Research Skills Center

The first step of the research process is to select a topic to research.  This is often the hardest step.  To get started, you should:

1. Review the assignment instructions and understand the scope and context of the assignment
2. Identify what you need for your assignment
3. Choose a topic of interest to you

You can begin with a broad topic idea and then narrow to a more specific aspect of that topic. Start with:

• What do you already know about the topic? (You may need to do some preliminary or background research first)
• What aspects of the topic would fit your assignment scope? You can consider more specific research questions related to the topic that meet the requirements of your assignment. Typical types of assignments include: comparison, cause and effect, measuring (i.e. impact), and process.  The research question should be open-ended (not just yes or no), address an issue or solve a problem. 

Concept Maps can be drawn by hand or typed on a word document. This one is hand drawn.

It is a hand drawn concept map with the topic of Human Trafficking. The illustrator describes this concept map as, " The topic, Human Trafficking, was placed in the middle. The sub-topics were placed around the main topic. The important information was placed around the subtopics to help remind me what to mention in my paper. My sub-topics were About, Child Trafficking, Human Rights and Types. I chose this way to conceptualize my ideas because it helps me expand my main topic better. This is because I can expand each topic and group my ideas. I can also see how to write my paper by what’s not specific to what is specific. The only challenge I faced was trying to realize what ideas go under which topic. It looks like it is a mess but the topic is a mess altogether."

Source: http://youthvoices.net/discussion/mess-trafficking