Developing Your Topic [incl. worksheets]
Brainstorming to Focus
Once you choose a general topic, you will need to decide how you will focus your research to examine a particular aspect of that topic. What interests you about this topic? What do you want to investigate more deeply? You might find it helpful to do some brainstorming about this right away.
Here are some pointers to keep in mind:
- Expect to find uncharted territory. It's temping to search endlessly for that article that perfectly conveys what you are interested in. But sometimes, that elusive source doesn't exist -- it may not have been written, may not take the same perspective as your original text, and/or may write about this idea from a different angle or with different words.
- Be flexible, and realistic. Your professor (and perhaps a librarian) can help you with this aspect. It's important that you choose a topic that is both appropriate for the course and that, practically speaking, can be researched.
- Think bigger. Don’t just think about your chosen texts and its arguments, but its bigger context. What larger issues/conversations in the study of physiology and behavior factor into your topic?
- Think holistically. Look for research that contributes different ways of thinking and analyses that you can bring together. Make sure you
are exploring your topic thoroughly rather than limiting yourself to the perspective in your text or in the first article or two you encounter.
Here is a handout that you can use to work through this process (originally created by Peer Research Consultant Kyle Irvine '21):
Expanding on Existing Research:
No piece of research stands alone; each is part of a broader scholarly conversation in that topic/ field. These resources have clues that you can TRACE, if you know how to look. We also sometimes call this technique the exploding article, because it helps you 'explode' a single source into many sources!
Terms– Check the abstract, subject terms and article for concepts and terms that you can use for your future searches.
Reported in– Is the journal where the article was printed relevant? Try searching for other articles from this journal.
Author– What else has the author(s) published on this topic? Search the databases for their other publications
Consulted by - Check Google Scholar to see which articles or books have cited your sources, and to find
more-recent research which builds on your original information.
Evidence -Check the references list (or bibliography) to see what previous research this resource is drawing on. From here, you may wish to consider:
- Previous articles or books published on your topic
- Other authors who have published on your topic
- Journals where your topic is frequently discussed
Tools for TRACE-ing:
- Scopus This link opens in a new window
Citations and abstracts for journals, books, and conference proceedings, primarily in the natural and social sciences.
Research Strategies [incl. worksheets]
Choosing Search Terms:
Here are some general tips to guide you in choosing your search terms:
BRAINSTORM
Spend a few minutes thinking about what words could be used to describe the topic. Be as specific as you can.
Depending on your topic, you may want to include specialized terminology, including concepts, types of methodologies, etc.
EXPAND
Think of other words or phrases you could use that mean the same thing(s).
USE EXPERT SEARCH TRICKS
Use AND and OR to make your search more or less specific! This will give you more sources to choose from.
- When you use AND, a database will look for resources that use all of the words you entered.
- Use OR between words that mean the same or similar things, or that you are equally interested in.
PIVOT
If you aren't finding much, try...
- Rephrasing. See if you can find even 1 or 2 relevant articles, note what subjects are listed for them, and use these to try again.
- Broadening (your topic, date range, etc.)
- Switching tools. Sometimes you just need a different database!
- Keyword Brainstorm Log(fill it out online, then download to save your answers!)
How Searches Work:
There are two different ways in which research tools tend to function.
Some tools -- Google and other web searches as well as certain databases -- conduct what is called a full-text search, which scans every word of the document(s) being searched from beginning to end.
Others, including the majority of our research databases and the library catalog, conduct what is called a bibliographic or metadata search. These tools scan only the metadata, or descriptive information about the documents they contain -- titles, abstracts, subject keywords and other info. This is why searching for sentences or entire phrases often works poorly in the research databases, and why Google produces so many more matches.
So which do you choose?
A bibliographic search will bring you fewer results, but will be tailored to results that mention your terms in the descriptive information (and therefore, are more likely to be relevant).
A full text search will bring you a greater number of results, but more of them are likely to be irrelevant (for example, if your search term appears only once in the document in an off-hand mention). However, it might catch some articles that you might not see otherwise, and may help you find articles whose bibliographic information uses different terminology to describe your topic.
You may want to experiment with tools that conduct both kinds of searches, to get the widest range of resources on your topic.
Science Librarian
O'Callahan Science Library
