Paper Topic Ideas

Using AI as a Partner in Brainstorming Topic Ideas

by Marianne Tanner on August 12th, 2024 in College & Life Skills, Education, Reading & Writing | 0 Comments

It's hard to think of a topic that's been in the news more in the past few years than artificial intelligence (AI). Generative AI (genAI) is likely to change the way we interact with information and ideas. You may have heard of or used genAI tools such as ChatGPTPerplexity, or Gemini. While there are many, many reasons to be cautious and critical about using genAI (plagiarism and cheating, copyright issues, biased information or misinformation, environmental impacts of server farms, just to name a few), there may also be ways genAI could be integrated into parts of the research process to support thinking and learning. For example, the purpose of this research guide, and this blog, is to help illuminate the often murky task of brainstorming, choosing, and developing a topic for a research paper. Could generative AI be a useful tool in helping you think through paper topic ideas?

*Important note: Instructors may have specific policies around if and how genAI can be used in your class. Please adhere to any guidelines or restrictions from your instructor about the use of genAI*

View of supercomputer MareNostrum4 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
photograph of two large computer server stacks at a server farmLet's assume that I'm writing a research paper, and the instructor has given the class very general guidelines for choosing a topic -- students are asked to research and write about a topic that interests them. The paper is 4-5 pages long, so the instructor has also suggested that the topic needs to be specific enough to be able to cover in that length -- in other words, large issues or topics will need to be broken down into smaller subtopics.
 

That is where things can get tricky. How do we brainstorm sub-topics or research-sized pieces of a topic? How do we turn a broad topic idea into a researchable question? One common way to do this is through "pre-searching" -- finding overview or background articles on a broader topic, from news sources or Wikipedia, for example, and skimming those articles to get ideas of the many sub-topics that are a part of that issue. Reading about a larger topic might also generate questions and curiosities about the topic that can lead to a narrower research topic. And -- this might be a time where genAI could be used as a "think partner" in brainstorming research questions and topics. Let's try that out.
 

Using ChatGPT to Brainstorm Topic Ideas
 

For this post, I'm going to try using ChatGPT, since it's the genAI with the most name recognition. You could also open ChatGPT and play around with these same search prompts -- you will likely get different answers from mine. 

Trying to think of a topic that interests me, I came up with video games. Video games is a good example of a broad topic -- what about video games do I want to research and write about? I was intentionally vague with my first search prompt in ChatGPT: video game topics. I want to see what ChatGPT will come up with when I don't give it much guidance. I was pleasantly surprised that it did return some more narrowed-down researchable topic ideas:

 
 This image of ChatGPT's response to the prompt "video game topics" is available as a screen-readable transcript

                          

Getting More Specific
 

So far, I think ideas #2 (gaming culture) and #10 (ethical and social issues in gaming) hold a lot of possibility. I'm going to keep the conversation going with ChatGPT to see if I can dive deeper into those broader subtopics. I'm going to let it know who I am and what I'm working on. My next prompt is: I'm a college student who is going to write a research paper. Help me brainstorm some of the potential impacts of video games on society. Here are the results:
 

This image of ChatGPT's response about the positive impacts of video games on society is available as a screen-readable transcript
 

                  

 This image of ChatGPT's response about the negtive and neutral impacts of video games on society is available as a screen-readable transcript


Digging Deeper 


I like that now I have positive, negative, and neutral impact ideas for gaming on society. I could choose one of these impacts to focus my research paper around. I'm curious about the ethical issue of representation in gaming. I'm going to ask ChatGPT to help me think through one more question: Give me more details on representation in gaming -- what do you mean by gender and race?
 

                   

This image of ChatGPT's response about representation in gaming is available as a screen-readable transcript

 

So, How Did it Go?


By now I feel that I've gotten several useable ideas for research topics related to video games that are interesting and specific enough for me to focus my research and writing on. I'm going to write about gender representation in video game characters. Once I begin my research and start reading articles and other sources that talk about this topic, I can decide if there's a particular stance I'm going to take, or a particular question I want to answer. 

In this example, I used genAI as a tool to help me with one step in the research process: brainstorming and narrowing a research topic idea. Some of the ideas generated by ChatGPT helped me to think through different angles on this topic, and to see it through various lenses, much in the same way that a background article on video games might. What do you think about using genAI in this way? 


"BBL Drizzy": A History of Hip Hop Beef

by Linden How on May 31st, 2024 in Art: Visual & Performing, Design & Media, History, Humanities, Social Science | 0 Comments

The rap feud between Kendrick Lamar and Drake recently took over my social media feeds. From in-depth Tiktok analyses of the lyrics of Kendrick’s most recent diss track to the plethora of new songs you can stream featuring Metroboomin’s “BBL Drizzy” beat, it’s clear that the two rappers’ exchange is feeding our society’s insatiable desire for celebrity gossip and intrigue. And, if the whiteboard in the Sylvania ASPCC office is to be believed, the majority of folks at PCC agree that Kendrick won this one.

A digital collage illustration of rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar against a colorful background with handwritten titles of diss tracks

This isn’t the first rap feud to make the news in recent history. It seems like Drake is never NOT beefing with someone. Cardi B and Nicki Minaj have been locked in a (mostly) mild feud for years, with occasional outbursts of thrown shoes and tweets. For many old school rap and hip hop fans though, today’s feuds lack the bite of those that unfolded in the 1990s: Dr. Dre vs. Eazy-E, Tupac vs. Biggie, Nas vs. Jay-Z…life or death Shakespeare-level dramas that literally changed the face of the music industry and ended in more than one tragedy. Are today’s feuds made of the same stuff, or are they just another marketing tactic?

