ULM Library LibGuides: English: Research Tips

Refining and Developing Your Topic

Exploring Your Topic
Refining Your Topic

Before you develop your research topic or question, you'll need to do some background research first.

Some good places to find background information:

Your textbook or class readings
Encyclopedias and reference books
Credible websites
Library databases

Try the library databases below to explore your topic. When you're ready, move on to refining your topic.

CQ Researcher
Founded in 1923, CQ Researcher provides original, authoritative reports on newsworthy social and political issues. Covering topics in public policy, law, civil liberties, international affairs, economics, health, education, the environment, technology, and more, CQ Researcher is renowned for its objectivity, breadth, and depth of coverage.
Credo Reference
Credo Reference is a general reference solution for learners and librarians. Offering 551 hundred highly-regarded titles from over 70 publishers; Credo General Reference covers every major subject. Credo Reference is an online reference service made up of full-text books from the world's best publishers. It's a great source to consult when trying to determine a topic for your research paper.
Gale eBooks
Full-text reference books on topics including business, history, law, literature, philosophy, psychology, religion, science, travel, and more. Fully searchable and browsable.
Gale Literature
A full-text database that cross-searches Gale's literature collections: Contemporary Authors Online, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Literature Criticism Online, Literature Resource Center, Something About the Author Online, and Twayne's Authors Series.
Literary Reference Center Plus
Literary Reference™ Center (LRC Plus) is a full-text database that combines information from major respected reference works, books, literary journals as well as original content from EBSCO Publishing. Literary Reference Center Plus contains everything in Literary Reference™ Center, plus the following: over 1,200 additional full-text literary reference books/works, over 200 additional full-text literary journals and magazines, 35 volumes of new contemporary literature titles from Salem Press, 40 full-text literary study guides and 72 literary videos.
Scribner Writer Series
Browse original scholarly essays on authors from around the world. Places authors and their works in personal and historical context.
Twayne's Author Series (Gale Literature)
Find in-depth critical introductions to the lives and works of major writers. Includes influences of literary movements.

Now that you've done some background research, it's time to narrow your topic. Remember: the shorter your final paper, the narrower your topic needs to be. Here are some suggestions for narrowing and defining your topic:

Is there a specific subset of the topic you can focus on?
Is there a cause-and-effect relationship you can explore?
Is there an unanswered question on the subject?
Can you focus on a specific time period or group of people?

Describe and develop your topic in some detail. Try filling in the blanks in the following sentence, as much as you can:

I want to research ____(what/who)____

and ____(what/who)____

in ____(where)____

during ____(when)____

because ____(why)____.

Finding Sources

The types of sources you need to find will depend on the type of research project you are working on. Always read your assignments carefully, and contact your professor if you have questions regarding the types of sources you should be using!

To get started, visit the Find Articles & Databases, Find Books, or Find Websites pages to view recommended resources or see below for tips on searching more effectively and evaluating a source's credibility.

Resources for an Annotated Bibliography or a Literature Review

Annotated bibliographies and literature reviews are very common forms of writing. The intent of each is to assist you, as the researcher, in gathering resources, identifying trends and problems in the research field, and analyzing those resources to assist your own research. This type of writing is also very helpful to the reader as it identifies key research articles and synthesizes the information to create a coherent picture in which the reader can place your research. Remember that you only want to include pivotal and influential research in this type of writing – this means you will want to focus on scholarly articles that contain primary research. Though literature reviews and annotated bibliographies accomplish a very similar purpose, they are not written in an identical manner.

According to the Purdue OWL website, an annotated bibliography is “a list of sources (books, journals, websites, periodicals, etc.) one has used for researching a topic. … Therefore an annotated bibliography includes a summary and/or evaluation of each of the sources.” An annotated bibliography is compiled of references and summaries in alphabetical order. For more information see the OWL at Purdue Annotated Bibliographies page.

A literature review, on the other hand, is “a summary of what the literature says about your specific topic or question.” A literature review generally organizes references by subject matter, theory type, methodology design, etc. A literature review is generally much more exploratory than an annotated bibliography, and must pull together the information that is presented in many disparate sources to form one, cohesive picture of the research field. For more information see the OWL at Purdue Writing a Literature Review page.

How do you go about getting the resources you need to write a literature review or an annotated bibliography? Library databases like EBSCOhost or JSTOR are great places to start because they contain so many resources on so many different topics, but there are some additional databases that you may want to consider using for these types of assignments. Go to Research Guides By Subject and see what databases are recommended for a specific subject and to identify resources and research techniques for your literature review.

Evaluating Sources

Using quality, credible resources in your research is important, and there are many methods of evaluating resources. Choose the method that works best for you. Below is a handout on the CRAAP method for evaluating sources.

CRAAP Method

Research Tips!

Use Boolean Connectors AND, OR, and NOT to refine your searches!

AND narrows a search (cats AND dogs)
OR broadens a search (cats OR dogs)
NOT excludes a term (dogs NOT puppies)

Use Truncation, Wildcards, and other Methods to Limit your Search!

Add an asterisk mark ( * ) to the end of a keyword to include its variations (e.g., librar* for library, libraries, librarian, librarians, librarianship etc.) in a search.
Use a question mark ( ? ) within words to search for single character variations (e.g., wom?n for woman or women).
Use quotation marks ( " " ) around words to create keyword phrases (e.g., "green marketing")
Check the database you are using for other ways to limit your search.