What is your topic?
Choose an author and one or more of her/his writings. You may decide to focus on the historical setting of the work, or the time during which the author wrote and its influence on her/his writing, or another topic of relevance to your chosen work/author.
Write your topic idea.
Search techniques in this tutorial will be demonstrated with Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried."
A general research idea for Tim O'Brien's story, "The Things They Carried," could be the psychological effects of warfare on soldiers.
This topic idea will become more focused as you gather information.
