LibES.06 Discovering a Paper Topic on Social Media

Much of the information we interact with daily can serve as inspiration for a research topic. For example something you see on Instagram can pique your interest. If you decide to explore further to learn more about the topic, verify or refute their claims, guess what? You're doing research.

Let's imagine you've encountered this Instagram post about MSG and want to look into it further. The post might pique research questions for you, like, "Is MSG harmful?" Or, "What effects does MSG consumption have?" Or, "How does race play into the way MSG is written about?" Don't worry about opening and reading the post now, we will get into that later!

an Instagram post from @noodle.phd Links to an external site.

But first, what is MSG?

Monosodium glutamate (MSG), also known as sodium glutamate, is the sodium salt of glutamic acid. MSG is found naturally in some foods including tomatoes and cheese. MSG is used in cooking as a flavor enhancer with an umami taste that intensifies the meaty, savory flavor of food, as naturally occurring glutamate does in foods such as stews and meat soups (Wikipedia). Links to an external site.

It might seem surprising that we are looking at Wikipedia to learn more about MSG. While we wouldn't use Wikipedia as a cited source for our paper, it is perfectly fine to use Wikipedia for pre-research while exploring your topic.