essay writing narrowing topic

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Importance of Narrowing the Research Topic

Whether you are assigned a general issue to investigate, must choose a problem to study from a list given to you by your professor, or you have to identify your own topic to investigate, it is important that the scope of the research problem is not too broad, otherwise, it will be difficult to adequately address the topic in the space and time allowed. You could experience a number of problems if your topic is too broad, including:

• You find too many information sources and, as a consequence, it is difficult to decide what to include or exclude or what are the most relevant sources.
• You find information that is too general and, as a consequence, it is difficult to develop a clear framework for examining the research problem.
• A lack of sufficient parameters that clearly define the research problem makes it difficult to identify and apply the proper methods needed to analyze it.
• You find information that covers a wide variety of concepts or ideas that can't be integrated into one paper and, as a consequence, you trail off into unnecessary tangents.

Lloyd-Walker, Beverly and Derek Walker. "Moving from Hunches to a Research Topic: Salient Literature and Research Methods." In Designs, Methods and Practices for Research of Project Management . Beverly Pasian, editor. ( Burlington, VT: Gower Publishing, 2015 ), pp. 119-129.

Strategies for Narrowing the Research Topic

A common challenge when beginning to write a research paper is determining how and in what ways to narrow down your topic . Even if your professor gives you a specific topic to study, it will almost never be so specific that you won’t have to narrow it down at least to some degree [besides, it is very boring to grade fifty papers that are all about the exact same thing!].

A topic is too broad to be manageable when a review of the literature reveals too many different, and oftentimes conflicting or only remotely related, ideas about how to investigate the research problem. Although you will want to start the writing process by considering a variety of different approaches to studying the research problem, you will need to narrow the focus of your investigation at some point early in the writing process. This way, you don't attempt to do too much in one paper.

Here are some strategies to help narrow the thematic focus of your paper :

• Aspect -- choose one lens through which to view the research problem, or look at just one facet of it [e.g., rather than studying the role of food in South Asian religious rituals, study the role of food in Hindu marriage ceremonies, or, the role of one particular type of food among several religions].
• Components -- determine if your initial variable or unit of analysis can be broken into smaller parts, which can then be analyzed more precisely [e.g., a study of tobacco use among adolescents can focus on just chewing tobacco rather than all forms of usage or, rather than adolescents in general, focus on female adolescents in a certain age range who choose to use tobacco].
• Methodology -- the way in which you gather information can reduce the domain of interpretive analysis needed to address the research problem [e.g., a single case study can be designed to generate data that does not require as extensive an explanation as using multiple cases].
• Place -- generally, the smaller the geographic unit of analysis, the more narrow the focus [e.g., rather than study trade relations issues in West Africa, study trade relations between Niger and Cameroon as a case study that helps to explain economic problems in the region].
• Relationship -- ask yourself how do two or more different perspectives or variables relate to one another. Designing a study around the relationships between specific variables can help constrict the scope of analysis [e.g., cause/effect, compare/contrast, contemporary/historical, group/individual, child/adult, opinion/reason, problem/solution].
• Time -- the shorter the time period of the study, the more narrow the focus [e.g., restricting the study of trade relations between Niger and Cameroon to only the period of 2010 - 2020].
• Type -- focus your topic in terms of a specific type or class of people, places, or phenomena [e.g., a study of developing safer traffic patterns near schools can focus on SUVs, or just student drivers, or just the timing of traffic signals in the area].
• Combination -- use two or more of the above strategies to focus your topic more narrowly.

NOTE : Apply one of the above strategies first in designing your study to determine if that gives you a manageable research problem to investigate. You will know if the problem is manageable by reviewing the literature on your more narrowed problem and assessing whether prior research is sufficient to move forward in your study [i.e., not too much, not too little]. Be careful, however, because combining multiple strategies risks creating the opposite problem--your problem becomes too narrowly defined and you can't locate enough research or data to support your study.

Booth, Wayne C. The Craft of Research . Fourth edition. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2016; Coming Up With Your Topic. Institute for Writing Rhetoric. Dartmouth College; Narrowing a Topic. Writing Center. University of Kansas; Narrowing Topics. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Strategies for Narrowing a Topic. University Libraries. Information Skills Modules. Virginia Tech University; The Process of Writing a Research Paper. Department of History. Trent University; Ways to Narrow Down a Topic. Contributing Authors. Utah State OpenCourseWare.

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1-Research Questions

2. Narrowing a Topic

For many students, having to start with a research question is the biggest difference between how they did research in high school and how they are required to carry out their college research projects. It’s a process of working from the outside in: you start with the world of all possible topics (or your assigned topic) and narrow down until you’ve focused your interest enough to be able to tell precisely what you want to find out, instead of only what you want to “write about.”

Process of Narrowing a Topic

All Possible Topics -You’ll need to narrow your topic in order to do research effectively. Without specific areas of focus, it will be hard to even know where to begin.

Assigned Topics – When professors assign a topic you have to narrow, they have already started the narrowing process. Narrowing a topic means making some part of it more specific. Ideas about a narrower topic can come from anywhere. Often, a narrower topic boils down to deciding what’s interesting to you. One way to get ideas is to read background information from a source like Wikipedia.

Topic Narrowed by Initial Exploration –  It’s wise to do some more reading about that narrower topic to a) learn more about it and b) learn specialized terms used by professionals and scholars who study it.

Topic Narrowed to Research Question(s) –  A research question defines exactly what you are trying to find out. It will influence most of the steps you take to conduct the research.

ACTIVITY: Which Topic Is Narrower?

When we talk about narrowing a topic, we’re talking about making it more specific. You can make it more specific by singling out at least one part or aspect of the original to decrease the scope of the original. Now here’s some practice for you to test your understanding.

Why Narrow a Topic?

Once you have a need for research—say, an assignment—you may need to prowl around a bit online to explore the topic and figure out what you actually want to find out and write about.

For instance, maybe your assignment is to develop a poster about the season “spring” for an introductory horticulture course. The instructor expects you to narrow that topic to something you are interested in and that is related to your class.

Ideas about a narrower topic can come from anywhere. In this case, a narrower topic boils down to deciding what’s interesting to you about “spring” that is related to what you’re learning in your horticulture class and small enough to manage in the time you have.

One way to get ideas would be to read about spring in Wikipedia, looking for things that seem interesting and relevant to your class, and then letting one thing lead to another as you keep reading and thinking about likely possibilities that are more narrow than the enormous “spring” topic. (Be sure to pay attention to the references at the bottom of most Wikipedia pages and pursue any that look interesting. Your instructor is not likely to let you cite Wikipedia, but those references may be citable scholarly sources that you could eventually decide to use.)

Or, instead, if it is spring at the time you could start by just looking around, admire the blooming trees on campus, and decide you’d like your poster to be about bud development on your favorites, the crabapple trees.

What you’re actually doing to narrow your topic is making at least one aspect of your topic more specific. For instance, assume your topic is the maintenance of the 130 miles of sidewalks on OSU’s Columbus campus. If you made maintenance more specific, your narrower topic might be snow removal on Columbus OSU’s sidewalks. If instead, you made the 130 miles of sidewalks more specific, your narrower topic might be maintenance of the sidewalks on all sides of Mirror Lake.

Anna Narrows Her Topic and Works on a Research Question

The Situation: Anna, an undergraduate, has been assigned a research paper on Antarctica. Her professor expects students to (1) narrow the topic on something more specific about Antarctica because they won’t have time to cover that whole topic. Then they are to (2) come up with a research question that their paper will answer.

The professor explained that the research question should be something they are interested in answering and that it must be more complicated than what they could answer with a quick Google search. He also said that research questions often, but not always, start with either the word “how” or “why.”

What you should do:

• Read what Anna is thinking below as she tries to do the assignment.
• After the reading, answer the questions at the end of the monologue in your own mind.
• Check your answers with ours at the end of Anna’s interior monologue.
• Keep this demonstration in mind the next time you are in Anna’s spot, and you can mimic her actions and think about your own topic.

Anna’s Interior Monologue

Okay, I am going to have to write something—a research paper—about Antarctica. I don’t know anything about that place—I think it’s a continent. I can’t think of a single thing I’ve ever wanted to know about Antarctica. How will I come up with a research question about that place? Calls for Wikipedia, I guess.

At https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica . Just skimming. Pretty boring stuff. Oh, look– Antarctica’s a desert! I guess “desert” doesn’t have to do with heat. That’s interesting. What else could it have to do with? Maybe lack of precipitation? But there’s lots of snow and ice there. Have to think about that—what makes a desert a desert?

It says one to five thousand people live there in research stations. Year-round. Definitely, the last thing I’d ever do. “…there is no evidence that it was seen by humans until the 19th century.” I never thought about whether anybody lived in Antarctica first, before the scientists and stuff.

Lots of names—explorer, explorer… boring. It says Amundson reached the South Pole first. Who’s Amundson? But wait. It says, “One month later, the doomed Scott Expedition reached the pole.” Doomed? Doomed is always interesting. Where’s more about the Scott Expedition? I’m going to use that Control-F technique and type in Scott to see if I can find more about him on this page. Nothing beyond that one sentence shows up. Why would they have just that one sentence? I’ll have to click on the Scott Expedition link.

But it gives me a page called Terra Nova Expedition. What does that have to do with Scott? And just who was Scott? And why was his expedition doomed? There he is in a photo before going to Antarctica. Guess he was English. Other photos show him and his team in the snow. Oh, the expedition was named Terra Nova after the ship they sailed this time—in 1911. Scott had been there earlier on another ship.

Lots of stuff about preparing for the trip. Then stuff about expedition journeys once they were in Antarctica. Not very exciting—nothing about being doomed. I don’t want to write about this stuff.

Wait. The last paragraph of the first section says “For many years after his death, Scott’s status as a tragic hero was unchallenged,” but then it says that in the 20th-century people looked closer at the expedition’s management and at whether Scott and some of his team could be personally blamed for the catastrophe. That “remains controversial,” it says. Catastrophe? Personally blamed? Hmm.

Back to skimming. It all seems horrible to me. They actually planned to kill their ponies for meat, so when they actually did it, it was no surprise. Everything was extremely difficult. And then when they arrived at the South Pole, they found that the explorer Amundsen had beaten them. Must have been a big disappointment.

The homeward march was even worse. The weather got worse. The dog sleds that were supposed to meet them periodically with supplies didn’t show up. Or maybe the Scott group was lost and didn’t go to the right meeting places. Maybe that’s what that earlier statement meant about whether the decisions that were made were good ones. Scott’s diary said the crystallized snow made it seem like they were pushing and pulling the sledges through dry sand .

It says that before things turned really bad ( really bad? You’ve already had to eat your horses !), Scott allowed his men to put 30 pounds of rocks with fossils on the sledges they were pushing and dragging. Now was that sensible? The men had to push or pull those sledges themselves. What if it was those rocks that actually doomed those men?

But here it says that those rocks are the proof of continental drift. So how did they know those rocks were so important? Was that knowledge worth their lives? Could they have known?

Wow–there is drama on this page! Scott’s diary is quoted about their troubles on the expedition—the relentless cold, frostbite, and the deaths of their dogs. One entry tells of a guy on Scott’s team “now with hands as well as feet pretty well useless” voluntarily leaving the tent and walking to his death. The diary says that the team member’s last words were ”I am just going outside and may be some time.” Ha!

They all seem lost and desperate but still have those sledges. Why would you keep pulling and pushing those sledges containing an extra 30 pounds of rock when you are so desperate and every step is life or death?

Then there’s Scott’s last diary entry, on March 29, 1912. “… It seems a pity but I do not think I can write more.” Well.

That diary apparently gave lots of locations of where he thought they were but maybe they were lost. It says they ended up only 11 miles from one of their supply stations. I wonder if anybody knows how close they were to where Scott thought they were.

I’d love to see that diary. Wouldn’t that be cool? Online? I’ll Google it.

Yes! At the British museum. Look at that! I can see Scott’s last entry IN HIS OWN HANDWRITING!

Actually, if I decide to write about something that requires reading the diary, it would be easier to not have to decipher his handwriting. Wonder whether there is a typed version of it online somewhere?

Maybe I should pay attention to the early paragraph on the Terra Nova Expedition page in Wikipedia—about it being controversial whether Scott and his team made bad decisions so that they brought most of their troubles on themselves. Can I narrow my topic to just the controversy over whether bad decisions of Scott and his crew doomed them? Maybe it’s too big a topic if I consider the decisions of all team members. Maybe I should just consider Scott’s decisions.

So what research question could come from that? Maybe: how did Scott’s decisions contribute to his team’s deaths in Antarctica? But am I talking about his decisions before or after they left for Antarctica? Or the whole time they were a team? Probably too many decisions involved. More focused: How did Scott’s decisions after reaching the South Pole help or hurt the chances of his team getting back safely? That’s not bad—maybe. If people have written about that. There are several of his decisions discussed on the Wikipedia page, and I know there are sources at the bottom of that page.

Let me think—what else did I see that was interesting or puzzling about all this? I remember being surprised that Antarctica is a desert. So maybe I could make Antarctica as a desert my topic. My research question could be something like: Why is Antarctica considered a desert? But there has to be a definition of deserts somewhere online, so that doesn’t sound complicated enough. Once you know the definition of desert, you’d know the answer to the question. Professor Sanders says research questions are more complicated than regular questions.

What’s a topic I could care about? A question I really wonder about? Maybe those rocks with the fossils in them. It’s just so hard to imagine desperate explorers continuing to push those sledges with an extra 30 pounds of rocks on them. Did they somehow know how important they would be? Or were they just curious about them? Why didn’t they ditch them? Or maybe they just didn’t realize how close to death they were. Maybe I could narrow my Antarctica topic to those rocks.

Maybe my narrowed topic could be something like: The rocks that Scott and his crew found in Antarctica that prove continental drift. Maybe my research question could be: How did Scott’s explorers choose the rocks they kept?

Well, now all I have is questions about my questions. Like, is my professor going to think the question about the rocks is still about Antarctica? Or is it all about continental drift or geology or even the psychology of desperate people? And what has been written about the finding of those rocks? Will I be able to find enough sources? I’m also wondering whether my question about Scott’s decisions is too big—do I have enough time for it?

I think my professor is the only one who can tell me whether my question about the rocks has enough to do with Antarctica. Since he’s the one who will be grading my paper. But a librarian can help me figure out the other things.

So Dr. Sanders and a librarian are next.

Reflection Questions

• Was Anna’s choice to start with Wikipedia a good choice? Why or why not?
• Have you ever used that Control-F technique?
• At what points does Anna think about where to look for information?
• At the end of this session, Anna hasn’t yet settled on a research question. So what did she accomplish? What good was all this searching and thinking?

Our Answers:

• Was Anna’s choice to start with Wikipedia a good choice? Why or why not? Wikipedia is a great place to start a research project. Just make sure you move on from there, because it’s a not a good place to end up with your project. One place to move on to is the sources at the bottom of most Wikipedia pages.
• Have you ever used that Control-F technique? If you haven’t used the Control-F technique, we hope you will. It can save you a lot of time and effort reading online material.
• At what points does Anna think about where to look for information ? When she began; when she wanted to know more about the Scott expedition; when she wonders whether she could read Scott’s diary online; when she thinks about what people could answer her questions.
• At the end of this session, Anna hasn’t yet settled on a research question. So what did she accomplish? What good was all this reading and thinking? There are probably many answers to this question. Ours includes that Anna learned more about Antarctica, the subject of her research project. She focused her thinking (even if she doesn’t end up using the possible research questions she’s considering) and practiced critical thinking skills, such as when she thought about what she could be interested in, when she worked to make her potential research questions more specific, and when she figured out what questions still needed answering at the end. She also practiced her skills at making meaning from what she read, investigating a story that she didn’t expect to be there and didn’t know had the potential of being one that she is interested in. She also now knows what questions she needs answered and whom to ask. These thinking skills are what college is all about. Anna is way beyond where she was when she started.

Choosing & Using Sources: A Guide to Academic Research Copyright © 2015 by Teaching & Learning, Ohio State University Libraries is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Unit 5: Conducting Independent Research

34 Choosing and Narrowing a Topic

Preview Questions:

• What should you keep in mind when choosing a topic?
• How can you determine if a topic is suitable for you?
• What are some problems you might encounter with topics? How can you know if a topic is feasible for research or not?
• How can you narrow a topic?

Choosing a Topic

When selecting a topic, ask yourself:

• What am I interested in?
• What have I read recently or heard in the news that’s interesting to me?
• Is there anything in any of my classes that I can connect to the essay topic?
• Is there anything that is affecting me personally right now that might connect to the essay topic?

Exploring potential topics

Two places to start exploring topics are these databases, accessible through the UW-Madison Libraries homepage . Select “databases” from the drop-down menu:

• Opposing Viewpoints
• CQ Researcher

An additional source to further explore the various sides to your topic  is Procon.org

Narrowing a Topic

Narrow your topic so that it can be discussed within the page limit of an assignment. Below are some examples of how topics can be narrowed.

Watch the video on Developing a Research Question

From: Steely Library NIKU

Academic Writing I Copyright © by UW-Madison ESL Program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Narrowing a Topic

The procedures surrounding selecting a topic will vary by instructor and by discipline. Before you narrow your topic, it is important that you understand the assignment. If you are you are unsure about the assignment, you may find yourself even more confused when trying to choose a topic.

Two key steps to help you understand your assignment:

• Read the assignment sheet carefully to ascertain the teacher’s expectations. Is there an explicit list of topics, or are you expected to narrow to a topic on your own? Are you to work with a specific theory of course material as you write the paper? Are you to work with a specific theory or course material as you write the paper?
• Contact your teacher if you do not understand any components of the assignment.

If your instructor hands out a topic list and expects you to operate within those boundaries, keep in mind that those lists are often broad topics, not thesis statements. Other teachers prefer to be intentionally vague in order to give you the freedom to narrow to an area of your interest. That means that you will have to search for a topic that you are willing to work with for a considerable amount of time.

Strategies for a topic search:

• Work from the general to the specific.
• Consider the word count or page requirements to determine how narrow your topic needs to be. The shorter the paper, the narrower the topic should be. You cannot cover all aspects of online education in a three-page essay. 
• Note in a research notebook provocative questions that arise in class lecture or discussion, topics in your textbook that appear ripe for further exploration, or issues that come up in your conversations with classmates.
• Use prewriting strategies such as brainstorming, clustering, or free writing to generate topics. See more on these techniques in Prewriting Strategies . 
• Use the on-line library catalogue to narrow to a topic quickly and see what books are available on the topic. Then, look through the library databases for articles on these topics. Reviewing the resources often helps to see what subtopics you could write about. Start on the KU Libraries page.  
• If you do not even know where to start, perusing All Issues on the Issues and Controversies database can give you an idea of many different topics you could write about. 
• The Internet is also a useful resource, although you must take care to evaluate Internet sources for reliability. See Evaluating Websites for more details.
• Make an appointment with the Writing Center and brainstorm ideas with a writing consultant.

Now that you have decided on a topic, narrow your focus.

Questions to ask to narrow your focus:

• Is this topic consistent with the assignment?
• What is interesting about the topic?
• What do I know about the topic?
• What do I want to know?
• What do I need to know?

Skim the literature to help you narrow your topic to a manageable one which meets your instructor's assignment and your interests.

As an example, if your initial topic for a 10 to 20 page paper is " Space Exploration ", by the time you finish your topic search, you might have narrowed your topic to " Unmanned U.S. Space Exploration of Planets " or even to a specific planet and mission like " 1997s Pathfinder Mission ".

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Prewriting: Ground Zero

19 Selecting and Narrowing a Topic

When you need to write something longer than a text or an email, whether it’s a class assignment, a report for work, or a personal writing task, there’s work to be done before you dive in and begin writing. This phase is called prewriting (even though some types of prewriting involve actual writing).

Note that even though instructors may describe a writing process as having steps that seem to go in order, writers usually skip back and forth between those steps as they work toward a final draft. While you’re in the early stage of prewriting, you might use freewriting (a technique for generating text that you’ll learn more about in the section titled “ Gathering Ideas “) and then use that technique again after revising your first draft. When instructors describe writing as “ recursive ,” this process is what they are talking about. The techniques described for prewriting may come in handy later in your own writing process.

Narrowing/Choosing Your Topic

If you’re working on a course assignment, you may get to select your own topic or a topic may be assigned to you.

If you get to choose your topic, be sure that you understand the kind of topic that will fit the assignment. For example, if your instructor asks you to write an argument about a local problem in your community, you wouldn’t choose to write about the national debt—that’s not a local problem, but a national one. You might try some of the techniques in this resource, like freewriting , listing , or clustering , to discover topics you are interested in. You might use your library’s online databases to search for interesting topics, especially databases that give pros and cons for current issues.

But even if the instructor assigns the topic, you can find ways to make it your own.

Some More Types of Assignments from Instructors

Most of the time, instructors give specific assignments that relate to the course and perhaps to assigned readings or discussions from class. When you are given a specific topic, be sure that you understand what you have been asked to do. Look for the verbs used in the assignment. Here are some common verbs from writing assignments and what they usually mean:

• Summarize : If you are asked to write a summary of something you’ve read, you will be giving the main points and the supporting points from the text. A summary usually does not include your personal opinion.
• Respond : When you are asked to respond to a text, you can give your opinion in a variety of ways. You might talk about the quality of the text, connections you made with the text, or whether you agree or disagree with the author’s ideas. You may need to incorporate a little bit of summary so that the reader has enough background to understand your response. The summary might be in the form of a single paragraph after your introduction, it might be a few sentences within your introduction, or it might be incorporated in multiple paragraphs in a sentence or two.
• Analyze : An analysis breaks something down into parts in order to understand the whole.
• Synthesize : A synthesis combines two or more ideas into a larger whole. For more on synthesis, see “ Synthesizing ” in this text.
• Compare and contrast : When you are asked to compare and contrast (or sometimes the instructor will just say compare, but mean both), you will be looking at two items and stating how they are alike and how they are different.
• Reflect : A reflection asks you to deeply consider something, often on a personal basis. For example, you might be asked to write a personal reflection about your own writing or about your progress during a course. Or you might be asked to reflect on how a particular issue affects you.
• Other terms : There are many possible verbs that you might find in an assignment. If you are unsure what the assignment calls for, be sure to ask your instructor.

Picking Your Own Topic When One Isn’t Assigned

For some assignments, you may be able to write about a topic that is personally significant to you. Being able to write about a topic like this can improve your motivation. Be wary, though, of just writing opinion without backing up your ideas with reasons and evidence that your readers will find convincing. If you want to write about a deeply personal topic, be sure that you are willing to share that with others and also consider whether or not your readers want to know that information about you.

One way to narrow your topic is to decide what you DON’T want to write about. What ideas or subtopics could you eliminate?

Using Preliminary Research

Another way to narrow your topic is to do some preliminary research—not the kind of research you would include in an essay, but rather quick online research to inform yourself about the topic. This is one example of when it’s okay to use a simple Google search or use Wikipedia. Once you see what other people are writing about your topic, it can help you see areas that are interesting to you, and it can also help you understand what people, in general, agree on and what is still undecided and needs to be further explored.

Using Purpose to Determine Topic

You can also use your purpose for writing to define your topic:

• Informative : if your purpose in writing is to inform your readers, what are topics that you already know a lot about? What are some interesting topics that you could easily research?
• Persuasive : if your purpose is to persuade readers to think a certain way or to take an action, what are some topics that you feel strongly about? What are some topics that are currently under discussion that you could explore and form an opinion on?
• Reflective : if your purpose is to reflect on a personal experience or on your learning process, you can explore your knowledge and experience.
• Analytical : if your purpose is to analyze something (usually a text of some kind), is there an assigned list or a specific text? If you get to choose, what books, essays, poems, films, songs, etc. have you recently been exposed to that you could analyze?

Text Attributions

• This chapter was adapted from “ Selecting and Narrowing a Topic ” in The Word on College Reading and Writing by Carol Burnell, Jaime Wood, Monique Babin, Susan Pesznecker, and Nicole Rosevear, which is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 Licence . Adapted by Allison Kilgannon.

Media Attributions

• “Sustainability image” by Intel Free Press is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 Licence.

re=again cursive=writing recursive=writing again

Advanced English Copyright © 2021 by Allison Kilgannon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Academic Writing Guide

• Purpose of the Guide
• Theoretical Vs. Conceptual
• Finding a Topic
• Narrowing or Broadening Your Topic
• Finding the Right Terms
• Collecting Citations
• Academic Language
• The Abstract
• Introduction
• Literature Review
• Methodology
• Citing With APA
• Citing with AMA
• Proofreading Your Paper
• How to Construct an Annotated Bibliography

Making an Outline

Narrowing or broadening your topic .

One common issue when searching is finding the right topic or right terms. There is a reason it is called research as sometimes you have to search a few times to get the results you want. Remember that revising your searches is all a part of the process, so don't get discouraged.

Problems with a topic being too broad:

• If there is too much research on a topic, it is hard to develop criteria to decide if articles should be included or excluded. 
• If a topic is too broad, there may be too many methods to compare. 
• If doing a literature review with a topic that is too broad, it may be impossible to adequately analyze all of the literature. In addition, the breadth of research may overwhelm the audience. 

Problems with a topic being too narrow:

• If a topic is too narrow, there may not be enough research to support your hypothesis. 
• If a topic is too narrow it may indicate this problem only refers to a small population.
• There may not be enough to support a full paper. 

Strategies for Broadening or Narrowing a Topic

Now that you know the problems with a topic that is too broad or narrow, how do you find the sweet spot for finding the best terms? Below are a few strategies you can use if you find a topic is either too narrow or too broad.

