narrowing down your topic to a manageable size.
Strategy | Examples |
---|---|
Find your passion Think about the aspect of the assignment that most fascinates you. This will make the whole assignment easier and even fun. |
online gaming college sports and broadcasting music streaming Bollywood animated TV series Snapchat |
Population or audience |
teens college students single parents urban or rural veterans recent immigrants elderly |
Place and Time |
1960s Sub-Saharan Africa contemporary Great Depression Mexico |
Type or Genre |
television reality TV film newspapers blogs streaming social media fiction |
Relationships |
compare / contrast cause / effect contemporary / historical |
Sources: Booth, Wayne C. The Craft of Research. Fourth edition. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2016; Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: Narrowing a Topic Idea, USC Libraries; Coming Up With Your Topic. Institute for Writing Rhetoric. Dartmouth College; Narrowing a Topic. Writing Center. University of Kansas; Narrowing Topics. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Strategies for Narrowing a Topic. University Libraries. Information Skills Modules. Virginia Tech University; The Process of Writing a Research Paper. Department of History. Trent University; Ways to Narrow Down a Topic. Contributing Authors. Utah State OpenCourseWare.
Sometimes you have a really great topic but have trouble finding appropriate or adequate sources. If your topic is very narrow:
In the meantime, here are some strategies for broadening the scope of your search.
Strategy | Examples |
---|---|
Use synonyms for your topic, connected by OR |
film or cinema or movies television news or broadcast news cable subscribers and (hulu or apple or slingbox or antenna) |
Use the wildcard * to retrieve alternative endings of phrases (works in most library databases; doesn't work in Google) |
child* and television and literacy (cartoon* or animat*) and series theat* and representation* and (hispan* or latin or chican*) |
Think about the larger context
|
(interactive gaming or video games) and gender instead of boarding schools and YA fiction instead of |
Follow the Footnote Trail Footnotes in scholarly publications can lead the way to related research. Study them for leads. Need help locating an item cited in a footnote? Ask us!. You can also try our ArticleFinder for help in locating an item when you have a citation in hand. |
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Talk to Us Don't abandon a topic you love without talking to a librarian for advice. We're here to help. |
Sources: Booth, Wayne C. The Craft of Research. Fourth edition. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2016; Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: Broadening a Topic, USC Libraries; Coming Up With Your Topic. Institute for Writing Rhetoric. Dartmouth College; Getting Started With Your Research: A Self-Help Guide to Quality Information, Jean and Alexander Heard Library. Vanderbilt University; Strategies for Broadening a Topic. University Libraries. Information Skills Modules. Virginia Tech University.
Image: Gordon Robinson, Alice in Wonderland, 1916, Project Gutenberg edition, 2006 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19033/19033-h/19033-h.htm