There are several topics that researchers can investigate, but there is not enough time, funds, people, etc. to cover them all. This implies that in order to decide which research questions to pursue, researchers must evaluate the research topics that they develop. This article will cover the criteria to evaluate research topics and how to select a research topic.
Evaluating Research Topics Against Specialised Criteria:
There are two main criteria with specific factors upon which depends the evaluation of your research topic. These criteria along with their factors determine how you evaluate research topics. They are explained below:
Interestingness:
What, in this view, makes a study question interesting? We are not debating here whether a research subject intrigues us individually, but rather whether it intrigues society at large and, more specifically, the scientific community. Here, we examine three elements that influence a research question’s interest level:
Doubt:
The question is not fascinating if the solution is obvious. A research question is intriguing if there is some uncertainty surrounding the solution.
Bridging A Gap:
Every researcher hopes for a solution that will fill a gap in the body of knowledge if at least part of the subject has not already been addressed by scientific inquiry.
Importance:
Whether or whether a research question’s solution has significant practical ramifications is the last aspect to take into account when determining its interest.
Feasibility:
The likelihood of successfully answering a research question is a crucial second aspect to consider. A few of the many factors that determine feasibility are:
- Time
- Money
- Resources
- Technical expertise
- Accessibility to study participants
It is obvious that researchers need to take these elements into consideration in order to avoid wasting time and effort on projects they will not be able to finish. You move toward selecting the best topic among the others after you evaluate research topics in a bunch against the given criteria.
Selecting A Research Topic:
Making a decent topic choice from a list of potential topics might not be simple. It needs to be precise enough to be fascinating, but broad enough to find enough data. Make sure you are familiar with the format of your final assignment before choosing your topic. Each class or instructor will probably need a different research project format or approach.
Following are a few practices performing which you can end up choosing the best topic that suits you:
Discussion Of Possible Topics:
Pick a subject that grabs your attention. To assist you in coming up with topic ideas, use the following queries.
- Do you strongly feel one way or the other about a contemporary social or political issue?
- Have you recently read or seen a news story that grabbed your curiosity, angered you, or caused you anxiety?
- Do you have a privacy concern, issue, or interest about which you would like to learn more?
- Are there any topics covered in a lesson about which you would like to learn more?
Any essential terms or ideas that may be of interest to you should be noted down. You can use these terms to narrow your search and create a more concentrated research topic.
Read The Background Articles:
Examine a dissertation from an extensive encyclopedia on the top few subjects you assume to be your best priority. You can achieve a vague insight into the subject by reading a summary and seeing how your notion relates to more general, more specific, and related concerns. It also offers a fantastic resource for words that are frequently used to describe the subject. These keywords could prove quite helpful in your subsequent investigation. Choose a topic that has enough background knowledge.
Topic Should Be Flexible:
Be flexible and keep things manageable. You might need to change your topic if you realize that when you conduct additional research, there are not enough sources to back up your argument.
If a topic is excessively wide or limited, it will be quite challenging to research it. You can narrow a large topic like “the environment” by limiting your subject. Typical methods of limiting a topic include a region of the world, culture, timeline, practice, demographic group
Keep in mind that a subject could be too complicated to research if it is too:
- Localized – Scholarly publications are not allowed to discuss this particular subject; only local newspapers are allowed.
- Recent – Books or journal papers may not be available for a topic that is only a few years old, but newspaper or magazine articles might. Additionally, websites pertaining to the subject may or may not be accessible.
- Broadly Multidisciplinary – You can become overloaded with flimsy data.
- Popular – You will only locate articles that are really popular regarding certain topics, such as sports figures, prominent celebrities, and singers.
You can concentrate on the kind of data you wish to gather by framing your issue as a question.
Length Of Your Paper:
Pick a subject that fits the length of your report. The themes that students choose are frequently too wide to be fully covered. Broad themes encourage overgeneralization whereas narrow topics encourage scrutiny.
Analyze Instead Of Summarize:
A topic that will entice you to summarize instead of discuss or evaluate is best avoided. Consider how the play’s theme is illustrated in the last scene of Macbeth rather than the play’s plot. The second subject is more specific and is less likely to result in a summary. Consider a topic and see if it can result in a sound thesis.
An Interesting Topic:
Pick a topic that both you and the readers will find interesting. Try to stay away from overused topics. It is crucial to pick a subject that is scholarly in nature and on which people would conduct research. You must choose a subject that is contentious or that people are interested in researching or arguing about.
Conclusion:
You can evaluate as many research topics as possible against the criteria given to you by your instructor or created by yourself. You are free to evaluate research topics. However, you need to be very cautious when picking a topic from the list of potential topics. Hope the criteria and tips given above will help you evaluate research topics and choose the best one from them.
