Starting Your Search
Let's start at the beginning of any search process - identifying what you need! This means you need to figure out a research topic and research question. While we often think of research topics and questions in terms of our academic needs, we identify topics and questions any time we search for information:
- You want to see a movie (your research topic) and you wonder, "When is Catching Fire playing at the nearby theater?" (your research question)
- You want to go out to eat (your research topic) and you determine which Italian restaurants have the best reviews on Yelp (your research question)
- You want to examine undergraduates' academic performance (your research topic) and you specifically consider how social media affects academic achievement (your research question)
So, then, the first step to any search is to determine your broad topic of interest, and from that topic, identify a narrower and more focused question that you can investigate.
