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Picking Your Topic IS Research!
Picking Your Topic IS Research!
It can feel overwhelming to pick a research topic that you will find interesting and that isn't too broad or too narrow. Without a workable topic, research can be very overwhelming! But once you get through this part, looking for resources to support your arguments and further your writing will be a lot easier. You will find that you won't have TOO many results to navigate or too few, either! This short video has some amazing topics on picking a resaerch topic.
Some Resources for Background Information:
Some Resources for Background Information:
Everyone needs background information when they are new to a research area. 'Background information' is simply we often do intuitively when we are new to a topic or field of study: engaging with information that is more introductory, descriptive, and contextual before delving deeper. Starting with a highly academic article can feel confusing or frustrating without prior understanding. While Wikipedia is a convenient and quick entry point for acquiring background information, it is a public website that is not scholarly or reviewed as rigorously by reputable scholars and can sometimes become unstable (links going missing, incorrect or missing citations). The library has many authoritative, and reliable online encyclopedias, handbooks, and bibliographies for this stage of the research process!
What are Handbooks?
What are Handbooks?
Handbooks are a great resource for locating best practices, research theories, names of authors, background material, overviews of topics, and good keyword terminology to use when you search databases for journal articles and other materials to inform and support your research.
Example
The Oxford Handbook of Film and Media Studies provides accurate sources of original scholarship on the intersection of film and media studies. It includes twenty chapters written by experts in their fields, and presents an authoritative, in-depth, and up-to-date assessment of film and media in the early twenty-first century in the U.S. and abroad
What are Encyclopedias?
What are Encyclopedias?
Encyclopedias available at the library are considered The content is written by an academic for an academic audience, but the language is less esoteric and more descriptive. They are excellent starting points contextualize, introduce, and explain complex topics.
Example
The Gale Virtual Reference Library is an online library of handbooks, encyclopedias and other reference sources across many disciplines. It is an excellent starting point for getting background information on nearly any topic! For example, you can browse the subject "video games" or "video games industry" for some nice topical overviews!
What are Bibliographies?
What are Bibliographies?
Bibliographies help you to fast track your own research. Published bibliographies will list and recommend journals, books, articles, and other resources on a specific topic, published by reputable scholars in that particular subject. Save yourself time searching by consulting these!
Oxford Bibliographies in Cinema and Media Studies provides a path through the vast information thicket of cinema and media studies through the work of renowned scholars. It provides an organized, thoroughly peer-reviewed account of important books, articles, and Web sites on many sub-topics, such as "Video and Computer Games"
A few other suggestions to consider consulting!
A few other suggestions to consider consulting!
- Encyclopedia of Video Games: The Culture Technology, and Art of Gaming (online via UCI Libraries): This encyclopedia collects and organizes theoretical and historical content on the topic of video games, covering the people, systems, technologies, and theoretical concepts as well as the games themselves.
- Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film (online via UCI Libraries): A comprehensive encyclopedia & and accessible introduction to film and film studies.
- "Video Games" subject overview (online via UCI Libraries) in the Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics
This encyclopedia collects and organizes theoretical and historical content on the topic of video games, covering the people, systems, technologies, and theoretical concepts as well as the games themselves.
To connect to library resources from off campus, the VPN (virtual private network) is required. For more information, visit: https://www.lib.uci.edu/connect.
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