LibGuides: How To Do Research: The Research Process

Research Process

Beginning Your Research (Handout)

Outline Your Topic

The first step when planning and writing a research paper is picking a good topic. A good topic is relevant to the assignment and has enough information available for you to use. This section will help you pick a subject that interests you, and refine that subject to a specific topic.

Example: Select a contemporary controversial bioethical issue (e.g., abortion, euthanasia, stem cell re- search, etc.). Determine what objections have been raised on religious grounds against the practice and describe the response to these objections from members of the scientific community.

Planning your research will help you find relevant resources when you conduct your search. The background information that you found when defining your topic can help you to think of appropriate search terms and this section will help you plan your research and search terms.

Define key terms:

It is a good idea to outline the structure of your paper before you actually start writing. First, write down the main points you will be making in your paper and then determine how you will organize the paper.

Take notes as you read. Highlight or write down important points as you read your resources.
Keep track of your sources. When you include information in your notes, write down where you got it.
Plan before you write. Create an outline to organize your ideas before you actually starting writing.

Concept Mapping is a great way of organizing ideas to show relationships between things. You can use it to map out the ideas in your paper.

Begin by writing a main topic at the top of your page, and draw a circle around it.
Break your main topic into components, and write these components below the main topic. Circle each component.
Break these components down into smaller parts, and circle each part. As you get farther down the page, away from your main topic, the components become more specific.
Add linking lines between each component.
Add in words beside each linking line that explains the relationship between two connected bubbles. When you read the bubbles in descending order including the linking words you will usually get sentences relating the entire topic.