4.1. Choosing a General Research Topic

How do you identify a good topic to study? Thankfully, sociology is such a broad field that we sociologists can study virtually anything we want, so long as it has some connection to society and social life. For that reason, we’d encourage you (with your instructor’s approval, of course) to not limit yourself to what you think other people want you to study. Think about whatever excites and energizes you. Are there social theories that really speak to you? Are there social issues you are passionate about? Are there public policies—existing or proposed—that you see as making a significant difference in people’s lives? Are there particular communities or groups you want to help? Use these questions to find a general topic that interests you enough to spend a substantial amount of time reading and writing about it.

How do you know your topic is relevant to sociology? One easy way is to think about the sociological theories you know (including the major paradigms and theoretical frameworks we discussed in Chapter 3: The Role of Theory in Research). Can you imagine any of these theories being relevant to the subject you’re studying? If so, your study has the potential to be sociological—even if none of the people currently studying this phenomenon or issue are sociologists.

Here are some other suggestions for picking a research topic:

1. Choose a topic based on the areas where you have noteworthy experience—professional, personal, or academic. Think about papers you enjoyed researching and writing for other classes. Consider a specific group that you’ve interacted with or just care a lot about—for example, youth who identify as LGBTQ+, or patients at a community health clinic. Start with a social problem you’ve encountered before, such as gang violence or cyberbullying, or a policy or program you’ve experienced firsthand, such as health care regulations or zero-tolerance policies in schools.
2. Think about what you’re intellectually curious about. Maybe there are sociological theories you’d like to read up on—start doing that, especially any academic writing on the subject. That should generate some ideas. If you can find out—or already know—whether more research is needed in a particular area, you’ll make your task of finding a good topic all the easier, because any new scientific study you propose ultimately needs to address such a research problem. To that end, you may want to ask a professor, preferably one active in research, about possible topics that are understudied in their subfield of specialty. You can also read up on what the faculty members and graduate students in your department or elsewhere are currently working on. That can tell you what the hotter topics of study are.
   Please note that finding research ideas by talking to people and looking at what they are currently studying isn’t necessarily “stealing.” Plenty of scholars study the same topic at the same time. Furthermore, you’ll find a collaborative, rather than competitive, spirit in many scientific communities that study a particular subject, given that scientists inevitably build upon the work of their peers. (For that reason, too, we encourage you to share preliminary drafts of your research with other researchers when that time comes around.) So long as you credit other people for any ideas you borrow from them and do not just mindlessly mimic their research approach, your work should constructively complement those of other scholars.
   Faculty and graduate student research interests vary widely, and it might surprise you what topics they’ve published on in the past. Many departmental websites will post or excerpt the curricula vitae, or CVs, of their faculty members, and both students and faculty often have their own professional websites and social media accounts where they describe their research and link to their CVs. (Longer than a résumé and used largely in research and teaching fields, a curriculum vitae lists a scholar’s credentials, research interests, teaching experience, and important publications and presentations.) You can read some of their work and maybe schedule a time to talk with them, which could spark further ideas. Many professors and graduate students are willing to chat about research even if you aren’t taking a class with them—it helps, of course, if you have some existing connection to that person, such as being at the same school.
3. Identify and browse academic journals related to your research interests. In Appendix A: Presenting, Writing, and Publishing, we have a list of sociology-related professional associations that also indicates the journals that they publish. Faculty and librarians can help you identify relevant journals and find articles relating to your specific areas of interest. You can also skim the titles and abstracts of presentations at the conferences put on by professional associations (refer to that same list for links) to learn about the most cutting-edge research on a particular topic. As we describe in Appendix A, conference talks are usually about works in progress, so the topics they cover tend to be especially fresh and innovative.

If you pursue any of the above kinds of brainstorming, eventually you’ll come across research papers to read. (In scientific lingo, a paper is a write-up of a study that a researcher has conducted.) A paper’s literature review (sometimes called a “background” section) will provide insight into the research question the author was seeking to address with their study. As you’re reading the literature review, look for what’s missing. Is the existing body of research on this topic incomplete, imprecise, biased, or inconsistent? If so, a gap exists in the literature that you might explore in your own study—assuming the author of the paper you’re currently reading didn’t address that very gap. Even if they did, they will usually flag additional research problems near the end of their paper—sometimes in stand-alone sections that explicitly talk about their study’s limitations or future directions for further research, and sometimes just in the discussion or conclusion sections at the end.

