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Guide
Home >> Refine
your topic
Are
you finding too much information about your topic?
Are
you not finding enough information on your topic?
Too
much information - Narrowing the scope of your topic
One
of the most common problems in research is that you find too much
information on your topic. It can be difficult to select the most
relevant items for your project. Narrowing your topic will make
your results list more manageable.
Here
are some options to consider when narrowing the scope of your
paper:
| Theoretical Approach |
Limit your topic to a particular approach to the issue.
Example: if your topic concerns cloning, examine the theories surrounding of the high rate of failures in animal cloning. |
| Aspect or Subarea |
Consider only one piece of the subject.
Example: if your topic is human cloning, investigate government regulation of cloning. |
| Time |
Limit the time span you examine.
Example: For a topic in genetics, contrast public attitudes in the 1950's versus the 1990's. |
| Population Group |
Limit by age, sex, race, occupation, species or ethnic group.
Example: For a topic in genetics examine specific traits as they affect women over 40 years of age. |
| Geographic Location |
A geographic analysis can provide a useful means to examine an issue.
Example: if your topic concerns cloning, investigate cloning practices in Europe or the Middle East. |
Not
enough information - Broadening the scope of your topic
There
are several common reasons you might not be finding much information
on your topic:
| Your topic is too specific. |
Generalize what you are looking for.
Example: if your original topic is genetic diversity for a specific ethnic group in Ghana, Africa, broaden your topic by generalizing to all ethnic groups in Ghana or in West Africa. |
| Your topic is too new for anything substantive to have been written. |
If your topic is about a recently breaking news event, you are likely to only find information about it in the news media. Be sure to search in databases that contain articles from newspapers. If you are not finding enough information in the news media, consider changing your topic to one that has been covered more extensively. |
| You have checked one or two databases or sources for information. |
Use Vera to find other databases that are available in your subject area. They might cover the topic from a different perspective. Also, be sure to use excellent searching techniques to ensure you are getting the most out of every database. |
| You're using less common words or too much jargon to describe your topic. |
Use a thesaurus to find other terms to represent your topic. When reading background information on your topic, note how your topic is expressed in these materials. What words do they use to describe the topic? When you find citations in an article database see how the topic is expressed by experts in the field. |
Example:
Below
is an example article citation from the BIOSIS Previews database.
Places where additional descriptors can be found are shown.
Incorporate the words from these descriptors into your search.
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