Research Guides: ENGR 102: Engineering Freshman Academy: Brainstorming a Topic

Brainstorming Your Research Topic

Research takes time! Breaking down the process into steps can help you better manage your time and energy. First, ask yourself "What are the parameters of my assignment?" What topics are allowed? Is it a five page research paper? Is it an annotated bibliography or a literature review? Do you need to find scholarly journal articles? Knowing these details means you can make a plan for the next steps.

Second, ask yourself "What interests me?" As engineering and computer science students, what motivates you to study these subjects? What do you want to learn more about? And great place to explore topics and gather background information are reference sources like encyclopedias.

Here are some reference materials to get started:

AccessEngineering This link opens in a new window
AccessEngineering provides integrated access to thousands of pages of trusted content from such renowned resources as Perry's Handbook for Chemical Engineers and Marks' Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers across desktop and mobile platforms. Users can access more than 530 books, 760 instructional videos, 3800 interactive graphs, and an Excel calculator tool to streamline calculations.
AccessScience This link opens in a new window
AccessScience has over 7100 articles; 115,000 dictionary terms; hundreds of research updates in all areas of sci/tech, including medicine; over 2000 biographies of leading scientists; weekly updates on breakthroughs and discoveries; and links to Web sites for further research.
Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Oxford Research Encyclopedias This link opens in a new window
Encyclopedia of Life Sciences This link opens in a new window
Wiley Online Reference Works This link opens in a new window

National Academy of Engineering: 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century

You can also review the National Academy of Engineering's 14 Grand Challenges for Engineers to get a jump start on interesting topics.

Learn more about Viterbi Research on NAE Grand Challenges.

More Resources

Looking for more assistance on how to get started conducing research?

The USC Libraries has helpful tutorials on a variety of topics: