Subject Guides: SOC/CRJ 435/535: Urban Sociology: Develop Your Topic

Nadine Anderson, Behavioral Sciences and Women's & Gender Studies Librarian

she/her/hers

Contact:

4021 CASL/1153B ML
nfanders@umich.edu

Subjects: Anthropology, Behavioral and Biological Sciences, Criminal Justice, Faculty Resources, Food Studies, Integrative Studies, LGBTQ Studies, Psychology, Sociology, Women's & Gender Studies

Strong Research Topics/Questions

A strong research topic/question covers a well-defined and well-studied area of research and is:

focused
clear and simple
manageable
consistent with assignment requirements
of interest to you

Developing Your Problem & Solution

Step 1: Choose an issue or problem that interests you

Step 2: Do some exploratory research to:

identify the broader patterns and issues of the problem
identify the impacts of this problem and why they're important

Step 3: Use the information from your exploratory research to:

Identify a specific problem and build your arguments for why it's important
build a policy that's a potential solution to this problem

Step 4: Do more in-depth research to build your proposed policy and build your arguments for why this problem is important and impactful

Write about what interests you: Professors want students to write about issues that they care about. If you're interested in the issues you've selected, it will be more fun for you to write your Inequality Paper, and probably more fun for Dr. Draus to read it, too.

Ask Dr. Draus for feedback on your problem and proposed legal reform

Picking Your Topic IS Research

Once you've picked a research topic for your paper, it isn't set in stone. It's just an idea that you will test and develop through exploratory research. This exploratory research may guide you into modifying your original idea for a research topic. Watch this video for more info: