In order to find the right topic, it is important to go beyond the professional imperatives and dig deep into your own interests, which can then be connected to a broader discipline. Once an interest has been exploited, it is important to switch immediately to an end goal, which shall arguably be to target journals with high impact factor. Setting such an ambitious goal from the start can allow you to set the trajectory of your academic future correctly. Although your focus must be on completing the task at hand, but such target can allow you to benchmark state-of-the-art approaches in completing your work and primarily selecting the most beneficial topic. It must be noted, writing for publication requires a difficult transformation for those who have recently completed – or are still working on – a thesis or dissertation. It can be a complex transformation, involving several dimensions of change, but all of them allow you to be a better version of yourself and tread along to a lucrative result. Many new writers do not have rhetorical knowledge – knowledge of the techniques of persuasive writing that are the building blocks of scholarly writing.
Basically, a significant topic has the potential to do at least one of the following:
(a) contribute to the development of a new theory, (b) test an existing theory, (c) uncover new facts or principles, (d) challenge existing truths or assumptions, (e) suggest relationships between phenomena,(f) provide new insights into phenomena, (g) suggest new interpretations of known facts, (h) alter other people’s perceptions about phenomena, and(i) extend a research methodology or statistical procedure.
Generally, a list of topics may be provided by your institute, but even in that case you may be overwhelmed with varying options. In order to help you with this crucial initial step in your academic journey we have devised a process after corroborating evidence from multiple sources, which can be stated chronologically as follows (each step will be further expanded):
1. Find something that deeply interests you, related to your field of study
2. Seek a focus area which encapsulates your interest
3. Devise a broader topic from your own imagination, which might contain a complex problem that can be investigated
4. Conduct initial search using journals with high impact factor to create a focused statement
5. From a focused topic create questions which have not been dealt with, according to your initial research
6. From an interesting question define a wider significance
Find something that deeply interests you, related to your field of study
If you are free to research any topic that interests you, that freedom can be frustrating—so many choices, so little time. At some point, you have to settle on a topic, but beyond a topic, you also have to find a reason beyond your assignment to devote weeks or months pursuing it and writing up what you find, then to ask readers to spend their time reading your report. Your readers-supervisors, reviewers, committee members etc.- expect you to do more than just mound up and report data; they expect you to report it in a way that continues the ongoing conversation between writers and readers that creates a community of researchers. To do that, you must select from all the data you find just those data that support an answer to a question that solves a problem your readers think needs solving. In all research communities, some problems are already “in the air,” widely debated and deeply researched, such as whether personality traits like shyness or an attraction to risk are genetically inherited or learned. But other questions may intrigue only the researcher: Why do cats rub their faces against us? Why do the big nuts end up at the top of the can? That’s how a lot of research begins—not with a “big” question known to everyone in a field, but with a mental itch that only one researcher feels the need to scratch.
If you have such an itch, good. But as we’ve said (and will say again), at some point, you have to decide whether the answer to your private question is also significant to others: to a teacher, colleagues, other researchers, or even to a public whose lives your research could change. At that point, you aim not just to answer a question, but to pose and solve a problem that others also think is worth solving.Now that word problem is itself a problem: commonly, a problem means trouble, but among researchers it has a meaning so special that we devote all of the next chapter to it. It raises issues that few beginning researchers are able to resolve entirely and that can vex even advanced ones. But before you can address a research problem, you have to find a topic that might lead to one. We’ll start there, with finding a topic.
Note: Exploring documentaries on your topics of interest can also be a great way to ignite your interest, which can then be pursued further.
