7.2: Choosing a Topic and Keywords

Colleen’s composition instructor has assigned a research paper to the class. Colleen has never written a college-level research paper before and is uncertain about the best topic to help her succeed on the paper. Recently a younger cousin of Colleen told her about some negative experiences on Twitter and remarked on how social media can make otherwise pleasant people yell at total strangers. Colleen thought this might be a promising idea for a research paper, and she consulted with her composition instructor. The instructor was supportive of Colleen’s topic, but felt it was too broad a topic. Colleen would need to narrow her topic to a more researchable question. Colleen accepted this, but struggled. She mused on her initial topic idea: “How does Twitter affect the way people talk to each other?” What aspect of this topic most engaged her? How could she narrow it further?

The journey from choosing a topic to completing a research-based assignment is called the research process. It is made up of all the necessary steps you complete to be successful in finding the information you need. Choosing a topic is an important early part of that process.

Flexibility is a virtue when choosing a topic, and your finished topic may not always look exactly like your original one. Your original topic might be too broad (as in Colleen’s case) or too narrow, or there may not be enough information on your topic, or you may discover a more interesting one as you conduct your research.

Once you have a general idea of your topic, you may be tempted to head straight for the library databases to begin your search, and you may not initially see a lot of useful information. This does not mean you have a bad topic. Begin instead with a search for background information, especially if you are not familiar with the subject area. This will help to better inform and define your topic.

As you search for background information, look for keywords that you may be able to use a search terms within the databases. These may be words that you see over and over as you read through the information on your topic. Your keywords may also be synonyms or related terms.

Colleen reflected on her topic. Twitter seemed like a good, solid keyword. But was there a better, more succinct way of describing “the way people talk to each other?” How about “communication?”

She now had two keywords: Twitter and Communication. Because she wanted to find articles that mentioned Twitter and communication within the same article, Colleen knew to include the Boolean operator “AND” in her initial search: Twitter AND Communication.

As you recall, Boolean operators like AND, OR, and NOT allow researchers to construct more complex searches, providing only items with the required keywords in their search results, or excluding content from their results.

Still, Colleen was not satisfied with her initial search results. Using advice she had received in a library instruction class, she experimented with her keywords.

Instead of “Twitter,” she tried “social media.” Instead of “communication,” she tried “personal communication.” She found useful results this way, but still wasn’t satisfied. She reflected more on how Twitter affected the way people talk to each other. It certainly seemed like people were meaner on Twitter than in real life. Was there a useful keyword in that? A keyword related to anger or aggression?

Anger and aggression are synonyms, and she wanted to find articles that included either of the terms. She knew the Boolean operator “OR” would be helpful, and wrote: “social media” AND “personal communication” AND (anger OR aggression).

By using “OR,” she knew articles using either term would appear in her search results, provided the other two keywords were also present.

One result Colleen noticed was on cyber bullying. That’s it! Not only had Colleen narrowed her topic sufficiently, she had already found some articles.