Need Help?
Need more help? McMaster Library is happy to help you at any stage of your research process!
Live chat with Ask a Librarian
Starting Your Research
A great research topic is relevant to your course, broadens your understanding, and sparks your interest.
Depending upon whether you are provided with a specific question or a broad area by your instructor, you may want to begin by narrowing down your topic. “Women in Scotland” is too big, but you could ask “how did witch trials in 16th century Scotland affect the role of women in their communities?” A paper on “wolves” would lack focus, but an essay on “how does the re-introduction of wolves affect biodiversity?” asks a specific question.
As you streamline your focus, you want to ask yourself: “Can I answer this question in [5, 10, 15] pages?” Your topic should be broad enough that you can find enough sources to support your argument, but narrow enough that you are able to provide a fulsome discussion within your assignment’s word or page limit.
Begin by consulting more general sources, which may include encyclopedias, reference books, or even Google and Wikipedia, to understand key ideas or points of contention related to your topic. Keep track of important events, scholars, and terms as you read.
Use this worksheet to brainstorm your keywords and concepts as you conduct your preliminary search.
Once you have a research topic or question, you can begin searching the library catalogue. Unlike a search engine such as Google, entering your full question will not return quality results. Based on your background reading, you should be able to identify recurring terms or phrases that are part of the scholarly conversation surrounding your topic.
Try to include possible variations and synonyms in your search. For example, when conducting a search for information about wolves, you would want to search “wolf” OR “wolves” OR “canis lupus” in order to capture as much relevant material as possible. You can also use an asterisk*, which acts as a wildcard to include all possible endings to a word. For example, a search for librar* would capture results for library, libraries, librarian, librarians, etc.
Once you’ve found a source that is relevant to your search, scroll down on the discovery page to the “Subject” section. Not only can you click on each subject to view other materials also catalogued using those terms, but this section is a great resource for finding different keywords for your search.
Popular sources are the kind you would find through an average search engine, by reading a newspaper or magazine, or consulting a video or webpage. They are intended to be consumed by an average person, usually for entertainment purposes, rather than an expert. They may provide little or no information about the author, or where their information comes from.
A popular source: a short BBC video on Scottish witchcraft trials
Scholarly sources are written by researchers, scholars, and academics, to share original research or critique the research of a colleague. The author and their professional affiliations will be easily identifiable; the source will contain detailed information on purpose and methodology, as well as a list of citations or references to support their claims and credit other scholars.
A scholarly source: a database compiled by researchers from the University of Edinburgh
The peer review process ensures the quality of scholarly sources by subjecting submissions to a process of quality control before publication in a scholarly journal. There are several different kinds of peer review, in which the author, journal editors, and reviewers are provided with varying amounts of information about each other. For more information about the different kinds of peer review and their pros and cons, consult Wiley’s peer review guide.
A peer-reviewed source: a journal article published in Canadian Journal of History
It is important to use scholarly or peer reviewed sources in your course work to ensure that the information you include is accurate and accepted within your field of study. While scholarly and peer reviewed sources may not be perfect, popular sources are more likely to contain inaccurate, biased, or unreliable information or information taken out of context.