Defining Your Research Topic

This assignment will assist you in learning how to pick a research topic, create a thesis statement, and develop a research strategy. You will use the topic you choose in this assignment to do all your other assignments.

Choose one of the following broad topics and use it to work through the assignment. Remember, the topic you choose for this assignment will be the topic you use to do your searching for the other assignments. Send the completed assignment to your instructor by the date listed in your syllabus.

Topics (choose one)

Animal Rights Genetic Engineering

Death Penalty Debate K-12 Education

Computers in Society Immigration Issues in America

Send the completed assignment to your instructor by the date listed in your syllabus.

1) Select one of the above broad research topics and narrow the focus to a specific aspect of the issue.

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2) Write down three questions about this topic that you would like to answer in your research paper.

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3) Select one (or combine a couple) of the questions above to develop your working thesis statement (remember, your thesis statement itself should not be in the form of a question). Write down a WORKING THESIS STATEMENT. Your final thesis statement will probably change as you find out more about your topic. Remember, your thesis statement should summarize your main idea and present a point of view.

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4) From what perspective would you approach the topic [humanistic (i.e., religious, ethical, philosophical, cultural), social scientific (i.e., political, economic, sociological, anthropological, legal), scientific (i.e., biological, medical)]?

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5) Take a look at the questions you wrote down above and your working thesis statement. Identify the main ideas and write them down as keywords. These words will be helpful to you when you perform keyword searches on the Internet and in online databases.

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6) Locate two LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SUBJECT HEADINGS on your topic. Write them down.

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7) What types of library materials are appropriate for you topic? (e.g. books, periodical articles, subject encyclopedias, biographies, bibliographies, statistics, web sites). Write down the appropriate materials.

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