# Research the topic

Before you start writing your outline, you must research your topic first to ensure you fully understand all the details about it.

* **Check the official docs**: Check out the official documentation/sample projects on your topic.
* **Review open-source software** and popular apps using technologies related to your topic, to see how this framework/API/technology is used in practice.
* **Find common questions**: Search on StackOverflow to see what common questions are related to your subject, and ask developers you know what they’d like to learn about your topic.
* **Play around**: Play around with some code demos to try out things related to your topic - consider this throwaway code, just for testing.