Kendrick and Drake’s feud may not initially seem like a great jumping off point for a college research paper, but by digging a little deeper and asking some good questions, it’s possible to look at this topic from many angles. Hip hop beef, one could argue, is a thing of social, cultural, historical, and/or literary importance, and to bolster that argument, the research needs to get a little creative. 

image credit: José L. Soto, Washington Post, May 6, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2024/05/06/drake-kendrick-beef-diss-tracks/.

Gathering Information

Like I said, the main place where I’ve been seeing all this unfold is on social media, particularly on TikTok and Instagram. While social media isn’t usually the first place I go when I’m researching a topic for a paper, it can be a valid and valuable source. Social media has given many people a platform where they can share their important (and sometimes not-so-important) perspectives and experiences. Journalists and news media outlets, celebrities, and politicians increasingly use social media to share information with the public as well. It’s easy to find a whole lot of perspectives on a particular topic by searching hashtags on different sites. As I skimmed through posts about Kendrick and Drake, I started to brainstorm some research questions by reflecting on what I was seeing and looking at the bigger picture:

  • What benefits (or consequences) might a musician face if they get involved in a rap feud or beef? 

  • What role do beefs and feuds play in the history of hip hop and rap?

  • What do rap feuds tell us about confrontation and/or expressing disagreement?

  • What common tactics or subjects do rappers use in writing diss tracks?

  • Why do people (not just musicians - politicians, scientists, celebrities, gamers, philosophers, etc.) publicly feud?

A look at Wikipedia shows me a lot more background information I could use to further develop and define my topic or use as examples, including a new page on the Drake-Kendrick Lamar feud itself, an overview of the historic East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry, a page on ‘Diss’ which I now know is the term for this genre of hip hop, and the related definition and history of battle rap. Based on what I’ve found, I think I’m going to move forward with my second topic idea (the role of beefs and feuds in rap & hip hop history).

A Deeper Look

Now that I have gathered some background information, I want to find some sources that will allow me to dive into my selected topic. Now is a good time to ask myself what perspectives I want to include. In addition to news articles by music journalists, I’d love to find something from a music historian or critic or two, and of course, I want to know what industry professionals and the artists themselves have said. Some more cultural context would be good too…a source that talks about rap beefs as literature or oral history maybe, or the roots of rap and hip hop music? 

I start with Google, typing in “history of hip hop feuds,” and an article from BET pops up that sounds pretty close to my topic. I then find another article from hip-hop historian Tariq Nashid that includes embedded audio of several historically important diss tracks, and it occurs to me that in addition to the article, I can cite the tracks themselves as sources if I want. There’s also a pretty thorough history from a website called Rock the Bells, which upon further inspection turns out to be all about hip hop culture and is owned by LL Cool J. There are lots of quotes in this article from hip hop artists talking about beefs, which is great for that artist perspective I was looking for. Now that my eyes are getting tired of reading, I find a podcast by two music critics called “Rivals: Music’s Greatest Feuds” with an episode about Dr. Dre and Eazy-E. It should be interesting to hear their feud discussed from a more modern perspective, because I like to think that the blatant homophobia of “Dre Day” and similar tracks is not as accepted as it once was. 

Cover of the book That's the Joint: The Hip Hop Studies Reader Now I’m on the hunt for some peer-reviewed, scholarly sources. Searching “rap feuds” in EBSCO, one of the library’s databases, gets me a news article from 1996 about Tupac Shakur’s death, which should provide some historical perspective (I note the difference in the tone of this article, compared to this more recent New York Times article about Kendrick and Drake). I’m not finding much in the way of scholarly articles in EBSCO though, so I move my search over to Google Scholar. Searching “hip hop beef,” I find a PDF of a book titled That’s the Joint: The Hip Hop Studies Reader (we also have a couple hard copies at the PCC Libraries). I don’t have time to read the whole thing, but I might pick a relevant chapter from the table of contents. Other interesting sources include an article on the linguistic African roots of battle rap, an article about how hip hop journalism centers violence, including feuds, and an analysis of the lyrics of rap diss songs by women. Now that I’ve found a variety of sources that represent different perspectives on my topic, I’m ready to get started laying out my paper. 

Pop culture topics like this one sometimes require some creative approaches to research, including using sources, like Tiktok, that might not seem very “academic.” A research topic can come from anywhere, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to the research process. By bringing together diverse sources and perspectives, you can paint a well-rounded picture of a topic like this, and demonstrate how moments like this in pop culture can have much deeper, historic and social significance. Your librarians are here to help you brainstorm, find, and connect all kinds of sources to use in your own research! 

image credit: Mark Anthony Neal, "NewBlackMan in Exile" (blog), March 18, 2011, https://www.newblackmaninexile.net/2011/03/cover-art-thats-joint-hip-hop-studies.html.


Is Social Media Responsible for the Rise in Teen Mental Illness?

by Meredith Farkas on May 1st, 2024 in Computer Skills & Technology, Counseling, Health & Medicine, Social Science | 0 Comments

In a follow-up to their 2023 warning about the dangers of social media for teen mental health, the American Psychological Association (APA) recently came out with a report on the aspects of social media that might be particularly harmful to young people. The book The Anxious Generation was also recently published and argues that social media is a main cause of the rise in teen mental illness. As a child of the 80s who lived through things like the Satanic Panic, I tend to be skeptical of moral panics, especially when one thing is blamed for what appears to be a large and complex problem. This is a really interesting topic to explore with an open mind because, behind all the hype, the evidence is not actually as conclusive as the media portrays.

