Paper Topic Ideas

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

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.