Choosing a Topic
Choose something you like. One student found he could explore his interest in fantasy football one year by asking if it would one day become more popular than real-life football games. What fascinates you?
One way to start is to identify multiple points of personal interest by looking at the news. For more ideas about current events or important issues you can browse books in the library, surf the web, talk with friends and family, listen to podcasts, poke around on Wikipedia, search academic encyclopedias online, or even watch YouTube videos.
As you consider various topics, take notes and do some brainstorming or mind mapping. Conduct background research by looking for books or scholarly articles from the main search box on the library’s homepage. Narrow your topic into a manageable research question, so that it is not too broad. Here's a library web page that provides examples of research questions, links to browsing sites, brainstorming tools, and more.