Research guides: EES1128 Biophysical Interactions in Managed Environment: Narrowing Your Topic

Narrowing a Topic

This short video demonstrates to students how to develop an appropriate topic for a research paper by considering goals, approaches, topic scope and helpful resources.

(Georgian College Library, 2016)

Example: Scoping a Topic on Remediated Wastelands

Why Narrow Your Topic?

• Helps to define your topic to a manageable scope

• Allows you to identify a problem that can guide your searching

Broad Topic:

Remediated wetlands

Narrowed Topic:

Ecological diversity in remediated Ontario wetlands

Additional directions/possible sub-topics:

* Ecology of Ontario wetlands
* Ecology of remediated wetlands
* Plant health on remediated wetlands
* Ontario government policy on wetlands remediation

Concept Mapping

Some people find brainstorming techniques such as concept mapping to be helpful. Concept maps are linked nodes of concepts or ideas; the linking arrows demonstrate connections between nodes.

Source: “concept_map_lrg,” jean-louis zimmermann

There are tons of different software options available to assist with concept mapping.

Here are a few browser-based tools to get you started:

Bubble.us
Creates colourful bubbles for different concepts. Users can export their files in different formats.
Coggle
Free web based platform. Requires a Google account. Allows multiple people to collaborate on a map. Share links to maps and download/export maps as PDF or PNG file.
Mindup
Free web based platform. Does not require an account but can be added to a Google account. Multiple ways to share or export your map (can even export as a Freemind file).