1. The document discusses strategies for identifying and narrowing down a research topic, including brainstorming initial topic ideas, adding contexts like time periods or disciplines to focus the topic, and mapping potential areas of research.
2. It provides examples of focusing topics by adding historical, community-specific, disciplinary, or aspect-specific contexts. Some strategies mentioned include pre-reading to identify relevant discussions and using databases from different subject areas.
3. Interactive exercises encourage workshop participants to post initial topic ideas, and then suggest two narrowed topics by applying strategies like adding historical or disciplinary contexts.
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Framing and Finding Your Topic Spring 2019
1. Framing the Context:
Search Strategies for Defining and Exploring
Your Topic
Melanie Sellar and Anthony Raymond,
Santa Clara University Library, Spring 2019
2. Welcome! Workshop Goals Today
1. Identify and describe different types of source tools.
2. Compare the types of sources found in different search tools.
3. Learn and practice strategies for narrowing research topics
5. Post ideas for your final
research projects in the Padlet.
Go for quantity over quality,
that's what the ideation process
is all about.
Take ~5 minutes.
Exercise 1: Topic Ideation
6. After Topic Ideation: Next Steps
If you can state your topic in 1-3 words, it is too broad
Tip: narrow your topic by finding and adding 1-2 contexts:
History / Time Period
Specific community
Particular Discipline
Certain Aspect
How? Pre-reading and identifying some of the conversations
7. Focus Your Topic: Context Examples
History / Time Period
Evolution of urban graffiti from criminal activity to art form
Specific Community
Graffiti as cultural expression by a particular community in a particular
place
Particular Discipline
Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science, Religious Studies!
Certain Aspect
Role of graffiti as religious expression in persecuted communities
Graffiti art as empowerment for [name of racial/ethnic community] youth
Relationship between street art, graffiti, and muralism
14. Post 2 narrowed topic
ideas that you
identified from your
reading and mapping.
Exercise 3: Two Narrowed Ideas
Editor's Notes
#6: Topic development: Do a sample search on those two examples in OSCAR Simple and OneSearch
OSCAR Simple Search:
You get a lot of different type of documents, on different facets of the topic
What kind of documents do you see? On what facets of the topic?
Facilitate conversation on what you see, including how manageable their research paper would be if they used that topic
OneSearch on the same topic:
Lets do the same search.
Before you commit to a topic, you need to do some reading and research
#8: Certain Aspect
Role of graffiti as religious expression in persecuted communities
Graffiti art as empowerment for [name of racial/ethnic community] youth
Relationship between street art, graffiti, and muralism
Aspect: choose one lens through which to view the research problem, or look at just one facet of it [e.g., rather than studying the role of food in South Asian religious rituals, study the role of food in Hindu ceremonies, or, the role of one particular type of food among several religions].
Exploring three major hubs of muralist activity in California, where indigenist imagery is prevalent, Walls of Empowerment celebrates an aesthetic that seeks to firmly establish Chicana/o sociopolitical identity i
#9: Certain Aspect
Role of graffiti as religious expression in persecuted communities
Graffiti art as empowerment for [name of racial/ethnic community] youth
Relationship between street art, graffiti, and muralism
Aspect: choose one lens through which to view the research problem, or look at just one facet of it [e.g., rather than studying the role of food in South Asian religious rituals, study the role of food in Hindu ceremonies, or, the role of one particular type of food among several religions].
Exploring three major hubs of muralist activity in California, where indigenist imagery is prevalent, Walls of Empowerment celebrates an aesthetic that seeks to firmly establish Chicana/o sociopolitical identity i
#10: Step 1: Pick one of the topics to brainstorm about the kinds of disciplines it may be useful to look at, and the types of sources that may be relevant.
Step 2: Ask them to look at a list of sources on the homepage (and if needed under Find Articles ) and identify which ones could be good to find those kinds of disciplines and sources.
Graffiti, culture, and youth
(strategies: sociology, art, and education databases; newspapers)
#13: attention to the rhetorical appeals: ethos, logos, pathos, kairos, and more
You can use these sources differently to make different appeals
E.g. newspapers: often good for pathos (emotional appeals)
E.g. scholarly articles: often good for logos (logical appeals)
E.g. scholarly articles, newspapers, books: ethos (authority appeal) and logos (logical appeals)
#14: Maybe have a student share out their topic map (and brainstorm keywords?).
Next, pick one of these trajectories in your map to begin going in deeper on. Youll keep using the databases. Spend 10-15 minutes. Youll be sharing out 2 promising results into our final exercise Padlet.
Show students how to use Find it at SCU, how to identify and make use of Subject Terms to find articles, and how to cite an article.