Seek a focus area which encapsulates your interest
Most of us have more than enough interests to pursue, but beginners often find it hard to locate among theirs a topic focused enough to support a research project. A research topic is an interest defined narrowly enough for you to imagine becoming a local expert on it. That doesn’t mean that you already know a lot about it or that you will have to learn more about it than your professor has. You just want to know more than you do now. If your assignment leaves you free to explore any topic within reason, we can offer only a cliche´: Start with what interests you most deeply. Nothing contributes to the quality of your work more than your commitment to it. Start by listing two or three interests that you’d like to explore. If you are undertaking a research project in a course in a specific field, skim a recent textbook, talk to other students, or consult your teacher. You might try to identify an interest based on work you are doing or will do in a different course. If you are still stuck, you can find help either on the Internet or in your library. The Internet may seem the easier way, but it’s more likely to lead you astray, especially if you are new to research. In order to use google effectively please refer to this infographic which can be very useful.
At this stage it would be handy to use google scholar or other related databases such as Scopus to search for the key terms related to your area of interest. One important thing to do, at this stage, is to set time of search preferably to last 1 year. Doing so will give you a better understanding of the cutting edge of your area of interest. Find out some similar topics to your interest and then narrow down on your focus area. At this stage only read abstracts of the papers that seem similar and draw your inferences.
Devise a broader topic from your own imagination, which might contain a complex problem that can be investigated
Although you have a slight idea of major problem areas in your focus area but at this point, you risk settling on a topic so broad that it could be a subheading in an encyclopedia: Space flight, history of; Shakespeare, problem plays; Natural kinds, doctrine of. A topic is usually too broad if you can state it in four or five words. With a topic so broad, you may be intimidated by the idea of finding, much less reading, even a fraction of the sources available. By transforming a broader topic to a problem, you will essentially formulate an initial thesis statement.
In taking this next step, researchers often make a beginner’s mistake: they rush from a topic to a data dump. Once they hit on a topic that feels promising, something like the political origins and uses of legends about the Battle of the Alamo, they go straight to searching out sources—different versions of the story in books and films, Mexican and American, nineteenth century and twentieth. They accumulate a mound of summaries of the stories, descriptions of their differences and similarities, ways in which they conflict with what modern historians think happened. They write all that up and conclude, “Thus we see many interesting differences and similarities between . . .” Most high school teachers would give such a report a passing grade, because it shows that the student can focus on a topic, find data on it, and assemble those data into a report—no small achievement for a first project. But in any advanced course, including a first-year writing course in college, such a report falls short because it offers only random bits of information. If the writer asks no question worth pondering, he can offer no focused answer worth reading. Readers of research reports don’t want just information; they want the answer to a question worth asking. To be sure, those fascinated by a topic often feel that any information about it is worth reading for its own sake: collectors of Japanese coins or Elvis Presley movie posters will read anything about them. Serious researchers, however, do not report data for their own sake, but to support the answer to a question that they (and they hope their readers) think is worth asking.
Conduct initial search using journals with high impact factor to create a focused statement
From this stage a formal process of research may start. Here we will recommend using tools which can greatly enhance your efficiency and make the whole research and writing process smoother from the get-go.
Although there are many sources that can be exploited at this stage but to limit your choices, in our humble opinion, you should stick to relying on the most regarded source which may give you a clearer picture of where you are headed with the topic.
If you have chosen a topic, but still lack a focus/research question, your initial literature search on the topic is for finding out:
· what material there is
· what it involves
· whether it looks interesting
· whether it is obtainable
· whether your choice of topic is justified by the literature
· what others writing about the topic have focused on – and what they have not focused on.
Expect to have to conduct several information and literature searches throughout the writing process: Firstly, you conduct a broad topical search, then you formulate a research question on the basis of which you can conduct a narrower search which in turn allows you to narrow down your research question further, etc. When reading about a field you want to write about, the first things you read may be overview literature: Handbooks, encyclopaedias, surveys, subject-specific journals, websites with resources, articles, conference presentation, researchers’ websites and popular works. These can all help give you an overview of “the state of the art”. You will often need to qualify understandings, directions, important figures, etc. before focusing on particular contributions to the larger picture. You must consider what you can write on the basis of a general overview of what has been written and more in depth knowledge of (a selection of) what is relevant. For this reason, even a perfunctory inspection of titles and skimming of abstracts is highly valuable to the writer, as these provide a sense of what has (not) been written: Shortcomings, gaps and inconsistencies. While reading, you work towards identifying the texts that will form part of your self-chosen curriculum as well as how you can use them in an appropriate context – your own research and research question. When you can write a research question (the first being temporary) and perhaps fill out (parts of) a pentagon, you will be able to conduct a purposeful literature search. A research question that forms a good basis for a literature search includes field terms that can be used as search terms. Everyday words will not result in a delimited, subject-specific search. Thus, the concepts and field terms used in your paper are crucial to your literature search.
