Last week, you were asked to start thinking about the topic you’d like to choose for your annotated bibliography. You can refer to the list of possible research topics if you need help thinking of a topic. After reading Module 1 of your textbook and watching Picking Your Topic IS Research, you learned that you should do some research on the topics that you are considering to learn more about your topic and check out the sources that are available. If you haven’t yet done any background research on the topics you are considering, you should do that now. This is the point in the research process when it is acceptable to use Wikipedia or other general reference works like encyclopedias and almanacs. 4 Easy Steps to Using the Ashford Library for Background Research can help you get started.
Choosing your research topic is the next step. Remember that you will be working with this topic for the rest of this class, so you should choose something that you find interesting. It is recommended that you choose a topic you would like to investigate related to your major.
The next step is to do some brainstorming about your topic. Brainstorming will help you think about your topic from different angles and consider different aspects of your topic. There are a number of different brainstorming methods, like asking questions about your topic, outlining, and creating concept maps using websites like bubble.us (Links to an external site.) and Mindmeister (Links to an external site.). You can use any of these tools, or you can just put pencil to paper and let the ideas flow.
The last step this week is to consider and write your research questions and reflect on the process.The Writing Your Research Question Worksheet will lead you through the process of creating research questions. You must create at least three research questions that are open-ended; address a controversy, issue, or problem; and address your topic in a way that you can take a stand. Writing an open-ended question is sometimes a challenge so take a look at the How to Ask an Open-Ended Question handout before you get started.
Then, you will reflect on the process of doing background research and refining your topic.
