Students are asked to identify an aspect of patient care that they have observed, participated in and/or interests them.  With reference to the available literature students are asked to:

• Identify a research question based on the topic of interest;
• Identify circa 5 research articles which focus on the topic of interest;
• Read the chosen research articles paying attention to the research design used and how the study findings answer your research questions;
• Following your reading of the chosen research articles write a critical literature review which answers your research question whilst also making reference to the quality of the research designs used by the researchers.  Link the findings of your review to practice.

A subject is broad and general, such as Education or Sports or Film — too big to be the focus of your research paper. You need to look within the broad subject area to find your topic. 

A topic is more focused, more precise; it is a narrower subset of a subject. For the broad subject Education, your topic might be to investigate whether female students in all-girl schools perform better academically than their counterparts at co-ed schools. For the broad subject Sports, you might explore the controversy surrounding the use of Native American images and symbols as sports mascots.