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Westchester Community College Harold L. Drimmer Library

Prof. Packer - Eng. 102 - SPRING 2025: Getting Started

Why Do Background Research?

​When you do background research you can find:

  • Words or phrases that are specific to your topic.
  • Information that answers basic information on your topic. 
  • Major ideas related to your topic.
  • People, places, time periods that are relevant to your topic.
  • Additional readings on your topic.

This will help you narrow your topic. 

Narrowing a topic requires you to create a specific question about something that interests you, that will focus your information-gathering process and research.  

It can help to think about the who? what? where? when? and why? about your topic.

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