Skip to Main Content

HHS/SOC 440/540: Medical Sociology

Summary assignment help

Librarian for Education, Health & Human Services (CEHHS)

Profile Photo
Raya Samet
she/her
Schedule a consultation
Contact:
ML 1252
M, Th, F (Summer 24)
M, Tu, W (Fall/Winter 24-25)
313-593-4936
Website

Strong Research Topics/Questions

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

Strong research topics/questions are:

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

Developing Your Research Topics & Questions

A broad topic has literally thousands of articles on it, and you won't be able to adequately cover it in your paper. It will be far easier for you to research and write your paper if you develop a strong, focused research question or topic:

Do some exploratory research on your topic idea, in your course textbook, class notes, and Summon to identify specific issues, arguments, and analytical approaches in your research area and then identify possible relationships between them. 

Ask yourself questions about your topic idea. What concepts, issues, or other aspects of this topic interest you? What have people said about it? What gaps, contradictions, or concerns arise as you learn more about it? What relationships are there between different aspects of the topic?

Focus your topic: Use the information from your exploratory research to identify a few of the specific aspects that interest you and then use the questions you had about those to create your focused research topic or question.

Choose a current topic: Your goal is to summarize and evaluate current findings of an area of research. Pick a research topic about which articles are continuing to be published. Avoid defunct or little-known areas of research. 

Write about what interests you: Professors want students to write about topics that they care about. If you're interested in the topic, it will be more fun for you to write your paper and probably more fun for your professor to read it, too.

Ask your professor for feedback on your research topic or question.

Example

General topic: health care disparities

Do some preliminary research: I search for health care disparities in Summon and scan the search hits to see what issues around health care disparities interest me

Focus your topic: I write down specific, topical issues about health care disparities that interest me as I'm scanning through the articles:

  • specific disparitites like gender, race, geography, socioeconomic status
  • specific effects like mortality and incidence rates, health care access or treatment inequalities
  • specific health issues like infant mortality, obesity

Research Question: What policies have an effect on racial disparities in infant mortality? 

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:

University of Michigan - Dearborn Logo
  • 4901 Evergreen Road
    Dearborn, MI 48128, USA
  • Phone: 313-593-5000
  • Contact us