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Library 101 for Veterans

This guide is designed for use by student veterans with both general orientation information and veteran specific resources.

Feeling Overwhelmed?

Getting Started With Research A short clip of tips and tricks to start your research paper or project.

Need Help Mapping Research Topics This quick, interactive tutorial will help you choose a research topic and brainstorm research questions, as well as giving you some next steps in the process of developing a research question!

Research Paper Planner The Research Paper Planner will help you break down your assignment into manageable deadlines, track your progress, and connect with campus resources.

 

Choose Your Topic

Make sure you have read your assignment carefully and understand your instructor's expectations and keep in mind the length and scope of a given assignment when considering topics.

Review your course readings, along with other related sources, and think about relevant topics that interest you or that you can engage with:

  • topics that make you curious, angry, or excited
  • topics that are related to your major, hobby, or other interest or passion
  • topics to which you can relate to because you yourself (or someone you know) have experienced it

The more engaged you are with your topic, the more fun you will have working on it!

Narrow Your Topic

Be prepared to be flexible with your topic idea!

  • If it is too broad or vague, you will find too much information and will need to narrow the focus.
  • If it is too specific or specialized or new, it will be difficult finding enough information to write your paper this quarter. In that case, you will need to broaden your idea.

How to Narrow Your Topic

Example: I'm thinking of doing a paper on a topic related to "fashion." This topic could develop in many different ways.

Hint: Ask Yourself Questions About Your Topic:

  • What do you know about it? What don't you know?
  • What aspects of your topic interest you: historical, sociological, cultural, etc.?
  • What time period do you want to cover?
  • What geographic region do you want to focus?
  • Who do you want to focus on? Is there a specific demographic?
  • What kind of information do you need?
    • A brief summary or a lengthy explanation?
    • Periodical articles, books, essays, encyclopedia articles?
    • Statistics?

Sample Topic Narrowing Chart:

General Topic: Fashion
Time Span: 1920s
Place: US; urban; big cities (not rural)
Person or Group: youth; college age (18 - 23)
Event or Aspects: sexual attitudes; behavior; sociological

Broaden Your Topic

Example: I'm thinking of doing a paper on "whether genetically altered soybeans are safe for consumers."

This topic as stated is seeking to answer a question for which there may be no answer yet -- more scientific and long-term research may need to be done. How can this be turned into a more manageable topic?

Hint 1: Look for opportunities for broader or related associations:

  • Could you examine other bioengineered foods, in addition to soybeans?
  • Could you think broadly about safety concerns and issues -- what might these be?
  • Who are the key players in this controversy? Consumer activists? The FDA? Scientists?
  • What other issues are involved in this topic? Such as, how should be foods be labeled?

Hint 2: Brainstorm! (and ask a reference librarian!)

Sample Topic Broadening Chart:

Specific Topic: Are genetically altered soybeans safe for consumers?
Alternate focus: bioengineered or genetically altered foods

Alternate Place:
 

 general: US, Europe
Brainstorm - Person or Group:
 		 consumer advocates vs FDA (Food and Drug Association) and scientists
Brainstorm - Event or Aspect: labeling foods; regulations
Subjects: General Reference