Microsoft Word - explore_topic.docx - explore_topic.pdf

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• EXPLORING THE TOPIC OF YOUR RESEARCH PAPER

• Exploring your topic before you begin to write about it will help you to establish what you already know about it, what you think about the issues involved, and what you need to find out. When you explore ideas, you are trying to capture your thoughts on paper, to create meaning, build understanding, and consider all the possibilities of the topic. The following strategies are powerful tools to help you generate ideas:

• BRAINSTORMING

• Put down everything that comes to mind on the topic as quickly as you can. Don’t criticize or edit your ideas. b. Also brainstorm any questions you can think of, concerning the topic. c. Then look at your ideas--what ideas link with others? What ideas particularly interest you? What questions would you like to explore

• MAPPING

• a non-linear, interconnected way of brainstorming a. Write your subject or topic in the centre of the page. b. Branch out from the centre by brainstorming an idea related to the topic. c. Explore this idea further by branching to other ideas. d. When you reach the end of one branch, go back into the middle to generate a new idea and make it a new branch to explore. e. When you finish, look at the map. If a particular area seems to grab your attention or holds particular potential to develop more, create a new map, this time putting that branch’s key idea in the centre. See how much more you can explore that topic