Browse the extensive list of current issues to select a topic, read issue overviews to get background information and focus your topic, and find sources to cite in your speech. Most topics have photos and/or infographics.
A new in-depth report on a topic each week. Click into a broad subject area to see recent reports in that area. Each report includes an overview, pro/con section, photos & graphics, and links to further reading.
Articles from encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference sources from all subject areas. Includes images, audio pronunciation files, maps, and data tables.
Collection of encyclopedias, dictionaries and handbooks covering a variety of subject areas.
Articles from encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference sources from all subject areas. Includes quotations, maps, and illustrations.
What particular aspect(s) of your topic do you want to focus on? For example, if you're writing about police reform, you could focus on training, laws, or the use of technologies like body cameras.
Who or what group of people do you want to focus on, specifically? Think of certain populations such as college students, Hispanic women, Millenials, people with disabilities, U.S. veterans, etc.
Is there a specific time period you want to cover such as the past 5 years, the year 2020, the 1970s, or the 1800s? Keep in mind that it will be difficult to cover the entire history of a topic in a single research paper.
Think about locations, settings, or environments that you might want to focus on such as Pennsylvania, the Middle East, urban high schools, or nursing homes (note that your topic may involve more than one place).
Example that is too broad: Charter Schools.
Example that is too narrow: Charter school attendance by the children of Pennsylvania state senators.
Example that is just right: The differences between how republican and democratic state senators vote on charter school laws.
There is a tendency for people to type general questions into a database and hope for the best. While this barely works for Google, it definitely doesn't work well with the databases. By identifying the more narrow parts of your initial question you will get more meaningful results. Here is an example of how you can break down a general question into it's narrower concepts.
I am not a bee expert, so there are multiple places I can look for answers. If I choose AccessScience (because bees are related to a science) and type in bees disappearing, I find this article titled "Colony Collapse Disorder"
From this article, I can answer some questions I didn't even know I had.
| General Term | What I didn't know before | Better Choice |
|---|---|---|
| bees | What kind of bees? | adult honeybees |
| disappearing | Is there a term scientists use for this? | "Colony Collapse Disorder" |
| why | What explanations exist? | pesticides |
From here I can adjust my original question about why bees are disappearing (the result) to identify a cause and use more narrow language.