Strategies for Narrowing a Topic that is too broad:

• Example: Does exercise impact diabetes?

New topic: In the United States, do seniors who participate in yoga better manage their A1C? 

Strategies for broadening a topic that is too narrow

Example: Does the use of fitbits help 65 year old men manage their A1C in Lake Forest, Illinois in the past year?

New possible topic: Does the use of fitness trackers help seniors manage their A1C? 

I'm not sure if my topic is too narrow or broad, what do I do?

If you need help determining if your topic is too narrow or broad, do not hesitate to contact the librarians for assistance. The librarians at the Boxer Library are available for one-on-one consultations. During these appointments we will go over your topic, and then give you tips for finding the best results. To meet with one of the librarians, simply fill out the  Schedule An Appointment  form. 

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• Next: Finding the Right Terms >>
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Narrowing Your Topic

Stephanie Ojeda Ponce

For many students, starting with a research question is the biggest difference between how they did research in high school  or on their own and how they carry out university research. It’s a process of working from the outside in: you start with the world of all possible topics and narrow down until you’ve focused your interest enough to be able to state what you want to find out, instead of only what you want to write about.

Process of Narrowing a Topic

All Possible Topics – You’ll need to narrow your topic in order to do research effectively. Without a specific areas of focus, it will be hard to even know where to begin. Ideas about a narrower topic can come from anywhere—from a walk in the woods, a reading from another class, a book that opened your mind, a personal experience, an event or controversy in the news. I encourage you to start with what interests you and sparks your curiosity.

Topic Narrowed by Initial Exploration – It’s wise to do some more reading about that narrower topic to a) learn more about it and b) learn specialized terms used by professionals and scholars who study it.

Topic Narrowed to Research Question(s) – A research question defines exactly what you are trying to find out. It will influence most of the steps you take to conduct the research.

Background Reading

It’s wise to do some more reading about that narrower topic once you have it. For one reason, you probably don’t know much about it yet. For another, reading will help you learn the terms used by scholars who are already contributing to the conversation you want to join. These terms will be helpful when you’re looking for sources later, so you might want to jot them down.

For example, if you were going to do research about _________, this background reading would teach you that professionals and scholars usually use the term ________. If you didn’t learn that, you would miss the kinds of sources you’ll eventually need for your research paper.

Sources other than journal articles can be good sources for this initial reading, including news outlets, Wikipedia, podcasts, documentaries, interviews, blogs, and relevant websites.

This initial inquiry could cause you to narrow your topic even further, which is fine because narrower topics lead to greater specificity. After this upfront work, you’re ready to start developing the research question(s) you will try to answer.

Fuel Your Inspiration

During this initial stage, it can be useful to keep a notebook or journal specifically dedicated to your inquiry. Much like a “field notebook,” you can write down notes, ideas and questions that occur to you as you explore information sources and engage with and pay attention to the world around you.

It’s worth remembering that reading, scanning, looking at, and listening to information resources is very useful during any step of the process to develop a research question. Doing so can jog your memories, give you details that will help you focus and connect disparate information–all of which will help you come up with research questions that we find interesting.

Adaptations

Excerpted from Narrowing Your Topic from Writing Place by Lindsay Cuff is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Narrowing Your Topic Copyright © 2023 by Stephanie Ojeda Ponce is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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One of the most difficult parts of an assignment can be selecting a topic. Topics that are too narrow may lead writers to stretch the material, padding the essay with redundant or irrelevant information. Topics that are too broad may lead to superficial, oversimplified essays that never get beneath the surface. Selecting an appropriate topic can make the writing process much easier.

Overview : this Purdue OWL page offers strategies for understanding, brainstorming, and prewriting initial responses to assignments.

How to select a research topic : this library guide from the University of Michigan-Flint identifies steps in working toward a research paper topic.  

Narrowing or broadening your topic : this resource from Weber State University provides advice on refining your topic.

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Essay Writing: Choosing/Narrowing Your Topic

• Essay Writing Basics
• Purdue OWL Page on Writing Your Thesis This link opens in a new window
• Paragraphs and Transitions
• How to Tell if a Website is Legitimate This link opens in a new window
• Formatting Your References Page
• Cite a Website
• Common Grammatical and Mechanical Errors
• Additional Resources
• Proofread Before You Submit Your Paper
• Structuring the 5-Paragraph Essay

Presentation: Choosing and Narrowing Your Topic

• PRESENTATION_ EN 121 - Milestone 1 - Choosing and Narrowing Down a Topic

Boolean Operators

The Boolean operators AND , OR , and NOT are often used to combine keywords when searching research databases. Use of these operators can make your search more focused, thus yielding more precise search results. But before using the operators, it's necessary to understand how they actually work.

Boolean Searching

Keep in mind that the connectors AND and NOT generally limit your search (decreases the number of hits) and the connector OR expands it (increases the number of hits). So the following strategies naturally follow:

• If you are retrieving too many records on your topic, try adding another search term with the connector AND .
• If you are retrieving too many records on an unrelated topic , try eliminating a word with the connector NOT
• If you are retrieving too few records on your topic, try adding another search term with the connector OR .

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Advanced Search Methods: Truncation / Wildcards / Controlled Vocabulary

Truncation allows you to search the "root" form of a word with all its different endings by adding a symbol to the end of a word. Example: typing in bank* will retrieve results with these words: bank, banks, banking, bankers, bankruptcy The most common truncation symbol is the asterisk * but databases vary. Check the database Help section to find the correct truncation symbol. Example: bank* bank! bank# bank? See the sample search below for results using "bank*" in a Discovery search.

Finding Newspaper and Website Articles on the Internet

Go to the best source for the type  of information that you want.

Some suggested websites:

• AP Top News
• Google News Top Stories
• Twitter #News
• FINANCE :  Bloomberg or Forbes  or the Minority Business Development Agency
• POLITICS :  The Hill   or C-SPAN  
• TECH :  The Verge or C|Net  
• Opensecrets.org  
• American Press Institute Guide to Fact-Checking Resources
• Vice News Tonight
• LoHud News  (Westchester County)
• Queens Gazette
• Bronx Times
• BBC News World
• Freedom Forum World News
• United Press International

Finding Newspaper Articles in the Databases

In order to use the sources listed below, you'll need to  log in to the Library Databases .

(Login details  here .)

You might want to try:

• Historical New York Times  (Proquest)  A searchable Index going back to 1851.
• InfoTrac Newsstand  (Gale) Full-text newspaper database with several New York Newspapers including the New York Times from 1995 on, and over 1,000 major U.S. regional, national, and local newspapers. 
• National Newspaper Index  (Gale) Provides article citations from 1977 to present for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. 
• National Newspapers Premier  (ProQuest) Online access to current and back issues of the most respected national and regional newspapers from across the U.S.  Titles include The Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post, Barrons, USA Today and many more.
• Newspaper Source  (EBSCO) Provides cover-to-cover full-text for more than 40 national (U.S.) and international newspapers, selective full-text for more than 370 regional newspapers, and full-text television and radio news transcripts. 
• US Newsstream  (ProQuest) Most recent premium U.S. news content, as well as archives that stretch back into the 1980s featuring newspapers, newswires, blogs, and news sites in active full-text format. Coverage: 1980 - current.
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IDS 101 - Argumentative Essay (Haller)

• 3. Narrow Your Topic

Ask yourself:

What aspect of the topic do I want to focus on?

What interests me about the topic?

What do I want to write about?

Is there more than one side to this issue? What are the opposing viewpoints on it?

As you start to narrow this down into a topic/thesis, you'll want to continue to look for more sources. As you research, you might tweak or adjust your topic/thesis.  In order to help you find more related sources about your topic, you'll want to identify keywords to help you search.

As you think about what concepts you want to research, think about what particular words might be found in a good article about that topic.  For instance, if you are writing about the paying college athletes , think of related keywords:

You can also combine your keywords to find articles connecting the two ideas. Unlike Google, our library databases work best using connector terms, such as AND or OR .

Keywords work best by trial-and-error. Never do only one search. Some keywords will work better than others, and some keywords may lead you to different articles than you found in your first search.  Search the databases with the keywords you selected to find relevant articles. And remember to ask a librarian if you need assistance coming up with keywords or looking for sources.

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• 1. Getting Started
• 2. Explore Your Topic
• 4. Find Sources
• 5. Cite Your Sources
• 6. Evaluate Your Sources
• 7. Write Your Paper

Questions? Ask a Librarian

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8.2: Narrowing Down a Topic

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Before creating a thesis, you want to focus on narrowing down your topic. Typical undergraduate academic papers range from 2 to 20 pages. You generally won’t be writing book length papers (150 pages plus), so you don’t want to begin with topics that would require the length of a book to investigate and prove like “the worldwide drug trade” or “racism in America.” You want to use focus strategies to help you narrow down to a manageable topic you can effectively and concretely prove in a shorter paper. You can use these strategies individually or combined.

Narrow down the "too broad" topic using each focus strategy:

Narrow down the “too broad” topic using each focus strategy:

TIME: Topic that is too broad: The enslavement of people since Roman times. Narrow the topic (by time): Slavery during the era of Frederick Douglass during the early 1800s PLACE: Topic that is too broad: Abuse of slaves in the United States. Narrow the topic (by place): The abuse of house slaves in Maryland, where Douglass lived. POPULATION: Topic that is too broad: Slaves who were discontent Narrow the topic (by population): Slaves, like Douglass, who rebelled against unjust laws. VIEWPOINT: Topic that is too broad: Slavery was harmful. Narrow the topic (by viewpoint): Slavery demoralized human beings and destroyed families.

Practice: EVALUATING A THESIS USING A CONTINUUM LINE

Applying the advice on narrowing a topic in regard to time, place, population and viewpoint, you can evaluate thesis statements using a continuum line. Some will be too narrow, some too broad, but your goal as a writer is to create a thesis that is just right.

Thesis Continuum Line

TOO NARROW JUST RIGHT TOO BROAD

Evaluate the following thesis statements and decide where they fall on the continuum line.Explain your reasoning.

• Even though most people believe school has influenced them or taught them the most, it was my father, not school, that taught me the value of reading and writing.
• Literacy is the key to success, and you must be literate to be successful in today’s world.
• The only way to achieve literacy is by learning the five paragraph essay.
• The North and South fought the Civil War for many reasons, some were the same and some different.
• While both sides fought the Civil War over the issue of slavery, the North fought for moral reasons while the South fought to preserve its own institutions.
• The main argument of the Civil War was whether individual states had a right to self-govern independent of federal law.
• Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel.
• Twain's Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave "civilized" society in order to find one’s basic humanity.
• Twain’s Huckleberry Finn shows that Huck grew when he realized people missed him when he was presumed dead.
• Even though most people believe school has influenced them or taught them the most, it was my father, not school, that taught me the value of reading and writing. JUST RIGHT
• Literacy is the key to success, and you must be literate to be successful in today’s world. TOO BROAD
• The only way to achieve literacy is by learning the five-paragraph essay. TOO NARROW
• The North and South fought the Civil War for many reasons, some were the same and some different. TOO BROAD
• While both sides fought the Civil War over the issue of slavery, the North fought for moral reasons while the South fought to preserve its own institutions. JUST RIGHT
• The main argument of the Civil War was whether individual states had a right to self-govern independent of federal law. TOO NARROW
• Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel. TOO BROAD
• Twain's Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave "civilized" society in order to find one’s basic humanity. JUST RIGHT
• Twain’s Huckleberry Finn shows that Huck grew when he realized people missed him when he was presumed dead. TOO NARROW

Helping Students Narrow a Topic

You may wish to integrate the following suggestions and exercises into your course. We suggest the following activities and readings.

Suggested Readings

• Citation Information

A Literacy Narrative Essay assignment asks the student to focus on a single incident or event relating to Literacy, it's important that we help students learn how to narrow their topics' focus. The exercises included here are designed to help students learn how to look for experiences that specifically relate to Literacy and how to narrow those topics.

The exercises listed below are designed to help your students narrow their topics for a Literacy Essay:

Outsider Exercise

One activity for teaching students how to narrow their topics for a Literacy Narrative Essay is to help them define what a Literacy experience is. The Outsider Exercise is designed to help them narrow their general personal experience into specific experiences that may be related to Literacy.

During this activity you will ask students to think and write about an experience they have had when they felt like an outsider. Then you will ask the students to think about why they were an outsider in that particular community. Generally, what will come out of this exercise is the idea that frequently when we feel like outsiders it's because we don't understand the culture or customs of the community we are trying to join. As one part of culture/customs is the way we communicate, this idea can then naturally lead to how their lack of literacy caused them to feel like outsiders. The narrowing process takes them from a personal experience, to a personal experience that relates to feeling like an outsider, to what caused them to feel like an outsider, to the idea of literacy.

