After you have selected a broad topic area, first look for a popular magazine or newspaper article that describes research that was published in a scholarly journal article. Often, an article will link directly to the research it's citing, but if it doesn't, make sure the popular article has enough identifying information that you can then locate the scholarly journal article where the research first appeared.

For popular articles, you can search Google News, or search different news and magazine outlets directly. 

Or, you can search library databases that provide coverage of popular literature.