How to Research

Getting Started

There is no single way to think of a research topic. Sometimes one just comes to you, but often you have to do some brainstorming and initial background research.

Example

Imagine you are taking a psychology course, and your assignment is to write an essay exploring a topic related to phobias. You could start by looking in your course textbook or on the internet for information about different types of phobias.

You might decide you are interested in researching treatments for phobias.

Different Types of Research Questions

The difference betwen a research topic and a research question is that a question has more focus and direction. Here are some examples of different types of research questions:

• Causal: (How) does X cause Y?
• Relational: (How) are X and Y related?
• Solution-focused: Can we achieve X by doing Y?
• Comparative: How is X different from Y?
• Exploratory: Is it possible to build X?
• Descriptive: Who or what is X?

Example

For the topic of phobia treatments, an initial research question could be: What are the most effective treatments for phobias?

Too Broad or Too Narrow?

It can be challenging to determine if your research question is "just right," meaning that it is neither too broad nor too narrow.

Your topic is too broad when:

• There is too much information to cover in one essay.
• Your work lacks depth and focus.

Your topic is too narrow when:

• Tracking down information takes too much time.
• There is not enough information available on the topic.

As you formulate a research question, know that it may change depending whether you find too much or too little information. The only way to know if your topic is "just right" is to start searching for information.

Example

You start to search for articles about the most effective treatments for phobias, but you're finding thousands of results that all talk about different types of phobias and different treatments for them. You need to narrow your search to make it more manageable for your assignment. Here are some ways you could do that:

• Choose a specific phobia, such as agoraphobia or claustrophobia
• Choose a specific treatment, such as exposure therapy
• Focus on a certain population, like adolescents

To search library databases effectively, you need to identify the most important concepts in your research question, along with any other words or phrases that could be used to describe them. These key terms are what you will use to search for relevant information. A strong, focused research topic usually has about three key concepts.

Example

For this research question:

Is exposure therapy an effective treatment for phobias in adolescents?

The key terms could be exposure therapy, phobias, and adolescents. 

A table like this one can help you identify synonyms and related terms for each concept:

The content under "Choosing a Research Topic" was adapted with permission from the Library Research Skills Tutorial © Concordia University Library.

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