Your topic should facilitate a critical approach that integrates some of the theories covered in your course.
Your research topic may be born through different channels:
Your research question will be related to your topic. This question usually answers a matter that has not been covered by previous scholarship.
Developing Research Questions: Your Purpose
Consider where your questions will lead you. Will your questions:
Background sources are really helpful at the beginning stages of your research process. These sources will give us ideas for research topics and keywords and even provide further information that may be useful.
Keywords and related terms are those words and phrases that are related to the topic of your research. These terms may be synonymous with a word or a related term. We use keywords to enhance our searches and gather as much scholarship as we can in relation to a topic.
Look at the example below and see how these words are related to my topic:
My topic: Cameroonian Dramatists: Theatrical Expression through Comedy and Ritual Theatre
Keywords: | Related terms |
Cameroon | |
University | higher education |
theatre | francophone theater - plays - playwright |
Guillaume Oyono-Mbia | dramatist; bilingual writer |
Comedies | Trois prétendants…un mari (1962); Le Train spécial de son excellence (1978); Notre fille ne see mariera pas! (1969) |
Themes: youth versus adult; modernity versus tradition | |
analysis: character, staging, dialogue, narrative, performance (on stage or radio) | |
Côte d’Ivoire | theatre companies: Atelier Théâtre Attoungblan; Sekedoua Company |
Nicole Wéré-Wéré Liking | Ki-Yi Mbock Theatre (Liking formed this group in Côte d’Ivoire) - "ritual theatre" |
La puissance de Um (1979) and Une nouvelle terre (1980) | |
African ritual theatre: used music and dance | |
analysis: character, staging, dialogue, narrative, performance |
Boolean operators help you connect, expand or exclude your searches.
Guillaume Oyono-Mbia AND independence movements
Guillaume Oyono-Mbia AND bilingualism
Anne Ubersfeld AND Lire le théâtre AND semiotics
Gustave Akakpo AND drama OR "Théâtre togolais de langue française"
"post-colonial dramatists" OR "Togolese playwrights" AND Gustave Akapko NOT Kangni Alemdjrodo
Slimane Benaïssa AND theatre AND exile AND trauma OR algerian people