Refine

Be prepared to be flexible with your research question or thesis.

If you find too much information, your topic/thesis may be too broad. You will need to narrow or focus it.

If you are finding very little information, your topic/thesis may be too specific, narrow, specialized or current. With a topic that's too narrow, it may be difficult to find enough information to write your paper.

Narrow

Narrow Your Topic
Time	Modern time period vs. historical perspective
Location	Town, city, state, nation, country
Population	Age, race, gender, nationality, ethnic group, occupation
Event or Aspect	Focus on an event within your topic: sexual discrimination prevention. Or consider a particular aspect: historical, sociological, psychological
Person or Group	Related to your topic: military, adolescents, poor, whites, Latinos, African Americans

Broaden

Broaden Your Topic
Generalize	Generalize your topic, or explore related topics or issues. If your topic is the gender pay inequality in professional occupations in Lebanon county, PA, consider expanding that to explore gender pay inequality in management.
Currency	If your topic has just occurred, there won't be books or journal articles available just yet. Choose an alternative topic that is not so recent.
Database Choice	Use other databases in your subject area, or consider checking databases in a related subject area (which might cover the topic from a different perspective, for example, education, psychology, criminal justice).
Synonyms	Use a thesaurus to find synonyms for your topic. When reading background information, note how your topic is expressed in these materials. When you find citations in an article database, note the terms being used by experts in the field.
Related	Explore related issues--what are some solutions to gender pay inequality?
Expand Remove	Expand or remove: location, time period, aspect, event, population, person/group.

Broaden Your Topic

Generalize

Generalize your topic, or explore related topics or issues. If your topic is the gender pay inequality in professional occupations in Lebanon county, PA, consider expanding that to explore gender pay inequality in management.

Currency

If your topic has just occurred, there won't be books or journal articles available just yet. Choose an alternative topic that is not so recent.

Database Choice

Use other databases in your subject area, or consider checking databases in a related subject area (which might cover the topic from a different perspective, for example, education, psychology, criminal justice).

Synonyms

Use a thesaurus to find synonyms for your topic. When reading background information, note how your topic is expressed in these materials. When you find citations in an article database, note the terms being used by experts in the field.

Related

Explore related issues--what are some solutions to gender pay inequality?

Expand Remove

Expand or remove: location, time period, aspect, event, population, person/group.