Finding Research Paper Topics with Google Scholar

Finding Research Paper Topics Using Google Scholar

Having trouble finding research paper topics? Did you wait to the last minute and now your research paper is due tomorrow? Can you feel that lump in your throat?

Perhaps you are a Hubber here at Hubpages and you have hubber's block. You just can't come up with that next hub topic.

It makes you wonder how journalist or writers like Stephen King do it. Even some Hubbers here at Hubpages are so prolific I can't even imagine posting up as much content as they do.

No worries! Google has a nice tool you can use to not only help you brainstorm research paper topics, but to also find the resources that will become the basis of your research. The tool is Google Scholar. But before we get into it, a little something about research.

Doing research and writing research papers can be quite anxiety producing and just outright overwhelming. I hated doing it, especially when I was working on my PhD because the standards were so high. That anxiety is like a cloud that covers the otherwise simplicity to doing research. You see, no one in this world has a monopoly on the truth. That goes for scientific researchers, as well. Health researchers, for example, go back and forth on how this and that food is good and bad for us. All a research paper is supposed to do is compare and contrast all the knowledge on a particular topic from all the primary resources. That's it. Still easier said than done, but it doesn't get any more straight forward than that.

Here is what we are going to do. First we are going to brainstorm a topic. Then we are going to locate primary resources. Finally, we are going to write the research paper. Well, you will write it.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar saved my life when I was working on my doctoral dissertation while living in China. I earned my degree online from a university here in the USA. I had no access to academic resources in China and had to depend heavilly on the internet.

Google Scholar's main purpose is to querry articles in academic journals using keywords. However, we are going to use it for more than that. We are going to use it to help us brainstorm a topic and locate primary resources.

To get started, let's just type in a general single or double word term into Google Scholar and see what comes up. A topic important to my work right now is Professional Learning Communities. Ok... it's three words. We are flexable here.

Here are the results that Google Scholar presented. Already my mind is racing with possible research paper topics:

Here's what I have so far:

• Professional learning communities at work
• What are Professional learning communities
• Starting a Professional learning communities
• The importance of Professional learning communities
• The role of Professional learning communities

The topic I choose doesn't have to be exactly what the result is refering to. For example, one of these results talks about the role of Professional learning communities in international education. However, I think this is a good topic in general, whether at home or abroad.

I could keep looking through the results on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th pages and so on. But, I'll stop here so we can move on.

Now, these results are all just titles of books or articles. However, they have given me an idea. I like the idea of exploring the role of professional learning communities. In fact, this is what I will write my paper on. However, this topic still seems a little broad. But, I will first read a little about the topic to see if I can narrow it.

Google Scholar has a neat little tool that can help you vary quickly identify the primary resources on any given topic. Take a look at the image below. The portion I circled (Cited by 289) is the number of books or articles that has cited this resource as a reference. The more books or articles that has cited this resource, the more of an authority it is. The one at the very bottom (you can't see it below) has only been cited by 29 other publications. What I will do now is browse through the next 10 pages (100 search results) and note which resources have been cited the most. These will be the main resources of my research paper because they are obviously the authority on the topic.

Believe it or not the hardest part is over. We have a topic, that may or may not get refined a little more as we go along. But more important, we have a whole stack of primary resources on the topic that we can start skimming through. How long would it have taken to find out who the authority was on this topic? Google Scholar made it a snap. Nothing is more embarrassing than writing a research paper using secondary and tertiary sources.

Skimming the Resources

When writing a research paper, it isn't necessary that you read all the resources you will reference from cover to cover, though you can if you want to and have the time. What I usually do is read the table of contents from each of the resources and identify common themes. In this case, since I want to write about the role of Professional learning communities, I'm going to skim for chapters on the goals or outcomes that professional learning communities are supposed to help schools achieve. In fact, I think this will be the title of my research paper, "The Role Of Professional Learning Communities in Schools". By adding "school" I think we have sufficiently narrowed it.

The outline of my paper might look something like this:

• Introduction
• role (outcome or goal) 1
• role 2
• role 3
• role 4
• Challenges and disadvantages of professional learning communities
• Conclusion

There you have it! A couple of hours at the keyboard and my research paper is done.

This is only one way of using Google Scholar. Of course, it is an excellent tool if used just as it was intended: to locate resources from academic journals and books.

Do you have any other suggestions on how this great resource can be used. Post it below and pay it forward.