Going from a broad topic idea to a focused research question requires some preliminary research and analysis to help you gain enough understanding of your topic for you to do effective in-depth research on it. On this page, you'll find links to resources to help you learn more about your topic, brainstorming techniques, and tips for formulating search terms. When you're ready to search, head over to the Finding Scholary Sources tab.
Once you have a topic, you'll need to do some research to figure out what aspects of it you want to focus on and how you want to proceed with your research and your paper or project. Try out one or more of the techniques below to help you develop your ideas:
Britannica Academic contains both the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, as well as magazine and journal articles written by Pulitzer Prize winners and leading experts, a world atlas, country data, and timelines. This resource is freely available to all residents of the State of Alabama. Please contact the AVL helpdesk for any assistance.
Gale Virtual Reference Library is a database of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.
Once you've developed your idea through brainstorming and preliminary research in one or more reference resources, look back at the work you've done and pick out a few key terms that you think might be useful to help you find more resources when you search Scout or another database.
A few tips for finding resources: