What are you passionate about?
Think about research you have done in previous courses you may want to expand on.
Search in databases and newspapers
What are trends in the field?
Are there gaps in the literature?
Choose and narrow a topic
What is possible to research in the time you have available?
Eliminate topics that have already been throughly researched,
Talk to faculty and advisors about your possible topics
Finalize your research question
Come up with specific answerable questions surrounding your topic.
Conduct more detailed research into the literature to inform your research question.
Identify the question you think you can best answer.
Ready? Make sure to seek help from your advisors and librarians!
The Curious Researcher
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For courses in Research Writing, Documentation Writing, and Advanced Composition. Featuring an engaging, direct writing style and inquiry-based approach, The Curious Researcher: A Guide to Writing Research Papers emphasizes that curiosity is the best reason for investigating ideas and information. An appealing alternative to traditional research texts, this popular research guide stands apart for its motivational tone, its conversational style, and its conviction that research writing can be full of rewarding discoveries. Offering a wide variety of examples from student and professional writers, this popular guide shows that good research and lively writing do not have to be mutually exclusive. Students are encouraged to find ways to bring their writing to life, even though they are writing with "facts." A unique chronological organization sets up achievable writing goals while it provides week-by-week guidance through the research process. Full explanations of the technical aspects of writing and documenting source-based papers help students develop sound research and analysis skills. The text also includes up-to-date coverage of MLA and APA styles.
Schaum's Quick Guide to Writing Great Research Papers
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This text offers information needed to be able to write a research paper, whether for school, business or personal purposes. Research papers are required of nearly all high school and college students, and professional people often have to research and present a topic to their colleagues.
Ideas and Details
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Taking a no-frills approach to composition, IDEAS & DETAILS offers a strong focus on student writing with detailed writing strategies that empower student-writers with options instead of prescriptions. In this brief writing guide, students will discover over 40 sample student writings, a balance of short and long assignments, over 100 brain teasers that provide students with invention strategies to stimulate creativity, and integrated coverage of visual rhetoric with 50 new photographs and works of art.