In consultation with your faculty thesis advisor, you will articulate a broad beginning of a thesis topic.  Through your initial research in preparation for submitting your thesis proposal and preliminary bibliography, you will begin to narrow your thesis topic to an appropriate scope.

It's crucial to confirm early that you have access to enough primary sources to complete research on your selected topic.

Consider the following questions to fill out the worksheets linked below:

• What did you discuss with your adviser about the feasibility of your topic?

• Did they suggest any sources that could be essential?

• What other sources did they suggest you look into?

• What would your “dream” sources be? (i.e. I hope ____’s papers are published. I hope there was a trial about _____. I hope for newspaper coverage of ___ event from _____ perspective.)

• Where would you locate your topic in the bigger picture?  One way to approach that is in terms of its position within social, economic or political conditions (those factors also happen to be keywords used in the Library of Congress Subject Headings' controlled vocabulary).

• What scholarly conversations are relevant to your topic? Identify the scholars, ideas and debates that are essential to your topic. How will you fit your thesis into that conversation?  THAT is the basis of your proposal!!

• What sources may be easiest or hardest to attain?  What sources will be easier or harder to read and work with and how?  What opportunities and risks could a digital version of a particular source present?

Some tips for effective meetings with your librarian and thesis advisers:

* Bring a working bibliography with you. Even if you're not sure about many of the sources on there, it will give your adviser an idea of what work you are doing and what direction you are going in.

* If you're looking for a particular source you found cited somewhere else, show your librarian the original source you found the citation in.

* It helps to have an idea about the types of sources you are interested in finding.  Is it data about phenomena over a period of time, or primary research about a topic, or examples of children's books on an environmental topic?

* Determine what sources may be easiest or hardest to obtain.  What sources will be easier or harder to read and work with and how?