QLC120: Making of a Culture Icon

Background research is usually something you do before you've developed a central argument about a topic. However, you'll often need to do background research throughout the process of picking a topic, developing a research question, finding information, evaluating information, and putting your ideas together (in a paper, presentation, or other product).

Background research can help you with the following:

• Get an overview of a topic
  • Defining terms, learning about key figures, understanding timelines, finding related topics, etc.
• Gather keywords to search elsewhere
  • Ex: The "Climate Change" Wikipedia article describes related topics and terms such as global warming, greenhouse gases, fossil fuels, deforestation, etc.
• Develop questions
  • As you learn general information about a topic, consider what specific aspects of that topic you're curious about
  • Ex: for climate change
    • How does climate change lead to expanding deserts? Why is the Arctic warming faster than other parts of the planet? How is my community adapting to more extreme weather?
• Find additional resources
  • Look up the references for the ideas you'd like to learn more about
  • Search the topics you find in academic databases

Now that you know what background research is, visit these pages to learn how to do it effectively:

• Where to Do Background Research
• How to Do Background Research
• Evaluating Background Research Sources