2B. Selecting and Refining Your Topic
When writing a paper, your topic has to be focused. If your topic is one or two words, such as "drugs" or "capital punishment," then your topic is probably too broad and general. Narrow down a general topic to a manageable focus. If it appears that there is too much information on your topic, this might be an indication that the topic needs to be narrowed down. If you find that you can't find much information on your topic, it might be too narrow.
For best results, be as specific and precise as possible with your search terms. For instance, instead of "Bush," enter "George W. Bush" to avoid getting George Herbert Bush or the bush of the Australian outback.
Let's say your topic is "cell phones." "Cell phones" is a good general starting point, but not a final topic. You could write a book about cell phones, but not a good short paper. Think of writing your paper as writing a chapter, or part of a chapter, of a book.
Ask yourself, What aspect of cell phones do I want to write about? What are the hot issues and controversies surrounding cell phones? You may narrow down the topic of cell phones to "cell phone safety." This is an improvement in getting your topic more focused.
A good way to focus on a topic is to frame it as a question or thesis statement. Ask yourself, What aspect of cell phone safety do I want to write about? For example: Do cell phones cause brain tumors? Does cell phone use when driving increase accidents? Should cell phone use in cars be banned? (By answering a topic posed as a question, you are actually creating a hypothesis or thesis, also called a thesis statement.)
After you have whittled down a general idea to a specific topic, your next step is to identify the keywords that go with that topic. The keywords are the terms and concepts you will be using when you search in a database or search engine.
Keywords are not so tricky when you realize that even infants use keywords. Infants, when they first learn to speak, do not use whole sentences, but a few "key" words. "Doggie!" may mean, "Hey, look at that dog." If you are in a foreign country with nothing but a little dictionary in your hand, one keyword can take the place of an entire sentence. Instead of saying, "Excuse me, could you tell me where the rest room is?" you could simply say, "Rest room?" and that would be enough.
When using keywords in database searching, instead of a whole sentence, you string together keywords that, in combination with each other, express a topic.
So go back to your topic question, such as "Should cell phone use in cars be banned?" Look at your question and decide which are the most important words that convey your topic. Those "most important" words are your keywords. Underline the keywords that you have posed in a question. The underlined words (or words similar or related to those in your question) will be the keywords you will use in a search in a database or search engine. In the example, our underlined topic question is, Should cell phone use in cars be banned?
Enter your underlined keywords (or other keywords that are similar or related) in a search text box when using a database:
cell phones AND cars AND banned
The "AND" is called a Boolean operator, and tells the database what separate words to search for in documents. (We all use Boolean logic without realizing it: think of the times you have ordered a pizza with instructions for the toppings.) Another helpful Boolean operator is OR, which helps you expand your search. Some databases also allow you to use parentheses to structure your search using Boolean operators, as in the following example:
(cell phones OR cellular phones) AND (banned OR outlawed) AND cars
When entering two or more words that go together in a particular order (a phrase), put them in quotations (but quotations are not necessary if the phrases are placed within parentheses):
"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration" AND "cell phones"
If you are finding too little information, you can increase your chances for success by coming up with similar and related words to your topic. You might be surprised how much you can improve your search results by playing the "word association" game. Simply use your creative mind, or a thesaurus, to come up similar and related words for a concept. Try different searches using the various words, or combine them in a single search using the OR operator. For instance:
(safety OR accidents OR hazardous) AND "cell phones" AND cars
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