Outsider Exercise Teacher Instructions

Begin the exercise by modelling different types of personal experiences you have had. For instance, I had an experience travelling to a foreign country, learning to ride a bike, going to school, etc. Then talk about a particular type of experience you've had -- one time when you felt like an outsider. After you describe this experience, brainstorm with your class about why you might have felt like an outsider in this situation. Generally what will come up will be the idea of needing to know the people. This should then lead to a discussion of what you need to know about the people. Students will reply with things like names, where they are from, what they like to do, etc. Lead the conversation in this fashion until it's narrowed to the idea of needing to know the customs/culture of the people in order to connect with them. Then ask what different parts make up culture. Language should be mentioned, if not, be sure to bring it up. Then briefly discuss how the lack of knowledge about the language of the community you felt outside of contributed to your inability to connect with the community.

After you have modelled one type of outsider experience with them, have the students freewrite for several minutes about their own outsider experience. Where did it occur? What did they feel during the experience? Why do they think they felt like outsiders? Did they ever become insiders? What changed? Students should be sure to describe their experience using detail.

The results of this exercise should be that the students identify at least one experience that might be useful for their Literacy Essay.

Outsider Exercise Student Instructions

For this freewriting exercise, think about a time when you felt like an outsider. Where were you at the time? When did this occur? What group was it that you felt outside of? Describe the experience in detail.

Now think again about this experience. How might it relate to the idea of literacy? Would you have felt more like an insider if you had understood the language of the community you wanted to join? What other types of language (i.e. body language) might you have needed to learn to join the community?

Learning a New Skill Exercise

One activity for teaching students how to narrow their topics for a Literacy Narrative Essay is to help them define what a literacy experience is. The "Learning a New Skill Exercise" is designed to help students narrow their general personal experience into specific experiences that may be related to Literacy.

For this activity you will ask students to think and write about an experience they have had when they felt they became proficient in a new skill. The exercise should lead to the idea that literacy is like gaining a new skill. It should also lead to the idea that in order to feel proficient at anything, we need to know the language associated with that skill.

Learning a New Skill Exercise Teacher Instructions

This exercise is made up of two components. The teacher first models their own experience with learning a new skill, then the students freewrite about their own experiences.

You begin the exercise by describing a personal experience with learning a new skill. Explain where you were, what you were doing, and the scene around you in order to model the kind of detailed description you want your students to give. You will then discuss how that experience made you feel, and what you felt you gained. Also, to lead into a connection to literacy, you should think out loud about what enabled you to become proficient in the skill. Practice will be key. This should then lead to the question of practice at what, which should lead to a need to understand the "customs" or language of the skill.

After you have modelled this kind of description and analysis of an experience learning a new skill, you should ask the students to freewrite for several minutes on their own experience learning a new skill. Have them describe the experience and reflect on what enabled them to gain proficiency.

After the freewrite, you will discuss how this exercise is like the Literacy Narrative Essay that asks them to think about a time when they became proficient at a language. The freewrite should have generated at least one time when this was probably true. In order to become proficient at a skill, for example, we generally need to learn the language associated with the skill.

Learning a New Skill Exercise Student Instructions

Think of a time when you first became proficient at a new skill, like riding a bike, playing a piano, or driving a car.

Now write approximately two paragraphs describing that experience. Be sure to set the scene for us describing where you were, how old you were, what you were doing, what you could see around you, and other vivid details.

Then think and write about what enabled you to learn that new skill. What did you need to learn in order to become adept at the skill?

Evolving a Topic Exercise

One activity for teaching students how to narrow their topics for a Literacy Narrative Essay is to walk them through the process of evolving a topic. This exercise is designed to model a student's process for narrowing a topic and also to give students practice evolving their own topics. In addition, it provides them with sample questions they can ask themselves to narrow a topic.

Evolving a Topic Exercise Teacher Instructions

First, put up the Evolution of a Topic Overhead.. This overhead shows the process one student went through to narrow the focus of his topic for the Literacy Narrative Essay.

Walk the students through the process shown on the overhead. Discuss why the student in the example decided the topic needed narrowing at each point in the process, and how he went about finding subtopics. Discuss the kinds of questions the student most likely asked himself. Block out the later "evolutionary stages" with a piece of paper until you arrive at them, in order to help the students focus, but also so they feel literally as if they are moving, step-by-step, through the process.

After modelling the one students' narrowing process, ask for a student to volunteer a topic they were thinking of for the essay. Then, as a class, try to think of subtopics and ways to narrow the topic. Have the students ask the volunteer the same kind of questions the modelled student may have, i.e. "What are different kinds of this topic?" "What is my interest in this topic, how am I personally connected?"

After the class has collaboratively narrowed the volunteer student's topic, distribute an Evolution of a Topic Template to each of them to fill out.

Then, after the template is completed, have the students freewrite for a few minutes on the narrowed topic that has evolved.

Evolving a Topic Exercise Student Instructions

As a class, we just helped to evolve a general topic for the Literacy Essay into a more focused one that will be more managable for the writer, as well as being relevant to the purpose of the essay. Now, on the Evolving Topic Template I will be handing out, work on narrowing your own topic by trying to answer the questions shown and filling in the blanks.

Topic Template Handout: Evolution of a Topic

Topic sample: evolution of a topic.

Below is a list of texts that would be appropriate to hand out to your students, plus texts available for teachers.

Donald, Robert B. et al. Writing Clear Essays, Third Edition. Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1996. 4-5.

A brief overview of brainstorming, freewriting, and journal keeping the collecting techniques. Basic level of writing.

Reinking, James A., Andrew W. Hart, and Robert Von Der Osten. Strategies for Successful Writing: A Rhetoric, Research Guide, and Reader, Fourth Edition. Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1996. 12-20.

Discusses strategies for finding a topic. Gives exercises and examples of brainstorming, freewriting, journaling, and sorting. Discusses link between audience and purpose and selecting a topic.

Connors, Robert, and Cheryl Glenn. The St. Martin's Guide to Teaching Writing, 2nd Edition. New York: St. Martin's, 1992.

Provides an overview of teaching composition. Highlights the process of composition, including topic generation and focus.

Elbow, Peter. Writing With Power. New York: Oxford UP, 1981.

Discusses freewriting as a means of generating topics.

Elbow, Peter. Writing Without Teachers. New York: Oxford UP, 1973.

Discusses freewriting and other prewriting techniques that can help students to find their own topics.

Gebhardt, Richard C. "Initial Plans and Spontaneous Composition: Toward a Comprehensive Theory of the Writing Process." CE 44 (1982): 620-27.

Lunsford, Andrea. "An Update of the Bibliography on Basic Writing." Teaching Composition: Twelve Bibliographical Essays. Gary Tate, Ed. Texas Christian University: Fort Worth, 1987. 207-226.

Provides an updated bibliography to texts on basic writing including helping students get started. Briefly discusses recent issues of teaching basic writing.

Shaughnessy, Mina P. "Basic Writing." Teaching Composition: Twelve Bibliographical Essays. Gary Tate, Ed. Texas Christian University: Fort Worth, 1987. 177-206.

A bibliography to texts on basic writing including helping students get started. Briefly discusses recent issues of teaching basic writing.

Narrowing Your Focus

Narrowing Your Focus for Research Podcast

Narrowing your focus for research transcript.

Greetings everyone. This is Kurtis Clements with another effective writing podcast. In this episode, I am going to talk about narrowing your focus. One issue many writers face when writing, especially when writing an academic research essay, is limiting the scope of the discussion to something that is manageable. Clearly, the parameters of the assignment would dictate the scope of a subject one could realistically discuss in a paper, but even then there is often a need to limit one’s focus.

If you’ve ever written a college essay before, I am sure you are quite familiar with the list of taboo topics instructors have. High on any list would be the issue of capital punishment. Let’s say you had to write a persuasive research essay and you wanted to sound off on this controversial issue. Let’s also say you were gung-ho to argue your view that capital punishment is wrong and you begin researching with gusto. When you use a library and conduct an electronic article or book search on the topic of capital punishment, what do you think you will find?

Oodles and oodles of content—book after book, article after article, far, far too much material to wade through even if you blocked off a month of Sundays. Why? Not because your instructor isn’t interested in the issue or has read too many papers on the topic (both of which, I suppose, could be true). The real reason is that the issue of capital punishment is one that fills books—and lots of them. There is no way someone can have a meaningful discussion of this topic in the typical amount of space allotted to undergraduate research paper assignments. I am not even going to mention that the purpose of academic research is to add something new to the discussion and in all likelihood most undergraduate papers are simply going to be a rehash of already circulating discussion points. Plus, one would need a lot of space for such a discussion.

The bottom line? The issue of capital punishment is too broad (as is the case for many topics). You’ve got to narrow the focus to something tenable, something doable, something researchable, something that is going to have substance. Papers in which the topic is too broad lend themselves to discussions that gloss over key ideas.

So how do you know if your topic is too broad? Perhaps the best litmus paper test is to conduct a library or even an internet search on your topic. If you input your topic, press search, and get a gazillion hits, then that is telling you something, namely that your focus is too broad. Using the broad topic as a starting point, you can play around with the wording and/or key words you input to try to narrow the topic to something doable. But you need to be patient and you need to be willing to rethink your approach to the topic if you want to make any headway. In other words, narrowing your focus can take some time.

Let’s say you are interested in writing about single mothers and you access a library’s online database and type into the search field Single Mothers. What do you think such a search will yield? My search flagged over 154 thousand potential hits. Far too many, right? Of course! In my second attempt, I decided to limit my search to a single electronic data base and chose Academic Search Premier. I again entered Single Mothers and got 3,170 hits, much better than my first attempt but still far too many to go through. Clearly, I have got to narrow the focus to something manageable and researchable. I can help myself by limiting my search so that only full texts in peer-reviewed sources published in the last five years are identified. After limiting the single mother search in that way, the number of hits went from 3,170 to 751, still too broad.

What my searches have indicated is using a topic like single mother is far too broad; the scope needs to be more narrowly defined to make the research doable and also—one hopes—to enable one to write a focused discussion on an aspect of the topic that will hold the audience’s interest.

So how do you narrow your topic? Let me offer some tips to make the process go a bit more easily, but remember the process will take some time.

Tip # 1: Think about a more particular aspect of the topic that interests you. Brainstorm a list to generate ideas. The more you can break down an issue the better, so push your exploration and try to get a good thorough list of ideas. As you conduct searches in the library, you will know if you’ve broken the topic down too much, too little, or just enough.

Tip # 2: Limit the focus by applying an overriding filter. Let’s say you are interested in researching violent crime, which is too broad of a focus. How can the topic “violent crime” be limited? Well, it could be limited by geographic region, culture, demographic, time period, and so on. For example, one could search for violent crime in urban areas or violent crimes committed by minors or violent crimes perpetuated by inner city gangs. You have to be careful, of course, of limiting the focus by too much, but that is something you can quickly check by conducting a library search.

Tip #3: Scan the library search hits for ways to narrow the focus. When I look at the list of hits on the first page for single mothers, I see articles that speak to welfare, HIV, employment opportunities for low income single mothers, poor single mothers with young children, cardiovascular disease in African-American single mothers. As you can see, the “hits” I just read more than adequately narrow the focus. Let’s see what happens when I use “poor single mothers with young children” and do a library search for full-text, peer reviewed articles in the last five years . . . and the result is that I have gone from 751 hits to 18. Eighteen. Wowie! Eighteen is a manageable number, right? You bet!

Tip #4: Make a list of key words related to your larger subject. If your broad subject is drunk driving, you might jot down repeat offenders, legislation, fatalities, and so on. If I use the Academic Search Premier database and limit my search to peer-reviewed full-text articles published within the last five years, I get 144 hits when I search for drunk driving. When I add the key word “fatalities,” I got eleven hits, and when I changed “fatalities” to “legislation” I got fourteen hits. And remember, this search was with one data base of electronic articles—there are others that could be searched.

Tip #5: Ask questions. If you are embarked on a research based writing assignment, pose research questions. What is it that you want to find out about your topic? Be sure to ask questions that do not yield a yes/no answer. Do big box stores negatively impact smaller businesses? What kinds of tax incentives do big box stores get? Do big box stores offer good employment options and benefits for employees?

Tip #6: Don’t be afraid to refocus your topic. Many times when you have something in mind to pursue, you do so with gusto. However, what happens if you don’t quite find what you are looking for? Chances are you keep looking and looking and looking and looking—all the while growing more frustrated and impatient. Though I hate to use a cliché, learn to go with the flow. If you can’t quite find what you are looking for, refocus your topic so that the research is more doable.

Writing an academic research paper has its challenges, so do yourself a favor and take the time to find a suitable topic, one that is limited in scope and manageable. The tips offered in this podcast provide some effective strategies you can easily put to use to narrow your focus.

Thanks for listening, everyone. Happy writing!

