Pearsall Library - North Carolina Wesleyan College

BIO 123

Choosing a topic for a biology research project (or any project) is a crucial first step. A good topic will develop from the following activities:

Finding a starting point (e.g., reading an article, remembering an interesting lecture topic)
Asking a well-defined question or questions to be answered during your research
Refining your topic more than once

Starting point

You may get inspiration to do research on a topic after reading an article, seeing a documentary on TV, reading a newspaper story, or from many other sources. Here is one example of a popular magazine article that might lead you to ask more questions. Here is how this can work:

I searched for newspaper and popular magazine articles to find a general topic. I'm also interested personally in protecting the environment. I found this article:

Juncosa, B. (2008, November). Methane-Producing Grass. Scientific American, 299(5), 18-18. Retrieved February 4, 2009, from Academic Search Premier database.

Methane-Producing Grass

That plants can emit methane stunned researchers and sparked controversy over the role of forests in global warming [see "Methane, Plants and Climate Change"; SciAm, February 2007]. Some doubted the real-world relevance of the laboratory findings, but researchers have now demonstrated methane release by plants in a natural setting. Using large plastic chambers to capture emissions, a team finds that grasses on the Tibetan Plateau, such as those shown here, produce methane. Shrubs in the alpine meadow absorbed atmospheric methane, however — a result at odds with lab evidence showing the contrary for lowland shrub species. Study leader Xinquan Zhao of the Northwest Plateau Institute of Biology in Xining, China, says these discrepancies highlight the need to examine each species individually because plants vary in chemical composition and metabolism, which affect their capacity to produce the greenhouse gas. Biology Letters published the study online August 26.

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By Barbara Juncosa

Above, let's consider: It is obvious to us that this article is not an Empirical Study of any kind. There are no sections on method, results, conclusions, and bibliography or References. But many strands of Juncosa's article can be taken as a starting point for further research. For you, this means taking an idea from a popular source (TV, Newspaper, etc.) and investigating it further by finding empirical research studies in scholarly journals.

Now, time to get serious. What kinds of hypotheses are scientists testing on this topic? What are their questions? You can only find out by searching for Scholarly, or Peer-Reviewed Journals.

The article below is a complete empirical research study that was published in a scholarly journal. Please scroll through and identify Hypothesis/problem, population or area studied, methods, results, conclusion, references/works cited.

Melack, J., Hess, L., Gastil, M., Forsberg, B., Hamilton, S., Lima, I., et al. (2004, May). Regionalization of methane emissions in the Amazon Basin with microwave remote sensing. Global Change Biology, 10(5), 530-544. Retrieved February 4, 2009.

Sometimes, you'll find an argument! This is when scientific research can HEAT UP. : ) Notice the article publication dates. There's an argument here.

Dueck, T., De Visser, R., Poorter, H., Persijn, S., Gorissen, A., De Visser, W., et al. (2007, July). No evidence for substantial aerobic methane emission by terrestrial plants: a 13 C-labelling approach. New Phytologist, 175(1), 29-35. Retrieved February 4, 2009

Abstract: The results of a single publication stating that terrestrial plants emit methane has sparked a discussion in several scientific journals, but an independent test has not yet been performed. • Here it is shown, with the use of the stable isotope 13C and a laser-based measuring technique, that there is no evidence for substantial aerobic methane emission by terrestrial plants, maximally 0.3% (0.4 ng g−1 h−1) of the previously published values. • Data presented here indicate that the contribution of terrestrial plants to global methane emission is very small at best. • Therefore, a revision of carbon sequestration accounting practices based on the earlier reported contribution of methane from terrestrial vegetation is redundant.

Forming your questions

Your starting point can give you some background information about your general topic. Now you need to ask some investigative questions:

factual: (questions that explore background information): (Example: What is the Industrial Revolution? What is "Methane" and how is it produced? how exactly is it related to air pollution? )

research (questions that say what line of inquiry you will follow): (Example: how exactly is Methane related to air pollution? Which plants produce methane as a product of living? )

After resolving the factual questions you raise for yourself, you can better formulate research questions. Your investigations will be largely bibliographical, using published sources to see what has already been studied about a question. Be flexible in forming your topic in light of the scope of your assignment. As you discover that data does not already exist to answer your questions, be prepared to refine your topic.

Refining your topic: research is a process that requires you search, re-search, and re-search again.

As you can see, identifying your topic is not a step-by-step formulaic process, but is integrated with initial library research. For instance, you may need to consult reference sources, such as encyclopedias, or secondary sources, such as textbooks, in forming your topic. Notice the highlighted text above. Reference books are excellent places to learn the language of Biologists. Peer-reviewed, or scholarly journal articles will contain words and phrases that are sometimes only used by biologists. When you don't recognize a word, look it up.

Find books in the library catalog - Search our catalog for biology reference books.

Do a Keyword Search for "biology" and Quick Limit it to the Reference Collection.

You'll need to ask both factual and research questions. Start with general questions, and focus your questions until you have the thread you want to follow. Some pitfalls in defining your topic include asking questions that are too narrow or too broad. Defining a topic takes brainstorming, coming up with many ideas and rejecting some, and refining your questions. You can then move on to the next stages of your library research, finding and analyzing background (reference) information, primary literature, and other resources.

Search strategies

Whether you are searching for books or articles, the words you use to search under a topic determine the amount and relevance of the information you'll obtain.

	Concept Map: Generate ideas, organize ideas
	Concept mapping allows you to create an order of importance among complex topics. This is extremely useful in recording keywords that you come across in your article review.
	Blank Concept Map	Sample
Note: Only keywords should be used in electronic searches. Search tools are programmed to ignore stop-words like "the", "in", "an", "of", "and".
	Sticking with the example articles above, some of the keywords I noticed were in the Subject links: Subject Terms: METHANE PLANTS CARBON sequestration EMISSIONS *PLANT ecology It was by searching combinations of these keywords that I was able to find more information on the topic.

Other tools to help you:

Biology Subject Guide

What's an Annotated Bibliography?

APA Citation Style Quicksheet

NCSU Citation Builder

Recognizing Scholarly Articles