Identify your subject area - think about the things relating to this that you could possibly research
Pre search
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You now need to establish if there are enough resources to accomplish your research. Are those resources easy to access? Is you subject too general or too specific?
Identify suitable resources
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When initially identifying your resources keep in mind that you need to use a wide range of resources - books, journals, websites, tv programmes etc
Broaden or narrow topic
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Use this time to focus your research topic. Is it too general (broad) or too specific (narrow)?
Define research question or hypothesis
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Now that you have done some initial research you should be able to define the parameters of your research. Think of framing your research topic as a question as this will help you during the writing stage.