Skip to Main Content

GC1Y 1000 - The History Of Rock & Roll

Choosing a Topic

Where to start?

Start by thinking about topics that have come up in class discussions, have been assigned as readings, or that interest you. You can also check popular journals in the discipline for ideas.

Generating Keywords

Brainstorm Synonyms for Keywords (Example)

  • Organization, Leadership, Motivation, Planning, Information systems, Total quality management, Behavior, Strategy 
  • Business Ethics, Business Management, Industrial management, Success in business, Organizational change, Organizational effectiveness, Interorganizational relations

Combine Keywords

  • Broad Search: Use only the most predominant term for your topic to find general summary information.
  • Specific Search: Combine several key concept terms for a search to retrieve information to support a thesis statement.

Narrow or Expand your Topic

A topic that is too broad will lead to fragmented and incohesive research.

You can narrow a topic by limiting the scope to a specific:

  • Consumer topic (behavior, satisfaction, population)
  • Aspect of the marketing mix (price, product, placement, promotion)
  • Advertising type (social media, traditional media)

If you are having trouble narrowing the scope of your research topic, review background information about your topic using an encyclopedia, Wikipedia, or Google. These sources of background information are not considered scholarly sources, but they can be helpful to find ways to narrow your topic. 

A topic that is too narrow will lead to frustration during the search phase when the "No results were found." message is the only result.

You can broaden your topic by expanding or eliminating limits like:

  • Consumer topic (behavior, satisfaction, population)
  • Aspect of the marketing mix (price, product, placement, promotion)
  • Advertising type (social media, traditional media)

If you are having trouble expanding the scope of your research topic, review background information about your topic using an encyclopedia, Wikipedia, or Google. These sources of background information are not considered scholarly sources, but they can be helpful to find ways to expand the scope of your topic. 

Scholarly vs Popular sources