LibGuides: Beginning Your Research @ Your Library : Select a Topic

What are you curious about?

This may seem kind of obvious, but it is important to select a topic that interests you. Sometimes your professor will provide you with a list of topics while other times you will be on your own to choose! Is there a social issue that you care deeply about? Is there something that you are experiencing personally that could link to your coursework? Are you interested in a particular country or culture? What are your hobbies and passions - can you connect them to your assignment? Consider these types of questions as you decide on your topic to research.

young woman with long hair wearing jeans and a jean jacket sitting cross legged with books in her lap in a thinking pose with her hand by her face, looking up

Resources for Brainstorming

If you need help selecting a topic, try some brainstorming. You can:

Talk with your friends and classmates
Chat with your instructor
Ask a librarian!

The library also subscribes to resources that are great to use for brainstorming for topic ideas.

Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints is a rich resource for debaters and includes over 20,000 pro/con viewpoints, approximately 19,000 reference articles, interactive maps, infographics, and more. View tutorial:
A category on the National Debate Topic provides quick and easy access to content on frequently studied and discussed issues. Periodical content covers current events, news and commentary, economics, environmental issues, political science, and more.
National Geographic Virtual Library This link opens in a new window
Magazine archive of National Geographic magazine in full color, 1888-1994. View Tutorial:
Search features include browse, advanced, image search, and term frequency searches. Citation tools, email, and document URL available. If you create an account with the virtual library there are additional features including bookmarking and saving favorite documents. National Geographic is also available in other databases and in the Egan Library.
Newsbank This link opens in a new window
This database includes articles from Alaska newspapers and news sources from around the world. Browse the "Hot Topics" and "Special Reports" from the left-hand sidebar to get some topic ideas.
In Access World News Collection explore issues and events at the local, regional, national and international level. Search diverse source types include print and online-only newspapers, blogs, newswires, journals, broadcast transcripts and videos. You may also go directly to search: "America's News Magazines," Alaska News, the World, Major Metro Titles, or the United States. Updated daily.

Google News
Okay, so the library doesn't subscribe to this :) It's Google's free product of top news stories updated regularly. Browse through the news to find and event that sparks your interest!

Activities to help you choose and focus your topic

Mind Mapping Your Topic
This awesome, interactive tutorial from the University of Arizona Library walks you through mapping your topic to explore relationships between concepts and come up with some good keywords to use when you start searching for information.

Developing Your Topic
Using this activity you can focus your topic and start listing keywords that describe your topic.