Edens Learning Commons: Criminal Justice: How to focus a topic

Approaches to focusing your topic

Too Big!

Just Right!

Too Narrow!

Requires a book to answer well

So much to cover that you only can address generalities

Pre-research yields thousands of results

Can address the topic within the assignment parameters

Can say something interesting and concise

Pre-research yields 50-100 results

Can be answered with "yes" or "no" or a quick Google search

So narrow that there is little to say

Pre-research yields a handful of sources

Examples:

What are the ethical implications of using nuclear power?

What is the role of cloud computing in commerce, corporate data management, and what is their impact on environmental sustainability?

Example:

What are the implications for local residents of restarting the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor to power Microsoft data centers

Examples:

Is the decommissioned Three Mile Island nuclear reactor safe to use?

What do Microsoft data centers support?

Once you have identified a broad topic area, you may benefit from learning more about it and seeing what has been published as a way to help you narrow your topic. Here are some great sources to learn more about your topic and what it involves:

Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window
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Features viewpoint articles, topic overviews and other sources on contemporary issues. Helps students research, analyze and organize a broad variety of data for conducting research, completing writing assignments, preparing for debates, creating presentations and more.
Content Includes:
- Pro/con viewpoint essays
- Topic overviews
- More than 300 primary source documents
- Biographies of social activists and reformers
- Court-case overviews
- Periodical articles
- Statistical tables, charts and graphs
- Images and a link to Google Image Search
- Podcasts, including weekly presidential addresses and premier NPR programs
- A national and state curriculum standards search, correlated to the content that allows educators to quickly identify material by grade and discipline
Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
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An easy to use tool for beginning research projects and homework. A giant online collection that searches hundreds of encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, quotations and subject specific titles as well as 200,000+ images and audio files and nearly 100 videos.

It can also be helpful to discover what has already been published, either in scholarly publications or books. Searching for book reviews can be a great way to survey the contents of books before you read them so you can target the best sources!

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Designed for academic institutions, this multi-disciplinary database is a leading resource for scholarly research with access to 5,500+ full-text journals. It supports high-level research in the key areas of academic study by providing journals, periodicals, reports, books and more.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Access full text of journal articles (not including the most recent 2-6 years) as well as books and book chapters in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
Semantic Scholar This link opens in a new window
AI-powered research tool for reference resources. Specifically aimed to scientific literature.
eBook Collection This link opens in a new window
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Search and view the full text of eBooks.
ProQuest Ebook Central This link opens in a new window
Funded by the PASCAL consortium, this collection of academic ebooks covers all subject areas. Page limits for printing and downloading vary by title and apply per book per user session.

If you are working with a topic related to a specific place or an event/issue that has broad interest, reading newspaper articles can be helpful in identifying why it mattered to people, how it affected communities, or other aspects of common life and interest.

Newsbank This link opens in a new window
Newspaper Source Plus This link opens in a new window
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More than 860 full-text newspapers, providing more than 35 million full-text articles. In addition, the database features more than 857,000 television and radio news transcripts.
Newspapers Include:
- Christian Science Monitor
- The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
- The Times (UK)
- Toronto Star
- USA Today
- The Washington Post
- The Washington Times (DC) and others.
- The Philadelphia Inquirer
- Houston Chronicle
- Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Regional Business News This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive full text coverage for regional business publications, incorporating coverage of more than 80 regional business publications covering all metropolitan and rural areas within the United States.
Content Includes:
- Full-text for 106 regional U.S. and Canadian business publications
- Full-text coverage dating back to 1990
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Explore more than 17,000 news, business, and legal sources, including regional, national, and international newspapers.
Historic American Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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Powered by Chronicling America, a joint project of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress to provide digital access to select historic newspapers.
Details:
Page images from selected historic newspapers of 25 states and the District of Columbia, published from 1836-1922
Includes 34 historic South Carolina newspapers published in Anderson, Anderson Court House, Bennettsville, Charleston, Columbia, Edgefield, Georgetown, Laurens, Orangeburg, Orangeburg Court House, Pickens Court House, Rock Hill, Sumter, and Sumterville
Searchable by date and keyword
Viewing options include PDF images, downloadable images, text only, and persistent links for sharing
Includes a searchable and browsable directory of U.S. newspapers from 1690-present

Ask questions of your topic to increase the focus

One approach:

What is relevant about the topic? Why?
Why does this topic matter? How is it meaningful?
What is interesting about the topic? To whom?

Another approach:

Move from a b r o a d e r topic to a narrower topic

Ask questions to add specifics
Who?	Who is impacted or affected by the topic? Who are the major figures involved in the topic?
What?	What are the major issues related to the topic? What aspects of life or society does the topic affect? What impacts on social justice relate to the topic? What actions are people taking related to the topic?
When?	When was the topic important? How does comparing time periods add focus?
Where?	At what level of governmental unit is your topic important (local, regional, national, international)? What specific places are involved or important landmarks?
Why?	Why are you interested in the topic? What are the opinions about the topic? Why is the topic important or meaningful?
How?	How does the topic affect people, places, or things? What actions are important to take or avoid relative to the topic? How can people influence policy or the future of the topic?

Criminal Justice: How to focus a topic

Approaches to focusing your topic

Two questions!

Research & Instruction Librarian

J. Drake Edens Library

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