Week 1 – Assignment:

5/2/22, 10:37 PM Finding a Research Topic - Research Process - LibGuides at Northcentral University

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NCU Library / LibGuides / Library How-To Guides / Research Process / Finding a Research Topic

Research Process These pages offer an introduction to the research process

at a very general level.

Home

Finding a Research Topic

Brainstorming

Explore Google 

Explore Web Resources

Explore Background Information

Explore Books

Explore Scholarly Articles

Determining Information Needs

Scholarly Research

Finding a Research Topic

Which step of the research process takes the most time?

A. Finding a topic

B. Researching a topic

C. Both

How did you answer the above question? Do you spend most of your

efforts actually researching a topic, or do you spend a lot of time and

energy finding a topic? Ideally, you’ll want to spend fairly equal

amounts of effort on both. Finding an appropriate and manageable

topic can sometimes be just as hard as researching a topic.

A good research topic will have a body of related research which is

accessible and manageable. Identifying a topic with these

characteristics at the beginning of the research process will ultimately

save you time.

Finding a research topic that is interesting, relevant, feasible, and

worthy of your time may take substantial effort so you should be

prepared to invest your time accordingly. Considering your options,

doing some background work on each option, and ultimately settling

on a topic that is manageable will spare you many of the frustrations

that come from attempting research on a topic that, for whatever

reason, may not be appropriate.

Remember that as you are searching for a research topic you will need

to be able to find enough information about your topic(s) in a book or

scholarly journal. If you can only find information about your topic(s) in

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5/2/22, 10:37 PM Finding a Research Topic - Research Process - LibGuides at Northcentral University

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Preparing to Search

Reading a Scientific Article

Evaluating Information

Finding Similar Resources

Resources for a Literature Review

Resources for Dissertation Research

Organizing Research & Citations 

Scholarly Publication

Learn the Library 

Ask Us!

current event sources (newspapers, magazines, etc.) then the topic

might be too new to have a large body of published scholarly

information. If this is the case, you may want to reconsider the topic(s).

So how do you find a research topic? Unfortunately there’s no

directory of topics that you pick and choose from, but there are a few

relatively easy techniques that you can use to find a relevant and

manageable topic. A good starting point may be to view the Library's

Resources for Finding a Research Topic Workshop below.

The sub-pages in this section (on the left-hand menu) offer various tips

for where and how to locate resources to develop your research topic.

And for additional information on selecting a research topic, see the

resources below.

Defining a Topic - SAGE Research Methods

Develop My Research Idea - APA Central Note: You MUST create an APA Central account AND start a paper

in order to access this tool. Once you have done so, open a paper

and click Research Lab Book in the left navigation menu.

The Process for Developing Questions - ASC Guide

Top 10 Tips for Choosing a Dynamic Dissertation Topic - ASC Webinar

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5/2/22, 10:37 PM Finding a Research Topic - Research Process - LibGuides at Northcentral University

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Subjects: Arts & Humanities, Business, Computing & Information Technology, Dissertation Resources, Education, Government & Criminal Justice, Health, Medicine & Nursing, Law, Library Services, Tools & Resources, Marriage & Family

Science, Psychology & Social Work, Sociology & Diversity Studies

Tags: annotated bibliography, Boolean operators, cited, cited references, citing articles, dissertation research, field codes, Google Scholar, literature review, measurements, organizing citations, peer-reviewed journals, popular sources, primary sources, research

design, research methods, research topic, research_process, scholarly sources, searching, secondary sources, statistics, tests,

theoretical frameworks, theory

Resources for Finding a Research Topic Workshop

This workshop will introduce you to library resources which can be

used to locate potential topics for a research paper or dissertation.

This workshop explores websites, reference books, and scholarly

articles, as well as review criteria to consider when selecting a topic.

Resources for Finding a Research TopicResources for Finding a Research Topic

 Resources for Finding a Research Topic Workshop Outline

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5/2/22, 10:37 PM Finding a Research Topic - Research Process - LibGuides at Northcentral University

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