Things to think about

• What interests you?
• What do you already know?
• What is it that you want to know?
• Make your questions about the topic clear and pertinent. Wondering will happen often, even when you are in other stages of research.

First Steps

1. Select a topic that interests you. If it interests others, all the better.
2. Think about different ways of exploring your topic.
3. Make it doable....something that you can complete in the time you have.
4. Brainstorm. Brainstorming involves listing all that you know about a topic. It works even better with more than one person.
5. Clustering the ideas you have gathered gives structure to your brainstormed list. See the Brainstorming link or the Mind Mapper site in the CONNECTING section.