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Syracuse University Libraries

Social Work

Master Guide

Developing a Topic

What interests you? or What do I want to write about? Developing your topic can be the hardest part of your paper. Let's put your angst to work!

Researchers develop their initial ideas about things by exploring different information avenues like perusing news channels, browsing journals and trade publications, reading through encyclopedias or handbooks to get an overview of a topic, generally searching the web, and talking with colleagues.The resources in this section will help you get started.

Incidentally, most of the information channels listed above are also the same avenues by which you keep current in your field of interest.