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Narrowing Down The Topic

In narrowing down your topic, you should consider the following ideas:

• Identify and define the main elements of the topic that you have chosen and look at the different ways that they can be applied to the primary material of your essay.
• Pay attention to the length that the professor has assigned for the essay. The length can dictate the amount of information that you will be able to fit into your paper. The length will also dictate the number of body parts that you will be able to use to support your thesis. As a general rule, the shorter the essay, the more limited and precise the topic will be. The longer the essay, the more space you will have to explore your topic and its implications and complexity.
• In narrowing down your topic, pay attention to the specific aspects of the topic that are addressed within the primary text(s) for your essay and within class discussion. This will give you an indication of the specific ways that you can write about your source material. Professors are usually looking for a specific topic that addresses one of the central ideas of the material that you are studying. Choose the specific aspect that you feel runs through as much of the text as possible. This will afford you a topic that can be developed through the course of the primary source(s) to present your reading audience with a clearer view of the text or the ideas that dominate the material.
• If you have any doubts about how you can find a specific aspect to address within the assigned topics, or if you are unsure as to which aspect you should focus on, do not hesitate to contact your professor for guidance. Often, this can save you a great deal of wasted effort and can help to focus your attention on a specific avenue for researching your topic.

Useful links

• 5-paragraph Essay
• Admission Essay
• Argumentative Essay
• Cause and Effect Essay
• Classification Essay
• Comparison Essay
• Critical Essay
• Deductive Essay
• Definition Essay
• Exploratory Essay
• Expository Essay
• Informal Essay
• Literature Essay
• Narrative Essay
• Personal Essay
• Persuasive Essay
• Research Essay
• Response Essay
• Scholarship Essay

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Choosing and Refining Topics

When we are given a choice of topics to write on, or are asked to come up with our own topic ideas, we must always make choices that appeal to our own interests, curiosity, and current knowledge. If you decide to write an essay on same sex marriage, for instance, it is obvious that you should make that decision because you are interested in the issue, know something about it already, and/or would like to know more about it. However, because we rarely write solely for our own satisfaction, we must consider matters other than our own interests as we choose topics.

A Definition of a Topic

A topic is the main organizing principle of a discussion, either verbal or written. Topics offer us an occasion for speaking or writing and a focus which governs what we say. They are the subject matter of our conversations, and the avenues by which we arrive at other subjects of conversations. Consider, for instance, a recent class discussion. Although your instructor determined what topic you discussed initially, some students probably asked questions that led to other topics. As the subjects of our discussions lead to related subjects, so do the topics we write about lead to related topics in our academic studies. However, unlike the verbal conversations we have, each individual piece of writing we produce usually focuses on a single topic. Most effective writers learn that when they present a well-defined, focused, and developed topic, they do a better job of holding their readers' attention and presenting appropriate information than if they had not attempted to place boundaries on the subject of their writing.

Arriving at Topics for Writing Assignments

In academic writing, topics are sometimes dictated by the task at hand. Consider, for example, that you must conduct a lab experiment before you can sit down to write a report. Or perhaps you have to run a statistical program to get your data. In these situations, your topic is determined for you: You will write about the results of the work you have completed. Likewise, your instructor may simply hand you a topic to explore or to research. In these situations, you are delivered from both the responsibility and the rewards of choosing your own topic, and your task is to try to develop an interest in what you have been given to write about.

More often, however, you will have a bit more leeway in choosing topics of your own. Sometimes you will be asked to find a topic of interest to you that is grounded in ideas developed in shared class readings and discussions. Other times, your assignment will be anchored even less, and you will be responsible for finding a topic all on your own. Many students find that the more freedom they are given to pursue their own interests, the more intimidated they are by this freedom, and the less certain they are of what really is interesting to them. But writing assignments with open topic options can be excellent opportunities either to explore and research issues that are already concerns for you (and which may even have been topics of earlier writing) or to examine new interests. A well chosen writing topic can lead to the types of research questions that fuel your academic interests for years to come. At the very least, though, topics can be seen as occasions for making your writing relevant and meaningful to your own personal and academic concerns.

How Purpose and Audience Affect the Choice of Topics

Before choosing and narrowing a topic to write about, consider why you are writing and who will read what you write. Your writing purpose and audience often dictate the types of topics that are available to you.

In the workplace, purpose and audience are often defined for you. For instance, you might have to write a memo to a co-worker explaining why a decision was made or compose a letter to a client arguing why the company cannot replace a product. In either case, your purpose and audience are obvious, and your topic is equally evident. As a student, you may have to work a little harder to determine which topics are appropriate for particular purposes and audiences.

Oftentimes, the wording of your assignment sheet will offer clues as to the reasons why you are writing and the audience you are expected to address. Sometimes, when assignment sheets are unclear or when you misunderstand what is expected of you, you will need either to ask your instructor about purpose and audience or to make your own educated guess. However you arrive at the purpose and the audience of your writing, it is important to take these elements into consideration, since they help you to choose and narrow your topic appropriately.

Interpreting the Assignment

Steve Reid, English Professor It's important to circle an assignment's key words and then ask the instructor to clarify what these words mean. Every teacher has a different vocabulary. My students always ask me what I'm looking for when I give an assignment. As a writer, you need to know what the words mean in your field and what they mean to your instructor.

Many times, an assignment sheet or verbal assignment given by an instructor will reveal exactly what you are being asked to do. The first step in reviewing an assignment sheet is to circle key words or verbs, such as "explain," "describe," or "evaluate." Then, once you've identified these words, make sure you understand what your instructor means by them. For example, suppose your instructor asks you to describe the events leading up to World War II. This could mean explain how the events prior to World War II helped bring about the beginning of the war, or list every possible cause you think led to the war, or describe and analyze the events. Inquiring before you start writing can help you determine your writing purpose and the expectations of your intended audience (usually your instructor).

How Purpose Affects Topics

Your purpose helps you to narrow a topic, since it demands particular approaches to a general subject. For example, if you're writing about how state policy affects foreign language study in grades K-12 in Oregon, you could have several different purposes. You may need to explain how the Oregon law came about; that is, what influenced it and who was responsible. Or perhaps you would need to explain the law's effects, how curriculum will be altered, etc. Another purpose might be to evaluate the law and to propose changes. Whatever purpose you decide to adopt will determine the questions which give direction to your topic, and (in the case of a research paper) will suggest the type of information you will need to gather in order to address those questions.

How Audience Affects Topics

Steve Reid, English Professor You have to be careful so your topic is not too narrow for your audience. You don't want readers to say, " Well, so what? I couldn't care less." One the most important roles a topic plays is impacting an audience. If your topic gets too narrow and too focused, it can become too academic or too pedantic. For example, every year at graduation, I watch people laugh when they hear the title of a thesis or dissertation. The students who wrote these documents were very narrowed and focused, but their audiences were very restricted.

Having a clear idea of the audience to whom you are writing will help you to determine an appropriate topic and how to present it. For example, if you're writing about how state policy affects foreign language study in grades K-12 in Oregon, you could have many different audiences. You could be writing for teachers, administrators at a specific school, students whose educational program will be affected by the law, or even the PTA. All of these audiences care about the topic since they are all affected by it. However, for each of them you may need to provide different information and address slightly different questions about this topic. Teachers would want to know why the policy was created and how it will affect what goes on in their classrooms. Parents will want to know what languages their children will be taught and why. Administrators will want to know how this will change the curriculum and what work will be required of them as a result. Knowing your audience requires you to adapt and limit your topic so that you are presenting information appropriate to a specific group of interested readers.

Choosing Workable Topics

Most writers in the workplace don't have to think about what's workable and what's not when they write. Writing topics make themselves obvious, being the necessary outcome of particular processes. For example, meetings inspire memos and minutes; research produces reports; interactions with customers result in letters. As a student writer, your task is often more difficult than this, since topics do not always "find you" this easily.

Finding and selecting topics are oftentimes arduous tasks for the writer. Sometimes you will find yourself facing the "blank page" or "empty screen" dilemma, lacking topic ideas entirely. Other times you will have difficulties making your ideas fit a particular assignment you have been given. This section on "Choosing a Workable Topic" addresses both of these problems, offering both general strategies for generating topic ideas and strategies for finding topics appropriate to particular types of writing assignments that students frequently encounter.

How to Find a Topic

Don Zimmerman, Journalism and Technical Communication Professor I look at topics from a problem solving perspective and scientific method. Topics emerge from writers working on the job when they're in the profession, following major trends, developments, issues, etc. From the scientific perspective, topics emerge based on solid literature reviews and developing an understanding of the paradigm. From these then come the specific problems/topics/subjects that professionals or scientists address. Writers generate topics from their professional expertise, their understanding of the issues in their respective disciplines, and their understanding the science that has gone before them.

While your first impulse may be to dash off to the library to dig through books and journals once you've received an assignment, you might also consider other information sources available to you.

Related Information: Making Use of Computer Sources

One valuable source of topic ideas is an Internet search. Many sites can provide you with current perspectives on a subject and can lead you to other relevant sites. You can also find and join newsgroups where your general subject or topic is discussed daily. This will allow you to ask questions of experts, as well as to read what issues are important.

Related Information: Making Use of Library Sources

It is always helpful, particularly in the case of writing assignments which demand research, to visit the library and talk to a reference librarian when generating topic ideas. This way, you not only get to discuss your topic ideas with another expert, but you will also have more resources pointed out to you. There is usually a wealth of journals, reference books, and online resources related to your topic area(s) that you may not even know exist.

Related Information: Talking to Others Around You

The people around you are often some of the best sources of information available to you. It is always valuable to talk informally about your assignment and any topic ideas you have with classmates, friends, family, tutors, professionals in the field, or any other interested and/or knowledgeable people. Remember, too, that a topic is not a surprise gift that must be kept from your instructor until you hand in your paper. Instructors are almost always happy to discuss potential topics with a student once he or she has an idea or two, and getting response to your work early in the writing process whenever possible is a good plan. Discussing your topic ideas in these ways may lead you to other ideas, and eventually to a well-defined topic.

Subjects and Topics

Most topic searches start with a subject. For example, you're interested in writing about languages, and even more specifically, foreign languages. This is a general subject. Within a general subject, you'll find millions of topics. Not only about every foreign language ever spoken, but also about hundreds of issues affecting foreign languages. But keep in mind that a subject search is always a good place to start.

Every time you use Yahoo or other Internet search engines, or even SAGE at the CSU library, you conduct a subject search. These search devices allow you to review many topics within a broad subject area. While it's beneficial to conduct subject searches, because you never know what valuable information you'll uncover, a subject always needs to be narrowed to a specific topic. This way, you can avoid writing a lengthy book and focus instead on the short research paper you've been assigned.

Starting With What You Know

Kate Kiefer, English Professor Most often the occasion dictates the topic for the writing done outside academe. But as a writer in school, you do sometimes have to generate topics. If you need help determining a topic, create an authority list of things you have some expertise in or a general list of areas you know something about and are interested in. Then, you can make this list more specific by considering how much you know and care about these ideas and what the target audience is probably interested in reading about.

In looking for writing topics, the logical first step is to consider issues or subjects which have concerned you in the past, either on the basis of life experience or prior writing/research. If you are a journal writer, look to your journal for ideas. If not, think about writing you have done for other writing assignments or for other classes. Though it is obviously not acceptable to recycle old essays you have written before, it is more than acceptable (even advisable) to return to and to extend topics you have written about in the past. Returning to the issues that concern you perennially is ultimately what good scholarship is all about.

Related Information: Choosing Topics You Want to Know More About

Even though your personal experience and prior knowledge are good places to start when looking for writing topics, it is important not to rule out those topics about which you know very little, and would like to know more. A writing assignment can be an excellent opportunity to explore a topic you have been wanting to know more about, even if you don't have a strong base knowledge to begin with. This type of topic would, of course, require more research and investigation initially, but it would also have the benefit of being compelling to you by virtue of its "newness."

Related Information: How to Pull Topics from Your Personal Experience

It is a good idea to think about how elements of your own life experience and environment could serve as topics for writing, even if you have never thought of them in that way. Think about the topics of recent conversations you have had, events in your life that are significant to you, problems in your workplace, family issues, matters having to do with college or campus life, or current events that evoke response from you. Taking a close look at the issues in your immediate environment is a good place to start in writing, even if those issues seem to you at first to be unworthy of your writing focus. Not all writing assignments have a personal dimension, but our interests and concerns are always, at their roots, personal.

General Strategies for Coming Up With Topics

Before attempting to choose or narrow a topic, you need to have some ideas to choose from. This can be a problem if you are suffering from the "blank page or screen" syndrome, and have not even any initial, general ideas for writing topics.

Brainstorming

As writers, some of our best ideas occur to us when we are thinking in a very informal, uninhibited way. Though we often think of brainstorming as a way for groups to come up with ideas, it is a strategy that individual writers can make use of as well. Simply put, brainstorming is the process of listing rough thoughts (in any form they occur to you: words, phrases, or complete sentences) that are connected (even remotely) to the writing assignment you have before you or the subject area you already have in mind. Brainstorming works best when you give yourself a set amount of time (perhaps five or ten minutes), writing down anything that comes to mind within that period of time, and resisting the temptation to criticize or polish your own ideas as they hit the page. There is time for examination and polishing when the five or ten minutes are over.

