This week you’re going to take a few more steps towards creating an annotated bibliography by finalizing your research topic and writing your research question. Read Module 1 of your textbook, and watch . Last week, you were asked to start thinking about the topic you’d like to choose for your annotated bibliography. You can refer to the list of possible research topics if you need help thinking of a topic. After reading Module 1 of your textbook and watching Picking Your Topic IS Research, you learned that you should do some research on the topics that you are considering to learn more about your topic and check out the sources that are available. If you haven’t yet done any background research on the topics you are considering, you should do that now. This is the point in the research process when it is acceptable to use Wikipedia or other general reference works like encyclopedias and almanacs. can help you get started. Choosing your research topic is the next step. Remember that you will be working with this topic for the rest of this class, so you should choose something that you find interesting. It
is recommended that you choose a topic you would like to investigate related to your major. The next step is to do some brainstorming about your topic. Brainstorming will help you think about your topic from different angles and consider different aspects of your topic. There are a number of different brainstorming methods, like , , and creating concept maps using websites like and . You can use any of these tools, or you can just put pencil to paper and let the ideas flow. The last step this week is to consider and write your research questions and reflect on the process. You must create at least three research questions that are open-ended; address a controversy, issue, or problem; and address your topic in a way that you can take a stand. Writing an open-ended question is sometimes a challenge so take a look at the handout before you get started. Then, you will reflect on the process of doing background research and refining your topic. Note: You are only required to submit the Writing Your Research Question worksheet this week. Carefully review the for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.