Choosing A Good Topic for Research

 Many researchers and students get confused about choosing a good topic for research. In this blog post, I will explain the factors to be considered while choosing a good research topic. Any topic is good for research, just depends on these factors and your purpose. When I say “area of research”, I am referring to the broad area. For example International Law. When I say “topic”, I am referring to the narrow/specific topic. For example: “Status of Diplomats in International Law”.

These are the factors that influence what topic you choose for research:

Purpose (your course / specialization / research project / target journal)

Your guide

Your interest

Available resources

Your long term goals

Fitting the topic to research methodology

Literature review

Scope for further research – of past research

 

1. Purpose

If you are pursuing your Ph.D., you may have to consider the area of your specialization at your postgraduation level and then decide on a topic that is within your area of specialization or closely linked. If you are doing your dissertation for your post-graduation, you need to consider your specialization or the subjects that you are studying. If you are working on a Government-funded research project, then your funding agency decides your area of research, hence you need to choose a topic within that area. If you are planning to write a journal article, you need to take up a topic that is within the domain of that journal. If your research is for a seminar, ensure that you fit in your topic within one of those given sub-themes.

 

Not a hard and fast rule, but choosing a topic that is an extension of a subject paper you studied at the postgraduation level is a good way to start your research. Say for example, you studied ‘Banking Law’ at your postgraduation level. If you now choose to do your research on a banking fraud case, then you already know the basics of banking law and you can directly get into the case study.

2. Your Guide

If you are doing your Ph.D., your guide is mostly already decided. Sometimes, your topic will decide the guide. Some universities ask the Ph.D. students to decide on the topic and then assign a guide who is good in that area. Something similar works for postgraduation dissertations. At times, the University office staff will randomly assign the guides for the dissertation.

The nature and characteristics of each guide vary a lot. Very few guides are good in assisting the students minutely. If you are lucky to have such a guide, then it is better to choose a topic in which your guide is good at. It saves a lot of your time. If your guide has no knowledge in your topic or research area, you may spend half of your research time wasting on figuring out the basics of that subject. At times, there are guides who are not ready to assist a lot, but will be hell-bent on imposing a topic on you. It is a tough call, and you need to be aware if you can work on that topic. Try convincing your guide in situations where you are aware of not having the capacity or resources to deal with that topic.

One way to assess the areas of expertise of your guide is to check your University website for the biodata / CV of your guide. Check the area in which your guide did his / her postgraduation, Ph.D. thesis topic, articles published, and subjects taught. All these will give you a fair idea of the areas in which your guide is good. I suggest that you have an open discussion with your guide about your topic.

If you are writing an article for a journal, you probably do not have any guide assigned. You are at the mercy of your professors who may or may not guide you! You will be lucky to find someone like me 😉 who readily agrees to help students with research!

3. Your Interest

If you have an intrinsic interest in a topic, you will love doing the research. But seldom do you find your topic of interest and other factors coinciding. Though your research interest will be in one area, it is better to ensure that the other factors like your course, your guide, and long-term goals coincide with your interest.

4. Available Resources

I keep telling that, carrying out research is like cooking a good meal. What meal you cook will be decided by the ingredients you have in your storeroom. If you do not have an ingredient at your home, you can buy it from your nearest market. But if you need to cook a meal whose ingredients are not available in your city market, then there is no way you can cook that meal.

The same analogy applies to your research. If you want to carry out research in a particular area or on a particular topic, but you have no resources at your library or on the internet, there is no point in carrying out research on that topic. If your research topic is empirical, and if the Government / private agencies – from which you are supposed to get the data – have a strict confidentiality policy, you may never be able to complete your research!

 

Do check the resources available in your library. I suggest that you navigate across your library stacks physically. In many libraries, some resources are not indexed or are indexed wrongly or the search engine is faulty! So, your keyword search on library OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogue) may not throw satisfactory results. So do walk across your library collections and check the resources. There may be special collections that are locked or kept in a different place. Check them all. You will get a fair idea of the available resources for your research.

 

The online databases available will be listed on your University Library web page. Do check each database specifically and see the extent to which you have access to those materials. At times, some databases may provide just the first chapter of their e-books or may provide limited e-books for reading. Your library may have some understanding of different libraries for resource sharing. So, do speak to your librarian (or email) about such facilities. I usually suggest students first check the textbooks, then journals & reports, and then online sources. I suggest that you need to give your last preference to the materials that come up on internet search engines.

There are times when I browse through the library resources and get research ideas based on the books and journals that are available. This is like expert cooks who can look at the vegetables available in the market and come up with good recipes based on the ingredients.

5. Your long term goals

At times, your research may have a long-term bearing on you. For instance, if you are planning for a post-graduation course in a particular area of study, you will have to write research articles in the same area. If you wish to get a job in a corporate firm, you will have to write articles on corporate laws. If you wish to become a professor of International Law in the future, you will have to carry out your PhD topic in the field of international law. So, do keep in your mind your long-term goals while choosing your research area and topic. Sit and think peacefully as to where you would like to see yourself 5 or 10 years down the lane. If you are investing considerable time (say 2-3 years) in your research, then you need to consider your long-term goals. Every minute you invest in your research is valuable. Do not waste it carrying out research on unnecessary topics or things that have no future purpose!

6. Fitting your topic to research methodology

If your research is for your Ph.D. or post-graduation dissertation, then it is imperative for you to explain your research methodology. These days, even some seminars and journals expect you to submit a brief research methodology. If you are supposed to explain a detailed research methodology, you need to explain – the problem statement, hypothesis, research objectives, research questions, literature review, and sources of data. Most students find it difficult to come out with a problem statement and hypothesis.

If you wish to examine tentatively if your topic is good enough for research, try coming out with a “statement of problem” and “hypothesis” for your research topic. Do this type of examination for the 4-5 probable topics you have decided on. You will start realizing the topics that are realistic to carry out your research on. It also avoids you from cracking your head later once you have finalized your topic!

7. Literature review

This factor may sound similar to “checking library resources”. This is much deeper. You need to decide on an area or sub-area for research and start checking the resources on that area or sub-area. Once you complete going through considerable literature on that area, you will slowly start realizing the “gaps” in that area. You will know what the topics in that area have been dealt with already. And what topics have hardly been touched by earlier researchers – and this is where you can do your research. This is similar to you writing a script for a movie. But before writing a script, you should have watched the existing movies in that genre and ensure that you do not end up having a plot that is similar to a movie that was released last year! A lot of students take up topics that are too common. These are the topics on which considerable research has already been done. There may be nothing new to add. Even if you write articles on such too common topics, ensure that you give a perspective/treatment for that topic, which was never attempted by earlier researchers.

8. Scope for further research – by past research

At times, the already submitted (past researches) mention towards the end of their research about the “scope for future research”. The researcher indicates what all work has been dealt with in his / her research work and what type of research can be carried out by future researchers. You may check the existing/published/accepted research and get a cue to your topic! Since fewer researchers mention the scope for further research in their research work, this method may not work all the time. There are some research works that are done so well, that you can notice how they narrowed down on one of the several sub-areas. You could narrow down the other sub-areas that were not dealt with by others.