Please note that your existing views on a topic will undoubtedly influence how you study it, and it is important to be aware and transparent about any preconceived notions and biases you have. How do you feel when people have other views on this subject? Do you believe your perspective is the only valid one? If you feel so strongly about the topic, certain findings from your research might upset you. In that case, you might want to choose a different topic because you don’t want to run the risk of even unintentionally designing a project that will get only the answer you believe to be best. That doesn’t fit with the spirit of science, which is about seeking out the truth (even if actually getting at “truth” is exceedingly challenging and complicated, as we discussed in the last chapter).

Likewise, you as a researcher should not put yourself in the position of feeling any pressure to downplay findings you don’t like. For example, imagine that you wanted to find out whether there is any relationship between intelligence and political party affiliation. You happen to believe (as many of us do) that the members of your favored party are without a doubt more intelligent, thoughtful, and attractive than their counterparts across the aisle. This deeply held belief of yours is not a problem in itself. However, if you feel intense rage when considering the possibility that your study will actually find the opposing party’s members to not be so inferior, you’re probably too emotionally invested in this particular topic to conduct unbiased research on it. As a sociologist, you need to be open to being persuaded by the conclusions of rigorous research, even those findings that may be inconsistent with or unflattering to your personal or political perspective.

Especially if you are engaged in research that requires interacting closely with the people you’re studying, you may find yourself encountering people with very different perspectives than your own. They may have strong opinions about the issue you’re studying, and their beliefs and worldviews may seem strange or even repellent to you. Nevertheless, you as a sociologist need to represent their viewpoints faithfully in your research. That may mean stomaching views and actions you vehemently oppose in order to portray individuals or communities fully and fairly in your work. If you can take up this open-minded viewpoint—which not many people can—then you can do truly groundbreaking research. For example, Kathleen Blee has done fascinating work on hate movement participants, as seen in her books Inside Organized Racism (2003) and Women of the Klan (2008). She clearly does not share the racist ideologies of the people she talked to, but what comes across in her work is the honesty of her observations—even when she wholeheartedly disagrees with what is being said or done. If you can’t bring a similar degree of patience and impartiality to your own research topic, then you may want to study something else.

Your feelings about a particular topic do not even have to be especially intense to influence your ability to research it. Scientists are well aware of the problem of confirmation bias—that we as researchers are inclined to interpret the data we collect in ways that support, or “confirm,” our existing views. This is a major issue in research, which may help explain (as we’ll discuss further in Chapter 8: Ethics) why scientists are finding out today that many past studies cannot be replicated. Even well-meaning scientists can fall victim to selective perception, the unconscious tendency to see what we want or expect to see. As a social scientist, you would be wise to start off any study questioning what you already know about a topic—and allowing yourself to be surprised by what you actually find in the course of your research.

That said, having strong feelings or existing knowledge about a topic shouldn’t necessarily stop you from studying it. Sociologists often find themselves motivated to conduct research that addresses inequalities or injustices. In academia, thinking a policy is wrong or a group is being marginalized does not necessarily mean that your research will be biased. For better or worse, the bar of objectivity that academics need to meet in their research is lower than that for, say, court judges or journalists at reputable news organizations, where members of those professions are discouraged or even prohibited from expressing their political beliefs.

Sometimes the best topics to study are those you do feel strongly about—what better way to stay motivated than to learn about something you care about? Furthermore, having a personal tie to a particular topic may make the actual work of data collection and analysis easier. For instance, if you happen to be a member of an organization, profession, or network you’re thinking of studying, you’ll probably find it easier to gain access to insider information and get people in the group to talk to you. Similarly, if you have directly experienced and intimately know a particular social phenomenon or problem, you may have the knowledge and skills to contribute more to the scientific study of it than any person new to that issue would be able to (see the sidebar Asking Questions in Need of Answers). Of course, you will have to weigh those potential advantages against the potential disadvantage of being too close to the group or experience you’re studying to examine it accurately and critically.

A final word of advice about choosing a research topic: be mindful of your mental health. A sociologist who has experienced a mental health crisis or traumatic event should approach researching related topics cautiously. There are plenty of worthwhile things to study, and there’s no need to jeopardize your well-being for a research paper.

