Blog #3 -Exploring Topics and Creating a Research Proposal

This will be my first ever research paper and chapter 5 of our textbook has given me some very useful and thoroughly explained tips. I felt completely lost when trying to narrow down my possible research topic and immediately when starting to read this chapter ideas came flooding in. Under the first section header, “Brainstorm Topic Ideas; Read, Talk, Sketch, Enjoy,” it states pick something meaingful to get your ideas flowing. Immediately I thought of my sister who has a very serious case of mental illness. I would like to better understand how this happened to her and what I can do to help alleviate all the problems she’s currently going through. This research paper will take a very in depth look at mental illnesses and allow me to learn more about it. The preliminary part of asking yourself questions is essential and I will need to begin by defining some basic terms in the mental illness field. There will be plenty of people to interview since this is such a large topic especially on college campuses. I will most likely go to the wellness center to discuss with doctors or psychologists to get their point of view which will help me form my own opinion since I’m not very well informed on mental illness yet.