LibGuides: TC 302: Water, Ethics, Law and Politics / Cohen: Topic Development

Choose a topic, narrow a topic

What makes a good topic?

You want to choose a topic that is 'researchable'. That means, there is something written about this topic or aspects of this topic; people are arguing about and engaged with this topic.
You want to choose a topic that is narrow and defined enough to explore in 3000 words.

Start very broad and search these resources to learn more about your topic. You want to know:

What are the controversies surrounding your topic?
Who cares, specifically, about your topic?
What words do people use to talk about your topic? This will help you build a rich and varied keyword collection to use in searches.

Try these resources:

Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Broad encyclopedia articles. Mine these articles for keywords surrounding your topic in order to make your searches more flexible.
Updated regularly. A database of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources. Fully searchable across all files. A list of sources included in our subscription is available.
For more information on ebooks see the Ebook Guide
Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window
Please do not use the viewpoint essays in your work since they are very brief and not rich enough for deep analysis. Use them to answer the questions: What are people arguing about in my topic and who is arguing?
Updated daily. Provides full text access to differing points of view on current social issues. Brings together viewpoint articles, contextual topic overviews, government and organizational statistics, biographies of social activists, court cases, profiles of government agencies and special interest groups, newspaper and magazine articles, as well as links to more than 1,800 reviewed and subject-indexed web sites.