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Asian_AM380: Asian/American Gaming (Fickle)

Encyclopedias

Encyclopedias are alphabetically arranged collections of articles that provide background information on key concepts, theories, and measures. They are a great place to start exploring a paper topic. Here are just a few.

Focus Your Question

After you have an initial project idea, you can think deeper about the idea by developing a "Topic + Question + Significance" sentence. This formula came from Kate Turabian's Student's Guide to Writing College Papers. Turabian notes that you can use it plan and test your question, but do not incorporate this sentence directly into your paper (p. 13):

TOPIC: I am working on the topic of __________,

QUESTION: because I want to find out __________,

SIGNIFICANCE: so that I can help others understand __________.

Turabian, Kate L. Student's Guide to Writing College Papers. 4th edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2010.

Remember: the shorter your final paper, the narrower your topic needs to be. Having trouble?

Which specific subset of the topic you can focus on? Specific demographic groups, people, places, times

Is there something about this topic that is not already addressed in scholarship?

Is there a relationship you can explore:

cause/effect

compare/contrast

current/historical

group/individual

opinion/reason

problem/solution