Does social media cause teen depression or anxiety?

If you’re looking for articles or reports that raise concerns about the effect of ocial media on teen mental health, you won’t have problems finding them. The Surgeon General’s 2023 Social Media and Youth Mental Health Advisory describes a number of research studies that made connections between the amount of daily use of social media and negative mental health impacts. The NPR article “The truth about teens, social media and the mental health crisis,” describes tremendous changes since 2010 in how teenagers spend their time and interact with one another, how social media use is impacting teen sleep, and how "every indicator of mental health and psychological well-being has become more negative among teens and young adults since 2012." The article also describes a 2022 research study, “Social Media and Mental Health,” that looked at the rollout of Facebook across campuses and compared it to survey data on college students’ mental health from that period. Finally, the research study “Taking a One-Week Break from Social Media Improves Well-Being, Depression, and Anxiety: A Randomized Controlled Trial” found that asking people to stop using social media for a week led to lower self-reported depression and anxiety and higher reported well-being.

How has social media impacted bullying?

The Pew Research Center report on Teens and Cyberbullying surveyed students and found that 46% of teens have experienced harassment or bullying online. The report details types of bullying, gender and racial differences in bullying experiences, and teen victims’ perceptions of the response from those in positions of power. The scholarly article “Cyberbullying via social media and well-being” reviews existing studies on cyberbullying perpetrators, victims, features of social media that increase the likelihood of bullying, and the impact of bullying on well-being. And the fascinating New York Times article “What Students Are Saying About Bullying Today” features high school students talking about their experiences with bullying.

What impact has social media had on body image?

Adolescence is a time of heightened social comparison and social media is often used as a tool for teens to compare themselves to (often idealized) others. “Social media and body image: Recent trends and future directions” is a short scholarly article that summarizes the current research on social media and body image across different kinds of platforms and usage trends. Research suggests that photo-focused sites like Instagram have a significantly more negative impact on body image and that filters and image editing leads to decreased body image (“instagram face” anyone?). The New York Times has an excellent article, “What Students Are Saying About How Social Media Affects Their Body Image,” that captures the powerful stories of teens on how social media has impacted their self-esteem, for the worse and better.

But is it really that bad? Critiquing the evidence.

Unlike The Anxious Generation and many media reports, the APA’s report was much more measured in saying that “using social media is not inherently beneficial or harmful to young people” and focused on things that we know about developing adolescent brains that might make them particularly vulnerable to negative aspects of social media rather than saying that social media explicitly causes mental illness.

In “The Statistically Flawed Evidence That Social Media Is Causing the Teen Mental Health Crisis,” statistician Aaron Brown actually went through the research used by the author of The Anxious Generation and found that most of the studies were poorly designed and don’t actually show causation, just a weak association between teens with depression and anxiety and social media use. A recent book review in the journal Nature, “The great rewiring: is social media really behind an epidemic of teenage mental illness?” comes to similar conclusions.

In scientific and medical research, the systematic review is considered the highest form of evidence, because it reviews all of the existing research studies on a topic, examines the quality of the actual study and the strength of the conclusions, and then provides an overall conclusion on the topic. Many systematic reviews on this topic from the past few years reject the idea that there’s evidence that social media use causes mental illness in teens, critique the effect size in existing studies as “weak,” and raise concerns about the methodologies used in most studies.

Can social media ever be good for teens?

Another thing that often is left out in discussions on social media is that it can also be beneficial, especially for members of certain populations. In the article “How Social Media May Benefit Teens’ Mental Health” a professor and social media researcher describes some of the potential benefits of social media including connectedness, creativity, civic engagement, social support, and a safe space for people from marginalized populations. On that last point, research has suggested that members of LGBTQ+, Black, and other underrepresented communities particularly benefit from the connections they build with other members of their community on social media. In 2022, Pew Research surveyed teens and found that amongst the harms, many teens perceive significant benefits in their use of social media. Their report, Connection, Creativity and Drama: Teen Life on Social Media in 2022, details those benefits.

Just because the evidence on the harms of social media isn’t conclusive doesn’t mean that social media can’t be harmful to young people or that the government and organizations shouldn’t be pressuring social media companies to enact protections for children and teens. But when experts and journalists start pointing to a single thing as the cause of something as complex as mental illness across a massive group of diverse individuals, it’s always worth digging deeper into the evidence.

Tips for Finding Sources on this Topic

If you decide to research teens, mental health, and social media, these tips should help you find good sources.

If you’re able to use popular and scholarly sources for your research on social media and mental health, I’d recommend searching in:

  • The library article search on the front page of the library website (be sure to select the Articles tab first!), which will find magazine, news, and scholarly (peer-reviewed) articles - Video tutorial on how to use the article search.
  • U.S. Major Dailies, which is a database of articles from the country’s five largest newspapers.
  • Free web searching will also be useful, especially for finding reports from the government, associations, and nonprofits, but be sure to look into the organization publishing the information to make sure it’s a respected organization, publisher, magazine, etc. If you’re looking for more info on how to evaluate sources, check out this video tutorial.

