Library: Northwestern ENG 1010 Composition: Find a Topic

Topic-Finding Tools

Credo Reference This link opens in a new window Credo Reference is a general knowledge database providing articles, images, charts, maps and other materials on thousands of topics.  With 750+ searchable, full-text titles, Credo Reference places particular emphasis on subject encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, and reference handbooks. Also included are more than 1,100 short reference videos, more than 475,000 high-resolution art images, photographs, and maps across all subject areas.
In Context: Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window Opposing Viewpoints offers material to support differing views to help develop critical thinking skills on thousands of current social topics in the forms of primary source documents, statistics, websites and multimedia.  Find overviews, news, and opinions on hundreds of today's important social issues, including racism, capital punishment, global warming, and voting rights with reference sources, newspaper and magazine articles, scholarly journals, court cases, government documents, viewpoints, maps, images, audio, video and websites.

1. It’s not too big or too small.

2. The question focuses on some aspect of the topic about which something has been said.

3. It interests the researcher.

4. It potentially matters.

5. It implies an approach, or various means of answering the question.

6. Its raises more questions. The answer to the question might not be simple.

(from Bruce Balenger’s The Curious Researcher)

Maybe you're interested in researching something that's happening in the news? Get ideas by exploring these "Hot Topic" guides.