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ASIAN/RELIG ST 405: Gods and Goddesses (Spring 2024) : Identify & Develop a Topic

Identify and Develop Your Topic

The first step in the research process is to identify a topic.

To identify a topic:

  • Consult your syllabus, lecture notes, and course readings
  • Discuss topic ideas with your instructor and/or librarians

To develop your topic:

  • State your topic as a question
  • Identify the main concepts of your topic or question
  • Keep a list of keywords to use as search terms
  • Use the keywords to search library resources to find background information, books, and articles

Search Tips

To find books and articles in library resources (the Library Catalog and article databases), you will need to:

  • Come up with keywords for your topic - think of nouns or noun phrases
  • Think of synonyms for your keywords because authors and databases may use different words to describe your topic
  • Combine your words with AND or OR
    • Use AND to combine different concepts to narrow your search
      • Natraja AND Destruction
    • Use OR to combine similar concepts or variations of words to broaden your search
      • Destruction OR Rebirth
      • Shiva OR Siva
  • Use the limits or filters (for example, type of source, date of publication, language) in library resources to narrow your search