Instead of creating a mental or written outline and then looking
for research to support your main points, you could first conduct research, and then create an outline. When it's time
to make an outline, you'll already know what main points you can
support or refute using your research.
Using this strategy, you'll need
to conduct very broad research to become familiar with a
body of information before choosing your focused topic. For
example, if you're planning to write a causal relationship paper,
you may want to read 2 or 3 articles about a problem before deciding
on which specific causes of the problem you'll write about.
Conducting a broad search means trying a variety of search terms
and using a range of sources to gather information.
Once you’ve found sources on your broad topic and used them to
narrow your focus, you need to isolate specific details (facts,
statistics, quotations, anecdotes) from your sources to support
the main ideas you plan to convey in your assignment.