Freewriting

Freewriting is a technique much like brainstorming, only the ideas generated are written down in paragraph rather than list form. When you freewrite, you allow yourself a set amount of time (perhaps five or ten minutes), and you write down any and every idea that comes to mind as if you are writing a timed essay. However, your freewrite is unlikely to read like an organized essay. In fact, it shouldn't read that way. What is most important about freewriting is that you write continuously, not stopping to check your spelling, to find the right word, or even to think about how your ideas are fitting together. If you are unable to think of something to write, simply jot out, "I can't think of anything to write now," and go on. At the end of your five or ten minutes, reread what you have written, ignore everything that seems unimportant or ridiculous, and give attention to whatever ideas you think are worth pursuing. If you are able to avoid checking yourself while you are writing for that short time, you will probably be surprised at the number of ideas that you already have.

Clustering is a way of visually "mapping" your ideas on paper. It is a technique which works well for people who are able to best understand relationships between ideas by seeing the way they play themselves out spatially. (If you prefer reading maps to reading written directions, clustering may be the strategy for you.) Unlike formal outlining, which tends to be very linear, clustering allows you to explore the way ideas sprawl in different directions. When one thought leads to another, you can place that idea on the "map" in its appropriate place. And if you want to change its position later, and connect it with another idea, you can do so. (It is always a good idea to use a pencil rather than a pen for clustering, for this very reason.)

This is a good strategy not only for generating ideas, but also for determining how much you have to say about a topic (or topics), and how related or scattered your ideas are.

Related Information: Example of Brainstorming

Ideas on a Current Issue:

• multiculturalism
• training of teachers
• teaching strategies
• cultural difference in the classroom
• teaching multicultural texts
• language issues
• English only
• assimilation, checking cultural identity at the door
• home language/dialect as intentionally different from school language
• How many languages can we teach? (How multi-lingual must teachers be?)
• Is standard English really "standard"?
• success in school
• statistics on students who speak "non-English" languages or established dialects
• the difference between a dialect and a language
• Ebonics v. bi-lingual education

Related Information: Example of Freewriting

Problem: Development of Small Towns in the Rocky Mountain Region

When I grew up in Anyoldtown, New Mexico, it was a small town in the smallest sense: no movie theaters, no supermarkets, nothing. We had to go into town for the things we needed. Land sold for $2000 an acre. Now it sells for about $50,000 an acre. Anyoldtown was also primarily hispanic, and the families who lived there had very little. Now the people who live there are mostly white and almost exclusively professionals: doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, and an endless number of people who have money that seems to have come from nowhere. There are good things to be had there now: good restaurants, good coffee, and all the other things that come along with Yuppie invasion. But those things were had at quite a cost. People who used to live in Anyoldtown when I was a kid can no longer afford to pay property taxes. I can't think of anything else to write now. Oh, yes...these people made a killing off the sale of their land and properties, but they had to give up the places they had lived all their lives. However, by the time they sold, Anyoldtown was no longer the place where they had lived all their lives anyway.

Strategies for Finding Topics Appropriate to Particular Types of Assignments

Sometimes your ways of generating topics will depend on the type of writing assignment you have been given. Here are some ideas of strategies you can use in finding topics for some of the more common types of writing assignments:

Essays Based on Personal Experience

Essays responding to or interpreting texts.

• Essays in Which You Take a Position on an Issue (Argument)

Essays Requiring Research

Essays in which you evaluate, essays in which you propose solutions to problems.

The great challenge of using personal experience in essays is trying to remember the kinds of significant events, places, people, or objects that would prove to be interesting and appropriate topics for writing. Brainstorming, freewriting, or clustering ideas in particular ways can give you a starting point.

Here are a few ways that you might trigger your memory:

Interview people you've known for a long time.Family members, friends, and other significant people in your life can remember important details and events that you haven't thought about for years.

Try to remember events from a particular time in your life. Old yearbooks, journals, and newspapers and magazines can help to trigger some of these memories.

Think about times of particular fulfillment or adversity. These "extremes" in your experience are often easily recalled and productively discussed. When have you had to make difficult choices, for instance? When have you undergone ethical struggles? When have you felt most successful?

Think about the groups you have encountered at various times in your life. When have you felt most like you belonged to or were excluded from groups of people: your family, cliques in school, clubs, "tracked" groups in elementary school, religious groups, or any other community/organization you have had contact with?

Think about the people or events that "changed your life." What are the forces that have most significantly influenced and shaped you? What are the circumstances surrounding academic, career, or relationship choices that you have made? What changes have you dealt with that have been most painful or most satisfying?

Try to remember any "firsts" in your experience.What was your first day of high school like? What was it like to travel far from home for the first time? What was your first hobby or interest as a child? What was the first book you checked out of the library? These "firsts," when you are able to remember them, can prove to have tremendous significance.

One word of caution on writing about personal experience: Keep in mind that any essay you write for a class will most likely be read by others, and will probably be evaluated on criteria other than your topic's importance to you. Never feel like you need to "confess," dredge up painful memories, or tell stories that are uncomfortable to you in academic writing. Save these topics for your own personal journal unless you are certain that you are able to distance yourself from them enough to handle the response that comes from instructors (and sometimes from peers).

Students are often asked to respond to or interpret essays, articles, books, stories, poems, and a variety of other texts. Sometimes your instructor will ask you to respond to one particular reading, other times you will have a choice of class readings, and still other times you will need to choose a reading on your own.

If you are given a choice of texts to respond to or to interpret, it is a good idea to choose one which is complex enough to hold your interest in the process of careful examination. It is not necessarily a problem if you do not completely understand a text on first reading it. What matters is that it challenges, intrigues, and/or evokes response from you in some way.

Related Information: Writing in the Margins of Texts

Many of us were told at some point in our schooling never to write in books. This makes sense in the case of books which don't belong to us (like library books or the dusty, tattered, thirty year-old copies of Hamlet distributed to us in high school). But in the case of books and photocopies which we have made our own, writing in the margins can be one of the most productive ways to begin the writing process.

As you read, it is a good idea to make a habit of annotating , or writing notes in the margins. Your notes could indicate places in the text which remind you of experiences you have had or of other texts you have read. They could point out questions that you have, points of agreement or disagreement, or moments of complete confusion. Annotations begin a dialogue between you and the text you have before you, documenting your first (and later) responses, and they are valuable when you attempt at a later time to write about that text in a particular way.

Essays in Which You Take a Position on an Issue

One of the most common writing assignments given is some variation on the Arguing Essay, in which students are asked to take a position on a controversial issue. There are two challenges involved in finding topics for argument. One challenge is identifying a topic that you are truly interested in and concerned about, enough so that whatever research is required will be engrossing (or at the very least, tolerable), and not a tedious, painful ordeal. In other words, you want to try to avoid arriving at the "So what?" point with your own topic. The other challenge is in making sure that your audience doesn't respond, "So what?" in reading your approach to your topic. You can avoid this by making sure that the questions you are asking and addressing are current and interesting.

Related Information: Examining Social Phenomena and Trends

In The St. Martin's Guide to Writing , Third Edition, Rise B. Axelrod and Charles R. Cooper discuss the importance of looking toward social phenomena and trends for sources of argument topics. A phenomenon , they explain, is "something notable about the human condition or the social order" (314). A few of the examples of phenomena that they list are difficulties with parking on college campuses, negative campaigning in politics, popular artistic or musical styles, and company loyalty. A trend , on the other hand, is "a significant change extending over many months or years" (314). Some trends they list are the decline of Communism, diminishing concern over world hunger, increased practice of home schooling, and increased legitimacy of pop art. Trying to think in terms of incidental, current social phenomena or long-term, gradual social trends is a good way of arriving at workable topics for essays requiring you to take a position.

Related Information: Making Sure Your Approach to Your Topic is Current and Interesting

In choosing a topic for an arguing essay, it is important to get a handle not only on what is currently being debated, but how it is being debated. In other words, it is necessary to learn what questions are currently being asked about certain topics and why. In order to avoid the "so what" dilemma, you want to approach your topic in a way that is not simplistic, tired, outdated, or redundant. For example, if you are looking at the relationship of children to television, you probably would want to avoid a topic like "the effects of t.v. violence on children" (which has been beaten to death over the years) in favor of a topic like "different toy marketing strategies for young male v.s. female viewers of Saturday morning cartoons" (a topic that seems at least a bit more original).

As a student writer, you are usually not asked to break absolutely new ground on a topic during your college career. However, you are expected to try to find ground that is less rather than more trampled when finding and approaching writing topics.

Trying to think in terms of incidental, current social phenomena or long-term, gradual social trends is a good way of arriving at workable topics for essays requiring you to take a position.

Related Information: Sources of Topics

Looking to Your Own Writing

When trying to rediscover the issues which have concerned you in the past, go back to journal entries (if you are a journal writer) or essays that you have written before. As you look through this formal and informal writing, consider whether or not these issues still concern you, and what (specifically) you now have to say about them. Are these matters which would concern readers other than yourself, or are they too specific to your own life to be interesting and controversial to a reading audience? Is there a way to give a "larger" significance to matters of personal concern? For example, if you wrote in your journal that you were unhappy with a particular professor's outdated teaching methods, could you turn that idea into a discussion of the downfalls of the tenure system? If you were frustrated with the way that your anthropology instructor dismissed your comment about the ways that "primitive" women are discussed, could you think of that problem in terms of larger gender issues? Sometimes your frustrations and mental conflicts are simply your own gripes, but more often than not they can be linked with current and widely debated issues.

Looking to Your Other Classes

When given an assignment which asks you to work with a controversial issue, always try to brainstorm points of controversy that you recall from current or past courses. What are people arguing about in the various disciplines? Sometimes these issues will seem irrelevant because they appear only to belong to those other disciplines, but there are oftentimes connections that can be made. For example, perhaps you have been asked in a communications class to write an essay on a language issue. You might remember that in a computer class on information systems, your class debated whether or not Internet news groups are really diverse or not. You might begin to think about the reasons why news groups are (or aren't) diverse, thinking about the way that language is used.

Reading Newspapers and Magazines

If you are not already an avid newspaper and magazine reader, become one for a week. Pore over the different sections: news, editorials, sports, and even cartoons. Look for items that connect with your own life experiences, and pay attention to those which evoke some strong response from you for one reason or another. Even if an issue that you discover in a newspaper or magazine doesn't prove to be a workable topic, it might lead you to other topic ideas.

Interviewing the People Around You

If you are at a loss to find an issue that lights a fire under you, determine what fires up your friends, family members, and classmates. Think back to heated conversations you have had at the dinner table, or conduct interviews in which you ask the people around you what issues impact their lives most directly. Because you share many experiences and contexts with these people, it is likely that at least some of the issues that concern them will also concern you.

Using the Internet

It is useful to browse the Internet for current, controversial issues. Spend some time surfing aimlessly, or wander through news groups to see what is being discussed. Using the Internet can be one of the best ways to determine what is immediately and significantly controversial.

Although some essays that students are asked to write are to be based solely on their own thoughts and experience, oftentimes (particularly in upper level courses) writing assignments require research. When scoping out possible research topics, it is important to remember to choose a topic which will sustain your interest throughout the research and writing process. The best research topics are those which are complex enough that they offer opportunities for various research questions. You want to avoid choosing a topic that could bore you easily, or that is easily researched but not very interesting to you.

As always, it is good to start searching for a topic within your personal interests and previous writing. You might want to choose a research topic that you have pursued before and do additional research, or you might want to select a topic about which you would like to know more. More than anything, writers must remember that research will often carry them in different directions than they intend to go, and that they must be flexible enough to acknowledge that their research questions and topics must sometimes be adjusted or abandoned. To read more on narrowing and adjusting a research topic, see the section in this guide on Research Considerations.

Related Information: Flexibility in Research

As you conduct your research, it is important to keep in mind that the questions you are asking about your topic (and oftentimes, the topic itself) will probably change slightly. Sometimes you are forced to acknowledge that there is too much or too little information available on the topic you have chosen. Other times, you might decide that the approach you were originally taking is not as interesting to you as others you have found. For instance, you might start with a topic like "foreign language studies in grades K-12 in Oregon," and in the process of your reading you might find that you are really more interested in "bilingual education in rural Texas." Still other times, you might find that the claim you were attempting to make about your topic is not arguable, or is just wrong.

Our research can carry us in directions that we don't always foresee, and part of being a good researcher is maintaining the flexibility necessary to explore those directions when they present themselves.

Related Information: How Research Narrows Topics

By necessity, most topics narrow themselves as you read more and more about them. Oftentimes writers come up with topics that they think will be sufficiently narrow and engaging--a topic like "multiculturalism and education," for instance--and discover through their initial reading that there are many different avenues they could take in examining the various aspects of this broad issue. Although such discoveries are often humbling and sometimes intimidating, they are also a necessary part of any effective research process. You can take some comfort in knowing that you do not always need to have your topic narrowed to its final form before you begin researching. The sources you read will help you to do the necessary narrowing and definition of your focus.