From a focused topic create questions which have not been dealt with, according to your initial research
As the literature in most fields is abundant and rapidly increasing, no students are expected to know or even to have read abstracts of all the literature within the disciplinary scope of the research question. But how is it possible to discover gaps in the literature, whether something has not been examined sufficiently, or needs a new angle, etc.? To get a sense of what the field’s literature contains/does not contain, you must complete one or more of the following activities. You must:
· make sure your knowledge of the field’s literature is qualified by consulting your teacher/supervisor/other people in the field as they will know what characterizes the literature within their main area of teaching
· systematically search for and read abstracts
· become manageable limit yourself to small, delimited fields, so the amount and content of publications
· amount of literature has been written…”)limit yourself to very specific time periods (“within the last year only this
· limit yourself to using literature from a specified language area.
The benefits of acquiring in-depth knowledge of a very delimited field of literature are that you will be able to gain an overview and better position yourself in relation to a small, delimited field. Insofar as you have chosen your own research question and delimited your searches, you decide what to read and include in research papers and projects – except from the possible core literature of some fields, which you are required to read as it forms part of the field’s traditions, methods, state of the art, central ways of thinking and similar.
From an interesting question define a wider significance
Even if you are an experienced researcher, you might not be able to take this next step until you are well into your project. If you are a beginner, you may feel that this step is still deeply frustrating even when you’ve finished it. Nevertheless, once you have a question that grabs your interest, you must pose a tougher question:
Why should this question also grab my readers?
What makes it worth asking? Start by asking, So what? At first, ask it for yourself: So what if I don’t know or understand how snow geese know where to go in the winter, or how fifteenth-century violin players tuned their instruments, or why the Alamo story has become myth?
So what if I can’t answer those questions? Eventually, you will have to answer this question not just for yourself but for your readers. Finding its answer vexes all researchers, beginners and experienced alike, because it’s so hard to predict what will really interest readers. Instead of trying to answer instantly, though, you can work toward an answer in three steps.
Basically, a significant topic has the potential to do at least one of the following: (a) contribute to the development of a new theory, (b) test an existing theory, (c) uncover new facts or principles, (d) challenge existing truths or assumptions, (e) suggest relationships between phenomena,(f) provide new insights into phenomena, (g) suggest new interpretations of known facts, (h) alter other people’s perceptions about phenomena, and(i) extend a research methodology or statistical procedure.
Once you have identified a basic research topic, now its time to move to a more formal way of conducting literature review.
As you are thinking about writing or revising your working title, you might want to consider Sternberg’s (2000) take on titles in academic publications (‘Titles and abstracts: They only sound important’): ‘Whether your article will be read by many people, few people, or virtually none at all . . . can be largely a function of the title and the abstract’ (p. 37). A working title can be a useful focusing device as you write. It can keep you from straying too far from your main line of argument. It gives your paper a name – distinguishing it from your other projects – with which you can refer to it over the weeks and months of planning, researching and writing.
You will already have identified your key words. How can you fit them into your title?
• Is it the catchy buzzword? • The contentious statement? • The main catchy title – colon – then a more descriptive title? • Is it a question? • A question and an answer? Your title can be an important starting point in catching the reader’s interest, but since your first reader will be the editor, it is a good idea to model the style and content of your title closely on the limited range that appears in the journal. Remember also to put in the key words that will bring up your paper in literature searches.
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