John S. Bailey Library: Doing Research: Topic starters

Topic starters

Where to start your research projects in particular academic fields

Textbook: Browse your textbook. It is an excellent starting point for finding important people, theories, definitions, and questions relevant to your writing projects.
Subject guides: Browse our subject guides to find the guide, which is associated to your academic field. These guides include subject specific resources like subject encyclopedias, articles, books and datasets.
Google Scholar: Browse Google Scholar , which indexes scholarly literature like articles, theses, books, and abstracts from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities, and other websites, from a wide variety of disciplines.

Where to start for academic research & writing courses

Library databases

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Multidisciplinary full-text reference collection.

Offers access to 1126 titles of encyclopedias providing you with shorter and longer definitions, overview aricles and background information on various academic topics.

SIRS Issues Researcher

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Multidisciplinary full-text editorially curated pro/con database that deals with leading social issues.

Offers a 350+ list of trending pro/con leading topics. Topics are associated with engaging questions and viewpoint articles that could help you build solid understanding regarding complex issues.

Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints

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Multidisciplinary full-text database that includes various types of publications and presents a plethora of pro/con viewpoints.

Offers a list of topics including pro/con viewpoints, reference articles, interactive maps, infographics, and more. It provides quick and easy access to content on frequently studied and discussed issues.

Web sources

The New York Times Opinion Pages Room for Debate
In Room for Debate, New York Times invites knowledgeable outside contributors to discuss news events and other timely issues.
ProCon.org
A website offering a categorical as well as an A to Z list of debatable issues. Good for finding a topic and arguments for and against it. Each argument points to online news sources or organizations that are involved in researching these issues.
idebate.org
On this database you can find 15 broad topic areas that walk you through several debates presenting arguments and counterarguments and pointing to online popular resources.
National speech and debate association
Offers current, past, and potential topics. In some cases you will find a topic analysis providing definitions, affirmative and negative arguments and bibliographies pointing to information sources.
Pew research center
Provides a long list of issues, attitudes and trends that shape the world. For each of the topics you can find reports produced by the Pew Research Center.
Gallup.com
Offers a list of extended list of current topics for which they have conducted polls and they are providing the results.
Public Agenda
Offers free downloadable reports presenting different approaches for each issue discussed.
The Polk State Libraries: Research Topics
Offers a great variety of topics organized under broader theme areas. Each topic is associated with relevant books and ebooks that are available at this library.
Frances Willson Thompson Library
Offers a list of current and controversial issues from which you could be inspired and pick your topic.
The New York Times: 401 prompts for argumentative writing
Offers a list of prompts that touch on every aspect of contemporary life from social media to sports, politics, gender issues and school. Some of these prompts may inspire you to take a stand.

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CONTENT DETAILS
Disciplines:	Multidisciplinary
Content types:	Reference ebooks \| Images \| Videos \| etc.
Content availability:	Full text
Full text titles:	1,288
Content update frequency:	Monthly
SPECIAL FEATURES
Browsing & searching:	Images
Saving:	Google Drive \| Folder (session-based saving) \| Citation exporting
Sharing:	Permalinks (not proxied)
Other:	Mind map \| Text-to-speech feature
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Authorized users:	All registered users
Limitations:	Content availability may change without prior notification
Access provider:

CONTENT DETAILS
Disciplines:	Multidisciplinary
Content types:	Periodical articles \| Books \| Images \| News \| etc.
Content availability:	Full text
Special content:	Educator's resources
Full text titles:	Over 2,100
Content update frequency:	Regular
SPECIAL FEATURES
Browsing & searching:	Leading issues
Saving:	Google Drive \| OneDrive
Other:	Text-to-speech feature \| Lexile scores
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Authorized users:	All registered users
Limitations:	Content availability may change without prior notification
Access provider:

CONTENT DETAILS
Disciplines:	Multidisciplinary \| Social issues
Content types:	Periodical articles \| Books \| Encyclopedias \| Images \| Videos \| Podcasts \| etc.
Content availability:	Citations \| Abstracts \| Full text
Special content:	Educator resources
Pro/con viewpoints:	Over 19,000
Topic overviews:	Over 13,000
Court case overviews:	Over 1,000
Indexed titles:	1,958
Full text titles:	1,691
SPECIAL FEATURES
Browsing & searching:	Topic pages \| Topic finder
Saving:	Google Drive \| OneDrive
Sharing:	Persistent links (not proxied) \| Search alerts & RSS feeds
Other:	Accessibility tools \| Lexile measures & content levels \| Highlights and notes
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Authorized users:	All registered users
Limitations:	Content availability may change without prior notification
Access provider: