Finding and Exploring Your Topic: General
Brainstorming

Current News Periodicals

One method for coming up with a paper topic is to browse through some current news periodicals to see if you come across  any topics that pique your interest.

Newsweek cover image

Newsweek  is a weekly newsmagazine that covers hot topics in politics, entertainment, fashion, business, and art.

Time cover image

Time is a weekly news magazine that covers news of the U.S. and the world and also covers politics, business, money, health, science, and entertainment.

Foreign Affairs cover image

Foreign Affairs is a bimonthly journal covering global current events, international policy, and international relations.

Visualizing your Topic

This short video will demonstrate how you can map out a topic and narrow down to subtopics. This concept mapping process will help you dig down into your topic. Try it on your topic.

Databases for General Brainstorming

CQ ResearcherThe CQ Researcher publishes reports 44 times a year that offer in-depth single-topic coverage of political and social issues, with regular reports on topics in health, international affairs, education, the environment, technology and the U.S. economy. Each CQ Researcher report is investigated and written by a seasoned journalist. Editors identify the topic to be investigated, then the writer conceives its content, formulating the key questions that it will seek to answer; reads background material; interviews a range of sources; synthesizes available information; and writes the report. The report's writer quotes a range of sources, including lawmakers, academics, interest group representatives, government officials as well as citizens involved in the issue. The report concludes with a bibliography that contains an annotated list of key sources.

 

Credo Reference Credo Reference provides access to full-text, aggregated reference content covering a variety of major subject areas. The database contains well over 3,000,000 full-text entries in over 500 reference books, collected from more than 70 publishers. The entries are drawn from encyclopedias, dictionaries, biographies, quotations, and other sources. Credo is designed as a research tool and provides the ability to search, map, save, organize, and cross-reference the information in the collection.

Subject Guide

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Donna Ziegenfuss
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