Narrowing Your Research Topic

Once you have a topic, think about the different aspects of it, and what specific angle might be interesting to pursue for your study. What do you really want to know about the subject? As a warm-up exercise, try dropping a possible topic idea into the blank spaces of the questions in the following list. You’ll start thinking about the different dimensions of the topic you’re studying and what exactly piques your intellectual curiosity about it.

Defining and differentiating a phenomenon:

1. What does ___ mean? What is the significance of ___? What is the value of ___?
2. What are the various points or features of ___? What are the facts about ___?
3. What are the component parts of ___? What are the types of ___? What kind of person is ___?
4. How is ___ like or unlike ___?
5. What case can be made for or against ___?

Understanding a process relating to the phenomenon:

1. How is ___ made or done? How should ___ be made or done?
2. What is the essential function of ___?
3. What are the causes of ___? How did ___ happen?
4. What are the consequences of ___? What is the relationship between ___ and the outcome of ___?

Understanding the context in which the phenomenon occurs:

1. How is ___ different in ___ environment, time period, or other context?
2. What is the present status of ___ (compared to ____)?

The last set of questions get at another important aspect of a good research question: it starts with a specific population in mind. We want to know something about our phenomenon within a particular human population (residents of one country, all students, all members of a particular ethnic group, all human beings, etc.) or nonhuman population (colleges and universities in one country, all books published in a particular year, all multinational corporations, etc.). We’ll have more to say about our study’s population of interest, or target population, in Chapter 6: Sampling, but even at this early point we would still advise you to have a specific population in mind when you devise your working research question. For instance, you might phrase your research question in this way: “This study examines how Policy X affects Outcome Y in Population Z.” (Note that the research question does not have to be phrased as a literal question—in fact, it often sounds better if you don’t do that!)

Developing a concept map around your topic may also help you narrow your research topic and generate a working research question. Using this technique, start with the broad topic, issue, or problem, and begin writing down keywords—all the words, phrases, and ideas related to that topic that come to mind. See which keywords can be grouped into larger concepts, and which concepts can be broken down into different types or aspects of that concept. Put all these keywords in boxes or circles and connect any related items with arrows. The arrows should point from what you think might be an independent variable toward what you think might be a dependent variable. Of course, many relationships are actually bidirectional: for instance, how much education you have affects your income, but your income can also affect how much education you attain. For the sake of brainstorming, however, you may want to focus on a particular direction—a particular cause-and-effect sequence. If education is your independent variable, for example, then focus on the arrow that goes from that box to the dependent variable of income: in this case, you have set yourself down the path of exploring research questions like how higher education matters in determining people’s later income. This approach of identifying concepts and connecting them causally will allow you to keep adding more boxes and arrows until you have a broad sense of how all the concepts that are relevant to your proposed study are linked by a chain of possible cause-effect relationships. You may then decide to frame your research question around one or more of those relationships, as we’ll discuss in the next section.

In addition to assisting you in developing a research question, concept mapping will give you some keywords to use when searching the literature for relevant studies and publications on your topic (which we’ll discuss in Chapter 5: Research Design). Concept mapping can also be helpful when you actually start writing up your literature review, as it demonstrates the importance of each concept and its subconcepts, as well as the relationships between them.

So we’ve started asking questions about our topic and sketched out a concept map describing aspects of it—now what? The next step is to actually draft a working research question. Take a minute right now and write down a question you want to answer with your research. Even if it doesn’t seem perfect, everyone needs a place to start.

Next, try to narrow down your question. Continue to use the list of questions we provided earlier to help you in that task. Also single out the boxes you want to focus on in your concept map: after take any overly broad concepts and breaking them down into different types or aspects, you should flag which of them you’re most interested in. Eventually, you will settle on one or a few key relationships—that is, pairs of independent and dependent variables (and perhaps moderating or mediating variables that influence those relationships, as discussed in Chapter 3: The Role of Theory in Research).

For example, perhaps your initial idea is to study obesity. After an initial search of the relevant literature, you realize the topic of obesity is too broad to adequately cover in the time you have to do your literature review. You decide to narrow your focus to the causes of childhood obesity. Using the list of questions and your own concept mapping, you further narrow your search to the influence of family factors on overweight children. You are particularly interested in the ways that parents oversee their children’s diets: whether and how they prepare or purchase meals, sit down for family dinners, introduce vegetables and other healthy options, and so on. You also decide that toddlers in the United States are the target population you wish to study. Your working research question might then be “How do parental decisions about organizing meals affect toddler obesity in the United States?”