Research Guides: PHSC 2: The American Health System: Identifying a Topic or Issue

Choosing a Topic

On this page there are several resources to help you choose a topic for your research project. Please also reach out for support from your professor and/or librarian!

The eBooks on this page are a small subset of the books (hard copy and electronic) that are available to you through the SCU Library. Books are useful, not only to inspire your topic choice, but also because they can help you frame the issues and point you to other sources through the references. Don't overlook book sources in your research process!

Don't know where to start? Need more background information? I recommend taking a look at these sources to help you either get started or narrow down on your topic.

CQ Researcher
Online version of this weekly publication, covering the most current and controversial issues of the day complete with summaries, insight into all sides of the issues, bibliographies and more. Full text of all articles published since 1991.
Credo Reference
Allows you to search for articles from over 600 different electronic reference books and also works as a gateway to a very wide array of other information sources, including images, audio and video. It is a really excellent place to begin research with 'Topic Pages' offering authoritative overviews and a Mind Map feature to assist in narrowing and focusing research and identifying keywords for database searching.

Past Student Topics

A chapter in one of these eBooks could inspire your topic selection for your research. I recommend a chapter rather than an entire book because if there is an entire book on your topic and every chapter is relevant, chances are that your topic is too broad for the length of paper you're writing for this class!