If you need to use only scholarly, peer-reviewed sources, I’d recommend searching in:

When you’re thinking about keywords to use, you may want to use more than just the term social media. Some authors may use the term social networking or social networks or may even focus on specific social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, etc. Authors might also use the terms adolescents or youth instead of teens. In addition to mental illness, you could use more specific terms like depression, anxiety, or eating disorder or you could use similar terms like mental health or mental disorders. You might also want to search on other aspects of social media that could impact mental health like bullying, cyberbullying, isolation, loneliness, body image, body dysmorphia, instagram face, etc. Or maybe look at positive aspects or benefits of social media like social connection, connectedness, social support, community, friendship, etc. Using keywords in different combinations can be useful to find a wider variety of sources.


Psilocybin Therapy

by Sara Robertson on February 13th, 2024 in Counseling, Health & Medicine, Sciences | 1 Comment

One of my favorite things about working at a community college is that I get to learn so much from students, every day. The therapeutic use of psilocybin started coming up in classes as a research topic of interest, well ahead of legalization in Oregon. Recently, I was contacted by a relative who has suffered from treatment resistant depression for decades and is looking to visit Oregon to seek psilocybin therapy. I’ve also heard coverage of psilocybin in more mainstream media in the last few years, such as Michael Pollan’s documentary based on his book How to change your mind (available on Netflix) and more recently and regularly mentioned in the news. These are all signs that this topic is likely a rich avenue of research and learning!

Background information

A good starting point could be to establish a baseline understanding of how psilocybin works and what’s already known about the therapeutic potentials and limitations of psilocybin. Here are some starting points: I sometimes listen to the Huberman Lab podcast and there’s an episode on How psilocybin can rewire our brain: its therapeutic benefits and its risks. This could be a good place to start because it:

  • Summarizes current research studies on therapeutic use of psilocybin
  • Explains the science of brain neuroplasticity
  • Includes links to additional sources

Another starting point could be the overview provided by Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research that has a timeline of their Psychedelic Research and Psilocybin Therapy. A book search in the PCC Library results in many books on the topic of psilocybin for therapeutic use, including an entry in the Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine (2022) on Psilocybin with a good short history and overview. If you’re looking for coverage of psilocybin in the news, you can try:

If you’re interested in government information, try Oregon Health Authority’s page on Access to Psilocybin Services that include a starting point for anyone in Oregon who wants to learn more about therapeutic use.

Perspectives, first-hand experiences, and research

It can be helpful to ask yourself who you’re interested in learning from when going about research. For this topic, here are some starting points to consider:

  • Indigenous knowledge: This recent review in Science magazine covers current research on how indigenous peoples have utilized psychedelics as a vehicle for personal knowledge for centuries. Remember that mainstream avenues for research might not include indigenous knowledge.
  • Personal or community experience: Individuals have been seeking psilocybin for therapeutic use long before its legalization in Oregon and information from community and individual experiences may be more challenging to access. Interviews with people you know, or less formal communication platforms for information sharing such as Reddit or other social media sites could be useful for providing the perspectives from this community.
  • Therapists: Training needed to administer and guide psilocybin therapy, licensing for the organizations or clinics offering the therapy, methods and approaches for effective therapeutic use, cost and insurance.
  • Policy makers, legislators and laws: Assessing whether the new law is effective, monitoring the social impact and who has access to the therapy and who doesn’t and why.
  • Psychiatrists, researchers and medical practitioners: Neuroplasticity, brain scans, and monitoring the health of the brain and body of patients undergoing treatment, measuring the effectiveness of psilocybin therapy with particular populations over time.
  • Patients, individuals seeking treatment: The physical and emotional experience of psilocybin therapy, effect on mental health and relationships with self and others. Consider the drawbacks or side effects to psilocybin treatment and what populations (age groups, diagnoses) it’s recommended for or not.

Turning the Most-Googled Person in 2023 Into Paper Topic Ideas

by Marianne Tanner on January 10th, 2024 | 0 Comments

At the end of every year, the media publish lists compiling all sorts of data from the past 12 months. What were the most popular songs? The best books? Which films made the most at the box office? As I began writing this blog post at the end of 2023, I was curious: what were the most searched for news stories of the year?

I came across the article What did you Google in 2023?  from the Associated Press, which reported on Google’s annual “Year in Search” global rankings. While I wasn’t surprised about some of the most-googled events of 2023 (the Israel-Hamas war, the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria), I wasn’t expecting to see that the most searched-for person was Damar Hamlin.

At risk of showing how out of touch I am with mainstream sports and American culture, I’d not heard of Damar Hamlin. A quick look at the Wikipedia entry for Hamlin filled me in. Hamlin is an NFL football player who experienced a sudden cardiac arrest during a televised football game in January 2023. Even though I personally wasn’t following Damar’s story, obviously many millions of people world-wide were. 

In order to better be able to brainstorm research paper topic ideas from one of the most popular news stories of 2023, I needed to know more about the story itself. Using the Articles tab on the library website, I skimmed through multiple articles about the incident from sources like Time magazine and USA Today newspaper. These articles also pointed to stories about other athletes, many of them teenagers, who have also suffered from unexpected heart issues while playing sports.

While getting some background information on Damar and reading some general sources of information (sometimes called “pre-searching”), I brainstormed ideas, formulated questions, and jotted down possible topics related to Damar’s story:

  • The “Damar Effect” and Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs)

Many millions of viewers saw Damar Hamlin collapse on TV, and subsequently be resuscitated with an automated external defibrillator (AED). Demand for AEDs skyrocketed, and this increase was dubbed the Damar Effect. Some questions this brings up: how effective are AEDs in saving lives? Aside from the demand brought on by Damar’s incident, why are AEDs and other medical devices in shortage? What facilities should have AEDs? Are there any health disparities between who is treated using AEDs and who commonly isn’t?

