By this point you have begun to think of a possible topic for your project, brainstorm additional concepts and ways to develop your initial idea, and engage with reference sources to gain a foundational understanding of your area of interest. The next step will be to continue to refine your research topic in order to match the requirements of your assignment and ensure it is not too broad or narrow.
As you work on selecting and refining your research topic, it is always important to keep the specific instructions and requirements of your assignment in mind. Make sure you carefully read over your assignment directions and pay attention to important requirements such as page length/word count or the number of required sources. An appropriate topic for a five page paper is going to look rather different from one for a fifteen page paper.
This is the concept of scope. If your topic is too broad you might find too many sources and be required to cover too much material for the length of your assignment. On the other hand, if your topic is too narrow you might struggle to find enough relevant and accessible sources.
For Example: Here are some examples of a too broad and too narrow topic relating back to our pre-Columbian civilizations topic.
