SMAT5200: Knowing Your Profession I: Getting Started

Choosing a research topic is something that you'll do in collaboration with your professor/advisor, but can be essential to making the research process a great one.  Some things to consider when selecting the focus of your research:

• Start with a topic that interests you.
• Get Background Information (Credo Reference's Academic Core or the Library Catalog are good places to start!)
• Note keywords, names, places, organizations
• Develop your research question
• Is your research question too broad or narrow (Do some preliminary searching in our Education Research Databases, to see what information is already out there!)
• Develop a thesis statement

For example,

Topic keywords: Literacy, school librarians, school library media center

Your Research Question/Interest might be: How can a certified school librarian help create a culture of literacy in my school?

Thesis Statement: Students in schools with a certified school librarian and a well supported school library have better reading test scores than students in schools without a certified school librarian and school library.

If this is your first time working on a large research project, or if you need a little help staying on track, the Cheng Library's Assignment Calculator can be a great tool for you!

Just enter your start and end dates and it will generate suggested deadlines for each part of the research process!

Need help with writing your paper. Try one of these resources.