  • Sudden Cardiac Arrest and Young Athletes

Damar Hamlin suffered from sudden cardiac arrest. What is sudden cardiac arrest, who suffers from it, and how can it be prevented? The Gale eBooks database is a great place to start for overview articles on topics. The first result there was about sudden cardiac arrest in athletes. SCA is, in fact, the leading cause of death in youth athletes. Are there ways to prevent sudden cardiac arrest?

  • The Health Risks of Football

This story in general brings up larger questions related to the potential health risks of playing football and other contact sports. This could go in many directions: how could playing tackle football impact youth/young adults health? How are concussive injuries impacting NFL players and how is the NFL responding? Do football injuries create lasting effects on players’ health

  • Football and American Culture

Damar’s ranking as the most googled person of 2023 is due in large part to the huge popularity of American football. This is a great jumping-off point for many possible research topic ideas. How did the NFL become such a fixture in American, and even global, culture? Are there positive benefits associated with spectator sports and supporting a sports team? What are some of the criticisms of American football? Many of the scandals written about in this article could be researched. 


As you can see, there are many possibilities for things to be curious about related to the Damar Hamlin story – and likely any news story! Doing some pre-searching, brainstorming ideas and asking questions and then searching again – these are really useful ways to formulate researchable topic ideas. 

Need help with this process? Don’t hesitate to reach out to a PCC librarian!  

Photo credit: “NFL player picture” by Chris C. is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0 DEED.
 


From forbidden topic to big business: Menopause in the news

by Rachel Bridgewater on November 30th, 2023 | 0 Comments

We've probably all had the experience of suddenly seeing a topic everywhere once we develop a personal interest in it.  I kind of figured this is what was happening to me with the topic of menopause -- after all, I'm approaching fifty years old and have just started experiencing a hot flash here and there, I figured I was probably just noticing menopause in the news because it was suddenly directly relevant to me.  But, it turns out, I wasn't the only one who noticed this uptick in coverage of a previously little discussed, even taboo, subject (in fact, I went back and forth about whether this would be an appropriate topic for this blog!).   The daily news podcast from the New York Times, The Daily, recently had an episode entitled "Menopause is having a moment".  

This, in and of itself, could be a really interesting topic for a paper: why is menopause suddenly in the news (and, maybe, why was it so little discussed in the past)?  I also quickly brainstormed some approaches to paper topics related to the menopause stories I was seeing in the news.  These are meant to give you a sense of the range of possibilities that a broad topic like "menopause" might open up if you think creatively and flexibly about your approach.

Menopause and marketing

Menopause as marketing ploy: you could focus only on legitimate businesses or only on unscrupulous businesses selling ineffective treatments or look at both.  Some example articles:

Jacobs, Emma . “The Menopause Makeover — What to Make of a “Gold Rush” of New Products.” Www.ft.com, 6 Feb. 2023.

Larocca, Amy. “Welcome to the Menopause Gold Rush.” The New York Times, 21 Dec. 2022.

Lewis, Helen. “Capitalism Has Plans for Menopause.The Atlantic, 30 Oct. 2023.

Search terms: menopause capitalism, menopause business, menopause marketing

Menopause and the economy and workplace

Another angle to look at, staying in the "money" mindset, is the financial impact of menopause on people experiencing it and on workplaces.  For this topic you could focus purely or mostly on the economic impacts (eg. lost wages, lost productivity) or you could focus on the experience of menopausal people in the workplace, work place reforms that can help, etc

Examples of articles talking about the economic effects of menopause:

Gupta, Alisha Haridasani. “Study Shows the Staggering Cost of Menopause for Women in the Work Force.The New York Times, 28 Apr. 2023.

Menopause Has Massive Economic Impact, Study Reveals.” NBC News, 27 Apr. 2023.

Rae, Aparna. “Beyond Hot Flashes: A Deep Dive into Menopause, Work, and the Economy.” Forbes, 18 Oct. 2023.

Search terms: menopause "economic impact", menopause economy, menopause productivity

Some examples looking at menopause in the workplace:

Butler, Kelsey. “How Does Menopause Affect Women in the Workplace?Time, 26 Apr. 2023.

Gupta, Alisha Haridasani. “Study Shows the Staggering Cost of Menopause for Women in the Work Force.The New York Times, 28 Apr. 2023.

Otterman, Sharon, and Yana Paskova. “A Movement to Make Workplaces “Menopause Friendly.”” The New York Times, 22 May 2023.

Search terms: menopause workplace

Hormone treatment: History and politics

One big theme I've seen in this recent spate of coverage around menopause is the shifting political and medical perspective around treating menopausal symptoms with hormone therapy.  This topic would lend itself to both informative papers and persuasive papers.  Informative papers could look at the very interesting history of hormone replacement therapy and persuasive papers could make various arguments surrounding the politics of these treatments.

Cagnacci, Angelo, and Martina Venier. “The Controversial History of Hormone Replacement Therapy.” Medicina, vol. 55, no. 9, 18 Sept. 2019.

Dominus, Susan. “Women Have Been Misled about Menopause.” The New York Times, 1 Feb. 2023.

Millions of Women Are Missing out on Hormone Replacement Therapy.” The Economist, 12 Dec. 2019.

Search terms: menopause "hormone replacement" history, menopause "hormone replacement" politics

Stigma

As I said earlier, I hesitated to even use this topic as an example for the blog because this was definitely a topic no one talked about while I was growing up.  It might be interesting to explore that stigma a bit in a paper.

