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History of the Mexican Revolution

Need topic ideas?

A great idea can come from anywhere! Here are some suggested places to start:

  • Class discussions
  • Assigned readings
  • Personal interests
  • Trending topics
  • Browse journals in the field

Developing a Topic

Before you develop your research topic or question, you'll need to do some background research first. This will help you:

  • begin to understand the context of your topic
  • narrow the topic to a more manageable size
  • direct you to where to do more specific searches

Encyclopedia-style databases offer short overviews of a topic and are good places to start.

Try the library databases below to explore your topic. When you're ready, move on to refining your topic.

Find General Background Information:

Find Focused Information:

Now that you've done some background research, it's time to narrow your topic. Remember: the shorter your final paper, the narrower your topic needs to be. Here are some suggestions for narrowing and defining your topic:

  • Is there a specific subset of the topic you can focus on?
  • Is there a cause and effect relationship you can explore?
  • Is there an unanswered question on the subject?
  • Can you focus on a specific time period or group of people?

Describe and develop your topic in some detail. Try filling in the blanks in the following sentence, as much as you can:

I want to research ____(what/who)____

and ____(what/who)____

in ____(where)____

during ____(when)____

because ____(why)____.