Related Information: Research Topics and Writing Assignments

When you are choosing a research topic, it is important to be realistic about the time and space limitations that your assignment dictates. If you are writing a graduate thesis or dissertation, for instance, you might be able to research a topic as vast and as time-honored as "the portrayal of women in the poetry of William Blake." But if your assignment asks you to produce a five-page essay by next Tuesday, you might want to focus on something a bit more accessible, like "the portrayal of women in Blake's `The Visions of the Daughters of Albion.'"

Related Information: Testing Research Topics

Early in your research and writing process, after you have found a somewhat narrow avenue into your topic, put the topic to the test to see if you really want to pursue it further in research. Rise B. Axelrod and Charles R. Cooper, in The St. Martin's Guide to Writing , Third Edition, suggest some questions writers might ask themselves when deciding whether or not a research topic is workable:

• Does this topic really interest me?
• Do I know enough about it now to plan and write my essay, or can I learn what I need to know in the time I have remaining?
• Is the topic manageable within my time and space limits?
• Do I have a good sense of how others view this issue and what readers I might address in my essay?
• Have I begun to understand the issue and to formulate my own view?

Students are often asked to write essays in which they evaluate something: a product, a piece of writing, a restaurant, an advertising campaign, or some other entity related to their areas of study. Sometimes when you are given this type of writing assignment, you are also given a very specific topic on which to write. Other times, you are asked to find a topic for evaluation on your own.

Related Information: Comparing and Contrasting

After brainstorming a list of possible topics for evaluation, you may find it difficult to determine whether or not you will be able to effectively evaluate those topics. One way of stimulating your mind's evaluative tendencies is to try comparison and contrast. For example, if you are thinking about evaluating a local Thai restaurant, and you are having trouble coming up with points on which to evaluate it, try comparing and contrasting it with another local Thai restaurant. When we begin to compare two items, ideas, places, or people, we invariably wind up evaluating.

Related Information: Generating an Authority List

If the choice of topics to evaluate is open to you, try brainstorming a list of skills, activities, places, or subjects that you consider yourself to be an authority about. A list like this is a good starting point for just about any essay, but it is particularly useful in evaluation. If you are an avid rock climber, for instance, it makes perfect sense for you to evaluate climbing equipment, since your experience will provide you with a basis for evaluation. It may still be necessary to do research, but you will have a head start even before you begin researching.

Related Information: Questions to Ask Yourself as You Evaluate

In testing possible topics for evaluation, you might ask yourself some very general questions about your initial thoughts. Rise B. Axelrod and Charles R. Cooper, in their St. Martin's Guide to Writing , Third Edition, suggest a few such questions:

• How certain am I of my judgment? Do I have any doubts? Why do I feel the way I do?
• Do I like (or dislike) everything about my subject, or only certain parts?
• Are there any similar things I should consider (other products or movies, for example)?
• Is there anything I will need to do right away in order to research this subject authoritatively?
• If I need to do any research, can I get the information I need?

As a writer, you will sometimes be asked to speculate on possible solutions to known problems. Although the process of problem solving is itself quite difficult, one of the greatest challenges about that process is the matter of finding a topic that lends itself to your purpose.

Related Information: Evaluating and Problem Solving

Problem solving is an extension of the evaluating process. If in the past you have written evaluative essays which identify certain problems, these essays might offer you some topic ideas and starting points. You might also look to personal writing you have done (like journal entries) or recent conversations you have had as ways of recalling the types of problems that you have identified in your general environment.

Related Information: Focusing on Solvable Problems

Obviously, not all problems are appropriate topics for short problem solving essays. For example, if your instructor assigns a ten-page problem solving essay dealing with a current problem of your choice, you might want to avoid a topic as vast as "racism." However, if you were to focus on a more context-specific version of this hulking problem, you might find a workable topic (say, for instance, minority enrollment on your campus). For assignments like these, it is important to choose problems that appear solvable (or at least approachable) in the time and space you have available to you.

Related Information: Identifying Problems Within Communities

One excellent source of topics for problem solving essays is your immediate environment. Think about the groups or communities to which you belong: your neighborhood, college, family, ethnic and cultural groups, religious and political groups, workplace, and recreational groups. Try to brainstorm a list of problems that you can readily identify in any of these communities, then consider both how solvable these problems are and how appropriate they are to your writing assignment.

Generating More Than One Topic Idea

In order to choose a topic, you need to have several available to choose from. It is best to avoid being committed to one topic at this first stage of the writing process, since not every topic will pan out. Writers are usually more successful when they have a selection of topics which they can put to the test to determine whether or not they are workable (given the writing assignment).

Narrowing Topics

The scope of a topic depends on how much time and space you have to write and how much detail you are trying to use. For example, describing all the causes of World War II in three pages is impossible. You would have to either narrow your topic some more or write hundreds of pages to adequately discuss every cause. Defining your topic before you start writing will save you time and help you to research and/or to develop your thinking in a clear, methodical way. It is important to examine the topics we choose to determine whether they are too broad (or, in some instances, too narrow) for the writing assignments we are given. Once you have decided that a topic is too broad to be appropriate to your assignment (which is most often the case), you will need to have ways to narrow it. You will also want to consider, when writing essays that require research, how your research resources and limitations affect your choice of topics.

Deciding When a Topic is Too Broad

Kate Kiefer, English Professor If a writer doesn't present details quickly enough, then the topic is usually too broad. If the reader can expect the paper to go in one direction, but it goes in another, the topic is usually too broad or not stated precisely enough. If I can ask six million questions about whether the writer will include this or that point, the topic is too broad. If I do a library search and turn up 200 listings (or an Internet search and discover 1,000 hits), the topic is too broad.

A topic is too broad to be workable when you find that you have too many different (but oftentimes remotely related) ideas about that topic. While you want to start the writing process with as many ideas as possible, you will want to narrow your focus at some point so that you aren't attempting to do too much in one essay.

Where essays requiring research are concerned, your topic is too broad if you are able to find thousands of sources when conducting a simple library or Internet search. For example, conducting a search on "foreign languages in Oregon" will provide you with policies, foreign language departments, and cultural issues (just to name a few). When this happens, you can try various narrowing strategies to determine what most interests you about your topic area and what relates to your own life most readily. For instance, if you plan to study abroad, focusing on the language you'll be speaking might be a way to narrow the scope of your original topic, "foreign languages in Oregon."

Deciding When a Topic Is Too Narrow

Steve Reid, English Professor You have to careful so your topic is not too narrow for your audience. You don't want readers to say, " Well, so what? I couldn't care less." One the most important roles a topic plays is impacting an audience. If you get so narrowed and focused, a topic can become too academic or pedantic. For example, every year at graduation I watch people laugh when they hear the title of a thesis or dissertation. The students who wrote these documents were very narrowed and focused, but their audiences were very restricted.

Though student writers most often face the challenge of limiting a topic that is too broad, they occasionally have to recognize that they have chosen a topic that is too narrow or that they have narrowed a workable topic too much. A topic is too narrow if you can't find any information about it. For example, suppose your foreign language subject to, "foreign language policy in South Dakota." Although you might have a strong interest in this topic, South Dakota may not have a specific policy about foreign languages. If you have chosen the topic, "teaching Chinese in elementary schools," and your research attempts have been fruitless, it may be that you are considering a topic that no one else has previously presented. In other words, no one has determined that Chinese should be a major language taught as commonly as Spanish or French. If this happens to be the case, keep your topic in mind, because it could very well be an excellent topic for a graduate thesis or dissertation. However, it is also likely to be a difficult topic to handle in a ten-page essay for an education class, due in two weeks.

If your topic is too narrow, try making it broader by asking yourself related questions.

• What foreign languages are taught in South Dakota schools?
• Or where is Chinese taught and why?

Once you've found a different direction in which to move with your topic, you can try narrowing it again.

General Strategies for Narrowing Topics

One of the first things writers do when they realize that they need to narrow the scope of their topic is to ask themselves the "w" questions so familiar to journalists: Who? What? Where? When? and Why? (and oftentimes, How?) These questions can help you locate your specific points of interest within your general topic area. For example, to narrow a topic like "foreign languages," you could begin with the "what" and "when" questions and decide you are interested in "foreign language studies in grades K-12." Asking the "where" question, you might arrive at "foreign language studies in grades K-12 in Oregon." And asking the "who" question might cause you to limit the topic again to "state policy regarding foreign language studies in grades K-12 in Oregon." Each time you add something specific to your topic, you place "restrictors" on it, thereby narrowing it. Then, when you conduct a library or Internet search, you can use these "restrictors" as key words.

Related Information: Looping

Looping is an extended version of freewriting in which you begin with an initial five-minute freewrite on a general topic, then select out of that bit of writing the sentence or idea that interests you the most. You then use that sentence or idea as the basis for your next five-minute round of freewriting. You continue this process of elaborating informally on specific ideas until you come to a point where your topic seems sufficiently narrow, researchable, and appropriate to your writing assignment.

Example of Looping If I am freewriting on the general (and overly broad) topic of "development of small towns in the Rocky Mountain region," I might start with the following initial ideas: Problem: Development of Small Towns in the Rocky Mountain Region When I grew up in Anyoldtown, New Mexico, it was a small town in the smallest sense: no movie theaters, no supermarkets, nothing. We had to go into town for the things we needed. Land sold for $2000 an acre. Now it sells for about $50,000 an acre. Anyoldtown was also primarily hispanic, and the families who lived there had very little. Now the people who live there are mostly white and almost exclusively professionals: doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, and an endless number of people who have money that seems to have come from nowhere. There are good things to be had there now: good restaurants, good coffee, and all the other things that come along with Yuppie invasion. But those things were had at quite a cost. People who used to live in Anyoldtown when I was a kid can no longer afford to pay property taxes. I can't think of anything else to write now. Oh, yes...these people made a killing off the sale of their land and properties, but they had to give up the places they had lived all their lives. However, by the time they sold, Anyoldtown was no longer the place where they had lived all their lives anyway. Rereading what I have written, I might decide that what interests me the most and seems most appropriate to the writing assignment I have been given is my idea about the property tax dilemma. With this in mind, I would write a second "loop" on this area of my thinking, perhaps even starting my freewriting with the exact sentence I used in the first "loop:" People who used to live in Anyoldtown when I was a kid can no longer afford to pay property taxes. This is unfair, because these people spent their entire lives in this town, and land was all they had. Theoretically, the Yuppie Invasion doesn't drive out the "townies" or "natives" of a small town, but in actuality, land values and property taxes (as well as cultural influences, of course) make it impossible (and oftentimes undesirable) for people to hold onto their own land. People have to sell, because if they don't, they can no longer afford to maintain the standard of living that their town has taken on (in more ways than one). This issue obviously has class implications, but I'm sure it also relates to cultural (ethnic) issues as well. This is where I would need to begin researching, if I wanted to see who was most negatively affected by rising property taxes and land values. In rereading this second loop, I might decide that my ideas toward the end of the paragraph interest me the most. I could write another loop expanding these specific ideas on race, class, and property taxes, or I might decide that I have (as my freewrite suggests) arrived at the point where I need to begin researching.

Related Information: Questioning

Alongside the basic "5 W's" ("who," "what," "when," "where," and "why") can be used more formal, directed questions provided by the classical rhetorical "topics." These questions function in four different ways, and can be categorized as follows:

Example of Questioning If my general topic is "Development of Small Towns in the Rocky Mountain Region," I might try to narrow my focus by applying questions with specific functions to this topic area, thereby discovering which approach interests me most. Here are some of the questions I might ask:

After writing the questions, I would write my responses, deciding which particular questions and responses interest me the most. Perhaps, for instance, I would find myself most interested in the effects of development on the "natives" of small towns, particularly the inevitability of increased property taxes. This process of questioning thus provides me with a specific, narrow, well-defined focus within the vast issue of development of small towns in the Rocky Mountain region.

Related Information: Topic Cross

The topic cross helps you to narrow your topic by using a visual strategy. Just as you would focus a camera or a microscope, you arrange key words and phrases about your topic in such a way that they eventually point to your specific area of interest.

Example of a Topic Cross The first step in the process of using the topic cross is brainstorming. Spend a few minutes listing words and phrases that come to mind when you think about your topic. Then decide which words and phrases are most interesting and arrange them in a hierarchy, moving from general (at the top of the list) to specific (at the bottom of the list). This hierarchy will become the vertical axis of your cross. Demonstration: If my topic is "development of small towns in the Rocky Mountain region," I might generate the following useful ideas in brainstorming (arranged from general to specific).

