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 not covered by previous scholarship.
Developing Research Questions: Your Purpose
Consider where your questions will lead you. Will your question lead you to:
Background sources are beneficial at the beginning stages of your research process. Encyclopedias, dictionaries, and even Wikipedia are traditional background sources that we usually do not cite in our final project. These sources will give us ideas for research topics, keywords and even provide further information that may be useful.
Example taken from the reading: The Ordinariness of the Archive
Keyword | Related Terms |
Archive | literalism: centers of storage, depository, repository; mnemotechnological invention |
Authors | Jacqueline Rose, Michel Foucalt, Even Derrida |
Access | control over access, private archives, royal memory (Le Goff), totalitarian archive, modern notion of the public |
memory | status of the past, preservation |
credibility | representation, interpretation, questions of identity, evidence, authenticity |