Step 1: Brainstorm 

Once you have read through the topic, answer the following questions:

What do you want to write about? Write down three possible topics you are considering for this essay. 

What do you already know about the three topics you listed?

What questions do you still have about the three topics you listed (questions you can answer through your research)?

1. Who might be the intended audience of your paper (think bigger than your English teacher)? Who would you be trying to convince of your argument? How will the audience influence your research and or writing?

Do you think that the topics are narrowed enough? Can you provide a well-developed argument on these topics in 6-8 pages? How might you narrow them down further (based on the

1. Choosing a Research Paper Topic
2. To-Do Date: Oct 24 at 11:59pm
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4. It’s All about the Subject

For this essay, you are able to choose your Research Paper topic

Topic choice is a large responsibility, so before we move into the assignment, I thought I would introduce some ideas to help you really make a good decision.

First and foremost, your Research Paper must pose an argument. Hence, you are not simply sharing facts about a topic in an informational manner; you are taking a stance and proving it. 

Once you are sure that your topic is argumentative (people could reasonably disagree with you), then there are four areas of consideration:

the subject has ample sources from various publication types (books, journals, websites, etc.). Thus, you may not be able to research topics that are recent, but you can look at the broader subject and then use the recent event as one piece of evidence;

the subject encourages research;

the subject and its sources can be objectively assessed and defended (avoid subjects that are predominantly based in belief);

the subject is broad enough to meet the required paper length (6-8 pages), but no so broad that it lacks development of a focal idea. 

the topic must address a research question, a point you are attempting to prove

the topic must be academic

the topic must not be so overdone that it has become cliche

Narrowing Down the Topic

Whether you are assigned a general issue to investigate, given a list of problems to study, or you have to identify your own topic to investigate, it is important that the scope of the research problem underpinning your study is not too broad, otherwise, it will be very difficult to adequately address the problem 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 important.

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 easily 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 Down the Topic
• One Perspective (from USC Libraries):
• A common challenge when beginning to write a research paper is determining how 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 you find that you have 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 your topic:

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 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 in West Africa, study trade relations between Niger and Cameroon as a case study that helps to explain 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, male/female, opinion/reason, problem/solution].
• Time — the shorter the time period of the study, the more narrow the focus [e.g., study of trade relations between Niger and Cameroon during the period of 2010 – 2018].
• 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 very 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 this more specific problem and assessing whether prior research on the narrower topic 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.

Another Perspective (from University of Arizona Global Campus):

Once you have chosen a general topic for your research paper, you will want to narrow this topic to something more specific. Next, you will develop a research question to research, explore, and write about in your paper.

Narrowing a Topic

When you have an overall subject to pursue, your next task is to narrow and focus the topic. You want to narrow your topic so that you can explore it in detail. Also, narrowing your topic will enable you to better determine the specific direction of your paper and the research you will conduct on your topic.

You can focus your topic by using the following strategy:

Generate a list of more specific areas of interest (subtopics) related to your overall topic

For example:

Subtopics related to education:

Online education

Traditional education model

Common Core

STEM education

• Subtopics related to crime:

Juvenile crime

• Criminal justice system

Racial profiling

• Prison reform

Developing a Research Question

• Once you have narrowed your topic, work on developing a research question that you want to explore. Keep in mind this won’t be a factual question that has a set right or wrong answer.

You can develop your research question by using the following strategy:

• Generate a list of questions that you’d like to explore related to your subtopics

For example:

• Questions related to education:

What is the future of online education?

• Is the traditional education model the most effective?

Does the Common Core result in better prepared students?

• What are the effects of moving toward STEM education?

How can we better fund education in America?

Questions related to crime:

Why are children being tried as adults?

How should drug offenses be addressed within the criminal justice system?

Is racial profiling affecting arrest demographics?

How can we best reform our over-populated prisons?