What is Research?
Research is about forming a valuable or important question and then exploring it. Sometimes your exploration will lead you to a claim or argument (your thesis statement in an argumentative essay), but sometimes you will find more questions and your project will be about explaining your questions and how you examined them. Your professor will let you know in your assignment whether you should be making an argument or focusing on exploring.
You can think about research in a few ways: as detective work (solving a mystery), as exploration, as discovery. Regardless of how you choose to think about it, research involves
Your assignment will give you guidelines within which you must work. However, you will always need to have your own voice, ideas, and opinions. As you figure out what your topic is, think about what is most interesting to you. What sparks your curiosity? What part do you keep going back to because you have questions, are confused and intrigued, want to know more?
It is important that you are interested in your topic. Research is iterative and takes time. You are going to have to find sources and learn and rework your own ideas. You are going to have to do that again and again. Find something you are interested in so that you enjoy the time you spend on it.
Once you have your topic, you need to understand it better, and sometimes you have to narrow it down. We can ask questions like where, what group of people, why, to help us narrow down.
For example, if you want to write about education in Boston, that is huge. You can ask questions to get at a narrower and clearer topic: what kinds of schools? What age students? What about education? All students or a certain group of students? What matters to you about education in Boston? Why does it matter? You might end up with a topic more along the following lines: Does private education in Boston increase stress in high school students?
Background Research
As you begin your research, getting the basics of your topic will be helpful. Doing background research can help you discover additional terms you can use to search, and can more easily answer some of the questions you are asking yourself as you try to narrow down your topic. Encyclopedias, bibliographies, and reference works can help you get this background information.
Oxford Bibliographies Online can be especially helpful because it provides an overview of a topic as well as links to sources that you might want to use in your project. Britannica will give you an overview of ideas, events, and people.
Refining Your Topic
Do not be afraid to change or adjust your topic as you research. Often you will discover an angle or idea that is interesting to you that you want to focus on instead of your earlier idea. This is a reason to get started with the research process early so you have time to adjust your topic.
Meet with a Librarian
Throughout your entire research process you can meet with a librarian or email us. A favorite part of our job is working with you and we are happy to meet anytime from when you're brainstorming your topic all the way until when you are thinking about how to cite the sources you've found as you complete your project. Also know we are happy to meet with you more than once and throughout your entire time at BC. You can find more information about meeting with us on the Get Help from Your Librarian page.
We have videos on how to search for sources and conduct research. Check them out on the Core Skills videos page for more information!
