Topic Development and Background Reading

Learning Objectives

After reading this module you will be able to:

Demonstrate an understanding of how to create and/or revise a research question.
Recognize the need to conduct background reading in order to gain a better understanding of your research topic as well as to identify possible search terms.
Recognize that there are a variety of electronic and print sources available to gain a better understanding of your research topic.
Critically evaluate a resource to determine its usefulness, currency, authority, validity, accuracy, and bias.

If your professor has not assigned you a research topic, then you have to select one yourself. To select a topic for your research, think about what you want to know or what question you want to answer through your research assignment.

Research is a process, and you may well need to adjust your topic as you delve further into your project. For example, you may have to broaden or narrow your research topic. The topic "Buddhism ," for instance, is too broad to be practical--you could not cover all there is to know about this topic in a typical research paper. But you can focus on a particular aspect of Buddhism that interests you and that you can research. After doing some general reading, you might become interested in the notion of rebirth as it relates to Buddhism. Thus, your research topic, expressed as a question, could be: " What role does rebirth play in the Buddhist religion?"

Preliminary exploration of your topic, or background reading, will provide you with key ideas, terminology, and dates necessary to help you refine your research topic. You may even discover as you read up on your topic that you want to go off in a different direction from your original intent, which will require you to then revise your topic.

Here are excellent background reading sources that will help you understand and refine your research topic.

Subject Encyclopedias

Subject encyclopedias:

Are specialized sources written by experts in that field
Often include bibliographies and references, which will point you in the direction of other related research
May not have been published very recently, so they may not contain information on very current topics

Listed here are possibilities based on the course focus:

Encyclopedia of Asian Philosophy
Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Encyclopedia of World Cultures

The Guide to Asian Studies Resources contains a Background Reading tab with a list of subject encyclopedias. See Search by Subject to locate a guide relevant to your research needs.

A Word About the Online Encyclopedia Wikipedia

Wikipedia can be useful when researching technology or popular culture topics that traditional encyclopedias may not cover. However, any information found in Wikipedia should always be checked against other sources (when possible, scholarly sources) to confirm its authenticity. NetLibrary, Sage Reference Online Collections, and Oxford Reference Online Premium contain many useful reference books, including subject encyclopedias, which provide reliable background information. In general, they are more trustworthy than Wikipedia.

Anyone can author Wikipedia entries. Unlike traditional encyclopedias, Wikipedia authors are not required to have any expertise in the subject they are writing on. Anyone, regardless of their knowledge of a topic or their agenda, can write for the site. Authors are rarely identified, and those who are have in some cases lied about their credentials.

Anyone can edit Wikipedia entries. Once created, entries can be changed by anyone. Those responsible for changes to entries are generally not identified in a way that would allow you to find out about their credentials.

Errors may remain uncorrected in Wikipedia. While errors in entries are often found by other users of the site and corrected, entries are not subject to a formal fact-checking process like that used by traditional encyclopedias. Many entries are never subject to any fact-checking at all.

Content changes often. Since entries can be changed by anyone, what you cite may be completely different when you submit your research paper or assignment.

More information about Wikipedia's editorial policies is available from the Policies and Guidelines page.

Generally speaking, encyclopedias and similar reference sources should not be used as a cited source in your research project. Encyclopedias should only be used to provide background reading on your topic.

E-books

You can access full-text online books on a wide variety of topics in our database NetLibrary.

catalogUSMAI

catalogUSMAI is our online library catalog, giving you access to the holdings of libraries in the University System of Maryland. If you live stateside, you can locate and request print books via catalogUSMAI. Maryland residents can have books sent to a nearby library in Maryland for pick up; if you live outside of Maryland, we will ship the books to your home, for free. For details, see Book Borrowing and Delivery.

Search the Web

UMUC Library's guide Search the Web and Evaluate Web Resources helps you use the Web in an information-literate way!
Depending on your topic, a subject-specific search engine may provide more relevant results than a general purpose search engine such as Google or Yahoo.
Make sure you evaluate the Web sites you find for reliability and credibility

Click below to watch a short video, "Evaluating Web Sites."