Questions about literature and narrowing the topic

Situation

You have a topic for a term paper that you have already discussed in another consultation session before. Now you have researched the topic and have problems narrowing it down. Your literature search gets out of hand, and you find countless references to other works in every book, and there again further references. You have the feeling that you are not getting anywhere, so you go to the office hours and ask for support.

Hintergrundinformation

At German universities, you are expected to conduct an independent literature search for a term paper and to critically examine the literature. This includes selecting and examining the relevance of this literature. However, it is also customary to discuss this selection with the supervisor in a next step.

Tip

Prepare a literature list before you go to the office hours. The presentation of such a literature list enables the supervisor to get an overview of which literature you have dealt with or want to deal with. You can then receive further literature references in the consultation hour, if necessary. In your literature list, you should include a combination of monographs, reference works, handbooks and other current publications such as anthologies and journal articles.