1. Identifying Potential Topics Will you be able to find enough information about the topic? Can you develop a paper about this topic that presents and supports your original ideas?

2. Identifying Potential Topics Is the topic too broad or too narrow for the scope of the assignment? Can you modify it so it is more manageable?

3. Narrowing Your Topic Topic: sexual education programs Focus: the pros and cons of sexual education in kids’ television programs Topic: popularized diets Focus: physical effects of the South Beach Diet

4. Narrowing Your Topic Explore Your Topic in Writing –Freewrite, brainstorm

5. Narrowing Your Topic Explore Your Topic in Writing –Freewrite, brainstorm Conduct Preliminary Research –Internet searches, newspapers, magazines, friends, blogs

6. Formulate a Research Question This is your goal for your research

7. Formulate a Research Question This is your goal for your research It will guide you to find information

8. Formulate a Research Question This is your goal for your research It will guide you to find information It will require you to put together different pieces of information, interpret and analyze them, and figure out what you think.

9. Formulate a Research Question This is your goal for your research It will guide you to find information It will require you to put together different pieces of information, interpret and analyze them, and figure out what you think. Include simple factual questions as well as more complex questions that would require analysis and interpretation.

10. Topic: Low-carbohydrate diets Main Question: Are low-carb diets as effective as they have been portrayed to be by media sources? Sub Questions: Who can benefit from following a low-carb diet? What are the advantages? When did low-carb diets become a hot topic in the media? Why has the low-carb diet approach received so much media attention? Where do average consumers get info about diet and nutrition?

11. Working Thesis Initial answer to the main research question

12. Working Thesis Initial answer to the main research question Expresses a debatable idea or claim you hope to prove through additional research

13. Working Thesis Initial answer to the main research question Expresses a debatable idea or claim you hope to prove through additional research Subject to change

14. Working Thesis Main Question: Are low-carb diets as effective as they have sometime been portrayed to be by the mass media? Working Thesis: Low-carb diets do not live up to the media hype surrounding them.