Goals for today:
1. Work on developing your topic:
- Find one reference article or essay that can give you background information on your topic.
- Working in groups of two, brainstorm for ten minutes (five each) on your topics. Explore relationships, concepts, variables, and potential revisions. Look at results and ask yourself the following questions:
- Is this topic too broad or too narrow? If so, is there a relationship that has emerged that I can/should explore?
- Is there a concept that I can focus on?
- What variables do I know nothing about?
- What areas or variables will need to be defined?
- What areas or variables might necessitate primary source material?
- Have you addressed the who, what, where, when, how, and why of your topic?
- Arrange your brainstorming work into a concept map with linking phrases, focusing on the area you wish to explore for your research project.
2. Find books and articles on your topic in Sherlock. Pick out the KEY components of your topic. List synonyms and variants for these key components. Use your key components, synonyms and variants as search strategies with the library catalog, discovery system and primary sources in this guide to conduct a preliminary literature review on your topic.