Fisher, Margary Zable. “With Menopause Parties, Gen X Is Celebrating Middle Age without the Shame and Stigma.” Fortune Well, 10 Sept. 2023.

Menopause Is Ubiquitous, so Why Is It Often Stigmatized and Ignored?PBS NewsHour, 30 Apr. 2023.

The Lancet. “Attitudes towards Menopause: Time for Change.” The Lancet, vol. 399, no. 10343, June 2022, p. 2243.

Search terms: menopause stigma, menopause attitudes

Other topics galore

These are just the big patterns I noticed popping up in the news lately.  I think there are tons of other interesting topics including:

attitudes about aging and menopause across cultures, menopause and transgender people, the lack of research about menopause and how that relates to women's healthcare more generally, feminist attitudes toward menopause, menopause as rite of passage, comparing attitudes toward menarche and menopause, depictions of post-menopausal women (in art, in pop culture, historically, etc), online communities/social media and the role they have played in changing the conversation around menopause, celebrity culture and menopause,  menopause and BIPOC people, menopause and disability, menopause and parenting

 

And finally...here is a sampling of books from our catalog:

Cover ArtWhat Fresh Hell Is This? by Heather Corinna
Publication Date: 2021-06-01
"An informative, blisteringly funny, somewhat cranky and always spot-on guide to perimenopause and menopause by the award-winning sex ed/health educator and author of S.E.X"--Provided by publisher. "Perimenopause and menopause experiences are as unique as all of us who move through them. While there's no one-size-fits-all, Heather Corinna tells you what can happen and what you can do to take care of yourself, all the while busting pernicious myths, offering real self-care tips--the kind that won't break the bank or your soul--and running the gamut from hot flashes to hormone therapy. With big-tent, practical, clear information and support, and inclusive of so many who have long been left out of the discussion--people with disabilities; queer, transgender, nonbinary, and other gender-diverse people; BIPOC; working class and other folks--What Fresh Hell Is This? is the cooling pillow and empathetic best friend to help you through the fire." -- Publisher's description
 
Cover ArtThe Menopause Manifesto by Jen Gunter
Publication Date: 2021-05-25
The only thing predictable about menopause is its unpredictability. Factor in widespread misinformation, a lack of research, and the culture of shame around women's bodies, and it's no wonder women are unsure what to expect during the menopause transition and beyond. Menopause is not a disease--it's a planned change, like puberty. And just like puberty, we should be educated on what's to come years in advance, rather than the current practice of leaving people on their own with bothersome symptoms and too much conflicting information. Knowing what is happening, why, and what to do about it is both empowering and reassuring. Filled with practical, reassuring information, this essential guide will revolutionize how women experience menopause--including how their lives can be even better for it!
 
Cover ArtFlash Count Diary by Darcey Steinke
Publication Date: 2019-06-18
By weaving together her personal story with philosophy, science, art, and literature, the author provides an exploration into aspects of menopause that have rarely been written about, including the changing gender landscape that reduced levels of hormones brings, the actualities of transforming desires, and the realities of prejudice against older women.
 
 
 
Cover ArtThe Slow Moon Climbs: the science, history, and meaning of menopause by Susan Mattern
Publication Date: 2019-10-08
"Are the ways we look at menopause all wrong? Historian Susan Mattern says yes, and The Slow Moon Climbs reveals just how wrong we have been. Taking readers from the rainforests of Paraguay to the streets of Tokyo, Mattern draws on historical, scientific, and cultural research to reveal how our perceptions of menopause developed from prehistory to today. For most of human history, people had no word for menopause and did not view it as a medical condition. Rather, in traditional foraging and agrarian societies, it was a transition to another important life stage. This book, then, introduces new ways of understanding life beyond fertility. Mattern examines the fascinating "Grandmother Hypothesis"--which argues for the importance of elders in the rearing of future generations - as well as other evolutionary theories that have generated surprising insights about menopause and the place of older people in society. She looks at agricultural communities where households relied on postreproductive women for the family's survival. And she explores the emergence of menopause as a medical condition in the Western world. It was only around 1700 that people began to see menopause as a dangerous pathological disorder linked to upsetting symptoms that rendered women weak and vulnerable. Mattern argues that menopause was another syndrome, like hysterical suffocation or melancholia, that emerged or reemerged in early modern Europe in tandem with the rise of a professional medical class. The Slow Moon Climbs casts menopause, at last, in the positive light it deserves - not only as an essential life stage, but also as a key factor in the history of human flourishing."--Publisher's website.

Research Inspiration from a Novel: The Lincoln Highway

by Lisa Molinelli on October 31st, 2023 | 0 Comments

I'm reading the novel The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles right now. It's set in 1954 and features an historic American highway (you guessed it, the Lincoln Highway!). I didn't know anything about this highway and I wanted to know more. As I started to look into it, I realized you could take a lot of "side trips" to create many different research topics off of this one American landmark.

First Stop: Wikipedia 

The novel mentioned a little about the history of the actual Lincoln Highway, but I wanted to know more. So I went to the Wikipedia entry for the Lincoln Highway, which is a great jumping off point for research. While you wouldn't want to use Wikipedia as a source, and you'd want to check on what you find there since anyone can edit it, it's a great place to get ideas for where to look next and go deeper for more information. For instance, Wikipedia cites a piece on the Lincoln Highway posted on the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration website. This article and website come from a trusted authority who knows a lot about U.S. Highways, and could be a great source of further information about American highways and transportation if I want to take this subject further. 

