Answered By: Priscilla Coulter
Last Updated: Jul 28, 2025     Views: 414

Need help choosing a topic? 

Since you are looking for ideas, inventions or foods/cuisines that might vary from region to region, you might start with a broad search for cultural, societal and philosophical aspects of different countries or regions across the globe (whichever is of most interest to you!).  Then, browse your results for good topic ideas.  

Try searching the "everything" search box on the library's homepage (aka "Primo") for  keywords like these:

  • culture AND South America
  • inventions AND China
  • philosophy AND Middle East
  • cuisine AND Europe
Tips:

Books are often a good place for background information, so consider applying the Books filter on the left side your search results screen when you're searching Primo.   

Another good place to find background information is the library's Credo Reference database.  It searches hundreds of encyclopedias and dictionaries, and can be a great place to get up to speed with an unfamiliar topic. You might especially enjoy the Edible series, which traces the history of different kinds of foods on a global scale!

 

Ready to start searching?

Once you have identified a topic that interests you, you'll be ready to search for it in relation to region, cultural landscape, diffusion and distance decay.   

Tip:  if you need more explanation on each of those concepts than is provided in your textbook, consider browsing some of our library's human geography books!  

 

Try searching Primo (the library's "everything" search box) again, this time combining  keywords  to describe both your topic and each of the geographic concepts.  For example:

  • chopsticks AND region
  • mediation AND cultural landscape
  • compass AND diffusion
  • pizza AND distance decay
Tip:  You may find it helpful to place phrases like "distance decay" in quotation marks when you are searching.  This tells the database to find that phrase exactly as you typed it, and can help to focus your results.

 

Give these suggestions at try...and let your librarians know if you have questions as you go.  We're happy to help! 

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