The best place to start a research project is at your desk. There you can think about the assignment and devise a plan for completing it. This section describes several tasks that you should accomplish before you begin your research. (See Figure 22.1).

Before you begin researching an assigned topic, be sure you understand your instructor’s expectations. Often the assignment will be written on the syllabus. Read the assignment carefully, noting all the requirements, which may include the following:

If your instructor announces the assignment in class, write down what he or she says, including as many details as possible. Sometimes instructors make “model papers” available for students to consult. Don’t miss any opportunity to learn from, and be inspired by, these models.

Often major research projects are announced the first week of class. Because a large research project is a major undertaking, your professor is trying to give you as much time as possible to think about, plan, write, and revise your paper. As you proceed through the course, create a schedule for deciding on a topic, conducting the research, writing your first draft, revising your paper, ensuring your citations follow the required format exactly, and polishing your paper. You might build time into your schedule to discuss your ideas or share your drafts with friends or classmates or to get feedback from a writing center tutor.

Do not wait until the last minute to begin a research project! Writing a research project is a multistep process; it is likely to be a large part of your final grade, so put your best foot forward and devote the time necessary to making it the best it can be.

Most instructors allow you to choose your own topic for a research project. You will save time in the long run if you spend enough time at the outset choosing a topic that is both interesting and workable. Too many students waste hours researching a topic that they finally realize is too difficult, broad, or ordinary. The following tips will help you avoid such pitfalls.

To write effectively, you must narrow your topic enough that you can explore it thoroughly in the space allowed. The following techniques will help you narrow your topic as well as discover ideas about it. (For more on narrowing a topic and discovering ideas, see Chapter 5.)

Do some preliminary reading. To get a sense of the scope, depth, and breadth of your topic, as well as to identify more manageable subtopics, you might skim an article on your topic in a general encyclopedia, such as Encyclopaedia Britannica, or in a specialized encyclopedia, such as The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. Searching for your topic in your library’s holdings, in a specialized database such as the weekly CQ Researcher (which contains thousands of articles on current topics) or even Google can also help you identify the subtopics into which a topic can be broken. You can also ask a reference librarian for assistance.

Try prewriting. To uncover an interesting angle on your topic or to narrow a broad topic, use one or more prewriting techniques. A branching diagram may be particularly helpful in narrowing a topic. The questioning technique, which challenges you to see your topic from different perspectives — psychological, sociological, scientific or technical, historical, political, and economic — can help you find an interesting subtopic or get an interesting angle. Here is how one student used questioning to analyze different perspectives on television advertising.

TOPIC: TELEVISION ADVERTISING

This list of questions yielded a wide range of interesting subtopics about advertising, including emotional appeals, targeting ads to specific racial or ethnic groups, and negative political advertising. You might work with a friend or classmate to devise and answer questions.

Once you have chosen and narrowed a topic, try to determine, as specifically as possible, the kinds of information you need to know about it. Begin by writing a working thesis for your paper and listing the research questions you need to answer. (For more on drafting and revising a thesis statement, see Chapter 6.)

For example, one student working on the general topic of child abuse used prewriting and preliminary reading to narrow his focus to physical abuse and its causes. Since he already had a few ideas about possible causes, he used those ideas to write a working thesis. He then used his thesis to generate a list of research questions. Notice how the student’s questions follow from his working thesis.

A working thesis and a list of research questions will help you approach your research in a focused way. Instead of running helter-skelter from one aspect of your topic to another, you will be able to identify the specific information you need from sources.