Next Stop: Brainstorm

There were several things in the Wikipedia article that sparked my interest, so I brainstormed about some research topics and questions I could follow up on by doing deeper research with articles and books on the subject

  • Railroads vs. Highways in the U.S.: I noticed that the Lincoln Highway was first planned and built between 1912 and 1913, which was a time when the railroads were the main form of transcontinental travel in the U.S. In 1913, the Lincoln Highway became the first transcontinental highway and one of the first designed for cars. So what did this mean for the railroads? How did things change when it was easier for cars to travel long distances?
  • U.S. Road transportation and the economy: There would have been big changes in the economies of the towns the Lincoln highway, or any highway, passed through (or routed around). This could be an interesting topic to explore.
  • U.S. Car travel and leisure: As car travel became easier and roads became better, how did that change the way Americans spent their leisure time? How has that changed from the time of the Lincoln Highway to today?
  • U.S. Highway travel and the environment: What effect did a change from primarily railroad travel and local travel to more transcontinental car travel have on the environment?
  • Evolution of the U.S. Highway system: It seems like roads in the U.S. went from mostly local roads, to bigger roads like the Lincoln Highway, and then to what we know as our current numbered U.S. Highway system. How did this evolution happen? What were the political and economic forces behind this evolution?

Final Destination: Who Knows? 

As you can see, there are so many places you can go with any topic. There may not be a clear map, and you may have to chart your own course, or double back and try a new research path, but that's okay! It's all part of the research journey. If you need help coming up with a topic or finding good resources on your topic, remember you can always contact a librarian via chat, email, phone, or make a research help appointment. We'd be happy to help! 

 


What's new about news?

by Robin Shapiro on June 16th, 2023 | 0 Comments

 

 

I went a little meta -- this blog is called Paper Topics from the News, and I wondered -- what is news now?  Most people don’t read a daily newspaper (at least not in print), and sometimes it’s not clear whether what we’re hearing or watching, or reading is news, opinion, or entertainment -- so I’m wondering, what is news?  Where do people get their news?  How can I find different points of view on the news? 

 

Pew Research surveys people to find out about news habits and lots of other social issues.  They published a factsheet on where people from different demographics get news.  They started with where people reported getting at least some news, and compared results in 2022 to results from 2021 and 2020:  There’s a lot of change in three years!

 

 

 

So, why is this interesting?  We can see change that’s happening fast right now - but is it really that different from earlier years?  And why do some people still buy print newspapers?

 

According to the Census Bureau “Total  estimated weekday circulation of U.S. daily newspapers was 55.8 million in 2000 and dropped to 24.2 million by 2020” -- that’s less than half as many newspapers sold.  And the graph from Pew Research above shows that those numbers are still falling.

 

How does the shift from newspapers, magazines, and broadcast television and radio to digital devices affect people who are interested in news?  One big change is that instead of a few large news providers offering the same information to most people, there are many smaller news outlets to choose from.  Because of that when people talk about a news story, they may have heard very different reports and opinions -- there’s not always agreement about the details of important news stories.  

 

Who reports the news, and who decides what we see and hear?  

 

  • If you want to know more about how news reporting works, there are some excellent journalism resources available -- Nieman Lab runs a journalism fellowship at Harvard, and an excellent newsletter about what’s happening in journalism now.  The Poynter Institute teaches journalism and also runs several fact-checking projects; they post articles about how journalism works.  ProPublica is a nonprofit that specializes in investigative journalism; their Illinois branch has a terrific Journalism Q & A page.  The Pew Research Foundation surveys Americans to find out about lots of social issues; they have a great collection of research about News Habits & Media
  • Want to look at a variety of news articles?  PCC Library offers several news databases -- from a free subscription for students to the New York Times Online, to US Major Dailies (5 of the biggest newspapers) , Newspaper Source (mostly smaller US cities), Alt-PressWatch (for alternative newspapers, like Willamette Week) and Ethnic NewsWatch (newspapers for specific ethnic communities).  Locally, you might also look at Street Roots, the weekly street newspaper.  
  • Looking for stories from different placesRest Of World offers stories that “connect the dots across a rapidly evolving digital world, through on-the-ground reporting in places typically overlooked and underestimated.”  Some of the most interesting stories I’ve seen about AI, TikTok, and social media have been on Rest of World.   

Memes

by Marianne Tanner on April 19th, 2023 | 0 Comments

Memes have become ubiquitous in our culture – we see them as photos, videos, or gifs on the internet and social media, share them with friends and family, and maybe we’ve even created some memes ourselves. I’ve been slow to use or understand what memes are, but lately have been finding myself spending too much time scrolling through video memes online. So I was curious – what even are memes? Are they a new phenomenon? Why are we so drawn to them, and what effects do they have on us personally and societally? This is a great example of how something we are curious about or interested in – even something we might not think of as “academic” – can be a great jumping off point for research!

 

Background Information: Filling in the Gaps in My Knowledge

I decided to start with Wikipedia, and looked at the overview articles on both Memes and Internet Memes. Reading these articles helped me to understand the bigger-picture concept of memes and the history of the term, which is much more broad and multi-disciplinary than I knew. I also learned that its key qualities are its virality and its ability to evolve and be parodied. Background articles like these, or like this one from the New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, will also help me generate ideas on what aspect of memes I want to research and write about, since I now know that “memes” is way too big of a topic on its own. The “References” list at the bottom of each Wikipedia article gives me plenty of other sources to dive into. 