• The appeal of small towns
• Yuppie invasion
• Overcrowding in cities
• Cost of land
• Effects on town "natives."
• Economic effects on impoverished landowners.
• How John Doe in my home town was affected.
• The new espresso bar in town

I would write this list in an imagined middle column of a piece of blank paper or a computer screen, leaving plenty of space between each item. Then I would scan the list to determine where my real interest lies. Which topics in this list will be too broad to write about, given my writing assignment? Which will be too narrow? In this case, I might choose "economic effects on impoverished landowners" as a workable topic area. Once I had thus identified my area of interest, I would begin listing words and phrases about or relevant to that item, placing them on the horizontal axis of my topic cross. The list I would generate about "economic effects on impoverished landowners" might look like this:

• Increased cost of land
• Temptation to sell
• Rising property taxes
• Higher cost of living
• Zoning issues
• Pressure to maintain property value

Examining this list, I might decide that "rising property taxes" is a sufficiently narrow topic that is not too narrow to develop with my own ideas and research I might do. By using this strategy, I have arrived at a narrow, workable topic.

Research Considerations

If your writing assignment requires research, you will probably find that the research process itself will dictate how broad or narrow your topic should be. We have all had the experience of doing a library search on a word like "environment" and coming up with thousands of sources. Almost as common is the experience of searching a term like "cultural animation" and coming up with only one source that seems useful. The topics we choose are often directly related to our research processes and their results.

Moving from Topic to Thesis

It is important to remember that a narrow topic is not the same thing as a thesis statement. Unlike a topic, a thesis makes a claim of fact, provides a claim of value, or makes a recommendation about a topic under consideration. For example, your narrowed topic might be "the underemphasis on foreign language in U.S. secondary schools." A focused thesis statement making a claim about this topic might read, "U.S. secondary schools should require elementary students to take at least one course in a foreign language sometime during the 4th through 6th grades."

Transforming a workable topic into a possible thesis is really just a continuation of the narrowing process, with an emphasis on what you want to say about your topic. In this way, it is much like the "hypothesis" stage of the scientific method. You arrive at a thesis by attempting to make a statement about the topic you have chosen.

Developing a Working Thesis

A working thesis is a tentative statement that you make about your topic early in the writing process, for the purpose of directing your thinking early. This thesis is likely to change somewhat or to be abandoned altogether as you move through the writing process, so it is best not to become too enamored of it.

There are two components of a working thesis. The first is, quite simply, your topic; and the second is your tentative statement about your topic. For example, if my narrowed topic is

"Rising property taxes in small towns in the Rocky Mountain region..."

I might add the following statement about that topic:

"...cause longtime residents and landowners in those towns not to be able to keep their property."

As I begin whatever research is necessary to support this thesis, I might find that I can't make this much of a claim. Or I might find that there are complexities that I hadn't considered. As I uncover new information about my topic, I will want to alter my working thesis accordingly, until it is workable and supportable.

Arriving at a Possible Thesis for an Essay Requiring Research

A In The St. Martin's Handbook , Third Edition [italics], Andrea Lunsford and Robert Connors suggest a process for moving from a topic to a research "hypothesis," by way of examining the "issue" at hand and framing this issue as a "research question." The following is an example of how I might move from topic to hypothesis if my narrowed topic is "rising property taxes in small towns in the Rocky Mountain region."

• Topic: Rising property taxes in small towns in the Rocky Mountain region
• Issue: The effects of these rising taxes on long-time residents and landowners in the small towns
• Research Question: What are the effects of rising property taxes on long-time residents and landowners in small towns in the Rocky Mountain region?
• Hypothesis: Because these taxes are increasingly difficult to pay, small town "natives" find themselves unable to hold onto their property.

This hypothesis, like a working thesis, is simply an early speculation on what I might find when I begin to research. As I read more and more about my topic, I will probably find that I need to make changes to the hypothesis in order to make it a supportable thesis. As I uncover new information about my topic, I will want to alter my working thesis accordingly, until it is workable and supportable.

Arriving at a Possible Thesis for an Essay Requiring You to Take a Position

One of the greatest challenges in written argument is determining what it is that you would like to (and are able to) say about your topic.

Narrowing from Topic to Thesis in Argument

Before you begin drafting an argument paper, you need to decide (tentatively, at least) what it is that you will be arguing about the topic you have chosen. The following prompts should help you focus your argument from a topic to a position on that topic. What is your topic? (e.g.--Rising property taxes in small towns in the Rocky Mountain region) What are three controversies associated with this topic? (e.g.--Rising property taxes make the town affordable only to the wealthy. This changes the flavor the flavor of the town. It forces long-time land owners to sell their land.) What are three questions people might ask about these controversies? (e.g.--Are these rising property taxes, which are the results of development in small towns in the Rocky Mountain region, forcing long-time land owners out of their home towns? Are rising taxes and land values changing the whole cultural and economic foundation of the towns? Given the effects of rising property taxes on impoverished land owners in small towns, is development in this area a good idea?) Decide which of these questions you are most interesting in exploring. (e.g.--Given the effects of rising property taxes on impoverished land owners in small towns, is development in this area a good idea?) Now list several ways people might respond if you asked them your question. (e.g.--No, because impoverished land owners are unable to maintain the new standard of living. Yes, because development is always a good idea. Yes, because development is inevitable, and we can do nothing about it. Perhaps, but city planners and local government must find ways to protect the interests of impoverished land owners when they determine property taxes.) Finally, decide where you stand in this range of responses. Think of a thesis that expresses your view. Write out your thesis and revise it throughout your research process until it is specific and takes a single arguable position. (e.g.--Because impoverished land owners in small towns in the Rocky Mountain region are often badly hurt by the rising property taxes resulting from development, city planners and local government must find ways to protect the interests of these land owners when they determine property taxes.)

Working With Topics in Different Disciplines

Don Zimmerman, Journalism and Technical Communication Professor Writers' understanding of topics and their fields of study allow them to focus on a specific topic. Following a good problem solving process or scientific method can help you select a topic. Whereas on the job, topics emerge from day to day activities. When working, you don't need to look for topics to write about. Your respective field/job responsibilities allow you to find the problems.

The ways that topics are approached and the types of topics that are discussed vary from discipline to discipline. It is important to investigate the types of topics that are discussed (and the ways that they are discussed) in your own discipline. As a writer, it is necessary to determine what topics are talked about and why in your own discipline (or in the discipline for which you are writing). This can be done by way of talking to professionals in the discipline, looking at relevant journals, and conducting Internet and database searches (to name a few possibilities).

Related Information: Browsing Journals Important to Your Discipline

Almost every discipline has journals that are associated with it, and scholars in the discipline depend on these journals in order to remain informed about what topics are being discussed. For example, scholars in the field of psychology rely on psychological journals; doctors rely on medical journals; and English professors rely on literary journals. Because journals are at the center of each discipline's current discussions, it is a good idea to browse them when looking for current topics. If you are unsure of how to go about doing this, talk to a professor in your discipline, a reference librarian in your library, or a librarian in your library's Current Periodicals room. These people can usually provide you with a few titles of important journals relevant to your field. Once you have these titles, you can locate a few issues of each journal in the Current Periodicals room, sit down for an hour or two, and look through the articles to see what is being talked about and what interests you.

Related Information: Online Searches and Databases

One way of getting to the sources which will discuss topics current to your discipline is by searching the various computer databases and search engines related to that discipline. A database is simply an arrangement of information by way of similar subject matter. For example, if you were researching a topic for a Sociology essay on group behavior of Deadheads, you might go to the Social Sciences Index to find sources related to your topic. For information on how to find relevant and useful databases, talk to the reference librarian in your library, or ask an expert in your field which databases he or she uses regularly.

Related Information: Talking to Professionals in Your Discipline

One of the most efficient ways to learn what topics are currently being discussed in your discipline is to talk to the experts: instructors and other professionals working within that discipline. We often forget that these people can be valuable resources to us, and can point us toward books, journals, databases, and other sources of information that scholars in our various fields use often.

Citation Information

Lauel Nesbitt and Dawn Kowalski. (1994-2024). Choosing and Refining Topics . The WAC Clearinghouse. Colorado State University. Available at https://wac.colostate.edu/repository/writing/guides/.

Copyright Information

Copyright © 1994-2024 Colorado State University and/or this site's authors, developers, and contributors . Some material displayed on this site is used with permission.

Essay Writing as a Tool for Self-Reflection and Personal Growth

T raditionally, essay writing was seen as an academic exercise, but not anymore. An essay is a piece of writing that is written to convince someone of something or to inform the reader about a particular topic. As students write essays, they introspect and learn at the same time. They understand that the essay writing process is not just about forming arguments or persuading readers; it is also a powerful mechanism for self-discovery. By articulating thoughts and emotions on paper, you better understand your perspectives and experiences.

Writing essays encourages writers to confront their inner thoughts, beliefs, and values. This confrontation is not always comfortable. Many of you already know this fact. However, the process is invariably enlightening. Through the structured thinking that essay writing demands, individuals can explore and organize their thoughts in ways other forms of reflection might not allow.

This process often leads to a deeper understanding of oneself. And not just that; it’s crucial for personal development. A 2019 study found that expressive writing has been shown to improve emotional and physiological health. Besides, the iterative nature of writing, that is, drafting, revising, and refining, mirrors the iterative process of personal growth. What does this premise mean? Well, self-awareness leads to new insights, which then lead to further questions and exploration.

But not everyone can write a compelling essay. Even the most talented writers can struggle with some topics. However, did you know that professional essay writers can help you with your paper? These experts specialize in specific disciplines and can provide subject-specific, content-savvy papers that surpass your expectations. And if you are not very conversant with writing an essay, rest assured that they will convince you or be adequately informed.

All in all, an essay must include several important components to make it flow logically. Its main parts (or sections) are the introduction, body, and conclusion. In a standard short essay, five paragraphs can provide the reader with enough information in a short space. However, more than five paragraphs must be present for a research paper or dissertation to not overwhelm the reader with too much information in one section.

Moreover, essay writing is a tool for emotional intelligence. Yes, you read that right. It offers a safe space for writers to express and manage their feelings. You often find clarity and a sense of relief as you translate complex emotions into words. The reflective practice of writing helps individuals cope with past experiences and prepares them for future challenges by building resilience and adaptability. Thus, the benefits of essay writing are vast. The following is a list of how essay writing is a tool for self-reflection and personal growth.

How Essay Writing is a Tool for Self-Reflection and Personal Growth

Essay writing can be the bridge between internal exploration and external expression. But how so? This practice allows individuals to explore their thoughts and feelings, translating introspection into tangible form. As you articulate your experiences and viewpoints, you engage in a dialogue with yourself, which fosters emotional growth.

• Enhances self-awareness : As previously mentioned, writing essays requires self-examination, which can significantly increase self-awareness. When you choose topics that resonate personally, you’re prompted to reflect on your beliefs, behaviors, and motivations. This process helps you understand yourself, highlights areas for improvement, and reaffirms your core values.
• Cultivates empathy : A recent study on the importance of writing practice showed statistically significant increases in various aspects of empathy, such as reasoning, including multiple perspectives, expressing emotion, and proposals for action, and statistically significant increases in empathy as a latent construct. When crafting essays, writers often explore different perspectives and consider alternative viewpoints. This exercise can cultivate empathy, as it encourages them to understand and articulate feelings and situations from other people’s points of view.
• Promotes critical thinking : Like any other form of academic writing, essay writing compels students to think critically about their experiences and the world around them. But the question is: how so? It involves analyzing one’s thoughts and questioning existing beliefs. This process can lead to new insights and a more informed perspective. Besides, critical examination helps you develop a more mature understanding of complex situations.
• Improves communication skills : Strong writing skills contribute to effective communication. Regular essay writing hones one’s ability to convey thoughts clearly and effectively. In fact, this point is scientifically proven. Essay writing helps individuals learn how to express their ideas in a structured, coherent, and persuasive manner.
• Facilitates emotional healing : We cannot emphasize this point enough. Writing about personal experiences, especially traumatic ones, can be therapeutic. Yes, you read that right. Putting emotions into words helps people process and make sense of their experiences.
• Encourages mindfulness : Writing promotes mindfulness, or present-moment awareness, and its associated qualities of calm/relaxation, nonjudgment, and intentionality. The focus required in essay writing can promote mindfulness. By concentrating on the present moment and the task of articulating thoughts, you can experience a calming effect, reducing anxiety and enhancing your overall mental health.
• Strengthens problem-solving abilities : Students’ problem-solving skill is heavily influenced by the learning process in the classroom. Essays often explore solutions to problems. They can involve real-world problems that trigger learning and optimize the power of problems to incorporate key learning processes. This aspect requires writers to think strategically about possible solutions, weighing pros and cons and considering outcomes.

Improve Your Writing Skills

For students, most of your assessments are done through writing. You will be asked to write essays for assignments and exams in most study areas. Accordingly, knowing how to write well is suitable for your grades. But there are other personal benefits as well. It can be a tool for personal growth and self-reflection. Essay writing can transform your understanding of yourself and the world around you.

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