Consult your syllabus (or other source) for details on your research assignment/paper. Choose a topic that fits within the parameters of the assignment.

When trying to come up with a topic, think about what you've read so far in class and if anything seemed particularly interesting or pertinent to your own experiences. Another way to spice up a topic is to use controversial, argument or similar word as a keyword while searching concepts.

If you're somewhat unfamiliar with a topic, it can be worth your while to do a little reference reading first. Get an overview of the subject so that you feel more comfortable researching and writing about it. You can consult Wikipedia (but never cite it as a source unless your professor explicitly says otherwise) or take a look at Reference books in the library's collection -- we have both print and electronic books for your perusal.

As you learn more about your topic, think about a few ways you can take it in certain directions - geographical, time period, population, sociological concept, and so on. You'll also want to keep the assignment in mind and constantly tailor your ideas to suit the assignment.

Finally, it's important to realize that you may not always find articles that are directly relevant to your topic. This is pretty common. The remedy is to adjust your topic to fit your sources, or perhaps make your topic a little broader. You may want to consult with your professor if your topic seems too difficult.

Asterisk (Shift-8 on a computer keyboard) is the wildcard; it will help you find different versions of a root word.

Example:

child*

searches child, children, childhood, child's childish, children's, etc.

Quotation marks "" force the database to search words as a phrase, instead of finding them both together and in unconnected ways.

Example:

"domestic violence" searches only those instances of domestic violence as a phrase.

searching just domestic violence without quotes "" will find all instances of domestic, violence, and domestic violence.