For example, the first article cited on the references list is for a New York Times article on the Meaning and History of Memes. This article explains more about the pop culture phenomena of memes and meme-making, with examples like LOLcats and Rickrolling. It also introduces the idea of memes as NFTs – items that can be bought and sold. 

 

Surveying Current News / Media

When I use Google News to see what current online news articles are saying about memes, I find a lot of pop culture references. I was curious what kind of TED Talks had been given related to memes and the first two results were eye-opening and fascinating to watch. The Gale Onefile News database is also a good place to search for current news media articles on a topic, and I found this one about military secrets leaked by an online meme group.


Scholarly Research?

Have academics done scholarly writing and research on memes? Yes, and a lot. A quick search on Google Scholar for scholarly writing on internet memes brings up many results. I will want to narrow my topic down from here, of course. The same search on the library’s Academic Search Premier database brings up over 250 peer-reviewed research articles related to internet memes. 


Topic Ideas and Search Terms

From the reading and searching I’ve done so far, I’m able to start brainstorming some possible research topics related to memes. Here are some ideas I’ve gathered, along with some additional links to articles and videos on these topics, and suggested keywords to use for searching:

  • Memes and Politics: What impact do internet memes have on politics and political discourse? How might memes be used as a form of propaganda or disinformation? How were memes used in the 2020 elections in the US? Keywords for searching: memes and politics or political discourse; memes and propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, elections or fake news
     
  • Memes and Mental Health: Does meme intake impact mental health? What about memes specifically related to mental health? What happens when memes are used to cyberbully people?
    Keywords for searching: memes and mental health, or specific disorders like depression; memes and online bullying, cyberbullying, trolling, or harassment

     
  • Memes and Culture: How were memes used to transmit cultural ideas before the internet? What effect do internet memes have on popular culture? How might memes perpetuate cultural appropriation, racism, or misogynyKeywords for searching: history of memes, memes and culture or cultural ideas, memes and popular culture (or one aspect of popular culture, like music), memes and racism or discrimination, memes and sexism or misogyny, memes and cultural appropriation.
     
  • Memes as Digital Art: How might viral memes become commodities to be bought and sold? What would be the benefits and drawbacks of that? How are memes introducing people to fine art? Are memes themselves an art formKeywords for searching: memes and money or sales, memes and NFTs, memes and capitalism, memes and art or fine art.
     
  • Memes and Privacy/Security/Copyright: Memes bring up a lot of issues around privacy (can someone's photo or video be used for making memes and posted by others?), security (sharing confidential personal, corporate or governmental information), and copyright, amongst other issues and topics! Keywords for searching: memes and privacy, memes and national security, memes and copyright or fair use.

 


Artificial Intelligence and ChatGPT

by Lisa Molinelli on February 16th, 2023 | 0 Comments

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been under heavy discussion in the media recently due to the introduction of the ChatGPT tool by OpenAI. I’ve definitely been hearing a lot about it, and thought it could make an interesting topic for a paper. AI itself is a large, fast-developing landscape, so I would need to come up with a more specific research topic if I wanted to write a paper on it. In fact, I might first want to do a little basic reading on AI before I develop a research topic further. 

 

Brainstorming and Getting Started

If I look at a few reference sources, it might give me a more basic understanding of what AI is, how it’s developed over time, how it has been and might be used, and who some of the key players in AI have been. Articles on Artificial Intelligence in Access Science and Credo Reference, two databases available through PCC Library that contain online encyclopedias and dictionaries, could give me some helpful background and more ideas for topics.  Wikipedia’s article on AI could also be a great jumping off point to help me get more ideas. For instance, Wikipedia has a whole section on AI in Fiction, which is definitely a topic I could explore further. Looking at the further reading section in Wikipedia, or any of the references, could give me some richer, and more in-depth sources to check out, as well. And the “See Also” section provides ideas for some topics connected to AI. 

Research Questions and Directions

Here are some other research directions I could take after getting an initial sense of the AI landscape, though each of these would likely need even more honing once I did a little more research on them: 

  • AI and Healthcare: What are the ways AI might be used in healthcare? What are the pros and cons of using it in healthcare? What are the ethics of using AI in healthcare, and what do healthcare practitioners think of using AI? My quick search in the Access Science database helped me to realize there’s interest in using AI in hearing aids, which was something I hadn’t considered. 

  • AI and the Law: How might AI affect the law profession? How might laws apply to AI? What and how do lawyers think about AI? 

  • AI and Education: How might AI affect education? What are the ways it has been and could be used in education? What are the pros and cons of integrating AI tools into education? 

  • AI and Art: How has AI been used in the arts: visual, music, or otherwise? What does it mean to produce art with AI, both mechanically and philosophically? What about copyright and AI? 

Consider Using a Research Guide

If your research topic falls under a certain subject, like Health Studies, Computer Science, or Engineering, consider checking out our Research Guides on those subjects. Our Research Guides give suggestions for places you can find articles, books, and other information for research on many different subjects (we’ve got Research Guides on almost any subject you can imagine!). They help take the guesswork out of figuring out where to go for your research. 

Make Sure You Understand Your Assignment

Before you settle on a research question or topic for any paper, make sure you understand the assignment. What kind of paper are you expected to write? Do you need to have a thesis, or a point of view you need to support? What kinds of sources do you need to use to support your paper? This video from PCC library on evaluating quality sources can help you figure out which kinds of sources might be most helpful to you, and you can always ask a librarian if you need further help developing your research topic. 

Photo Credit: "Big Data Artificial Intelligence" by mohamed mahmoud hassan is licensed under a CC0 1.0 license


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