LibGuides: OnRamps Rhetoric Research Guide: Choose and Develop your Topic

Explore Topics and Find Background Information

Choosing a narrow research topic is usually the most difficult part of the research process.

Use these resources to learn more about who cares about your topic (who is impacted) and why they care about your topic.

What investments do people have in this topic?

What is controversial?

What solutions are people coming up with?

What new keywords are you learning from experts and stakeholders?

Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Encyclopedias.
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
SAGE Knowledge This link opens in a new window
This database allows you to limit to Debates which offer point/counterpoint essays written by experts.
Platform for Sage eBook and eReference content, including scholarly monographs, reference works, handbooks, series, professional development titles, and more. Only select ebook titles purchased by the UT Libraries are fully accessible.
For more information on ebooks see the Ebook Guide
Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window
Encyclopedia articles, news, scholarship and viewpoint essays.
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.

Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints - What will I find here?
You'll find multiple viewpoints on an issue in essays- rarely just pro and con.
These essays are excerpted from a source (journal, magazine, newspaper, report, government publication, website, blog, etc.). The articles are rarely strict reproductions of the original source -- they have been trimmed down considerably, edited, reformatted, and section titles have often been added that were not in the original document.
You'll also find journal articles, news articles, statistics and more.

How do I find the original document?
At the end of every entry you will see the citation:

Now I know that this essay was published first in the Huffington Post under a different title. I can find that original article if I like and read the whole thing.