Developing+a+research+topic

It can be challenging, once you have a research idea, to know where to go next, to begin develop the "idea" into a "topic". A good place to start is simply by building a bibliography of scholarly works on your topic, more narrowly-delineated in whatever ways you can. Then you can start reading-through and taking notes upon those sources.

To build the bibliography: * Go through the bibliographies of any articles or books already know and add to your new bibliography any sources that seem as if they would be relevant. * Read the Oxford Grove dictionary article on your topic (find the appropriate sub-sections); access this online source via the http://library.ttu.edu site. Take notes on the article and add items from its bibliography to your own reading list. * Run keyword searches (multiple operators are a good idea, as otherwise the results are likely to be too extensive) on JSTOR, the online full-text database also available through the above TTU Library site. Find articles that are relevant, take notes upon them, and add them to your bibliography.

In such research, the major and most important task is to inform yourself about *existing scholarship*--that is how you will know (a) the major scholarly questions, and (b) what work has already been done upon which your own can build. Creating a bibliography can be a good way to start this process.

NB: the above is also a very viable method for more generalized study on a given topic, even if no research writing is planned.