Selecting A Topic
Research Questions
Selecting Key Words
Using Key Words

 Selecting a Topic

Let's look at a few ways to develop a manageable topic.

Broad Topics

Sometimes it's good to start out with a very broad topic and then narrow it to one that's more specific.

For example, let's take the topic: Natural Disasters

There are many ways that you could approach this topic. It may be difficult to comprehensively cover natural disasters in the brief type of paper that your English professor has assigned. Sorting through all of the available information on natural disasters would also prove to be a daunting task.

One method of making a topic more manageable is to narrow it. Narrowing involves giving the topic a more specific focus. An example of narrowing the "Natural Disasters" topic would be to focus on a particular type of natural disaster. The following table illustrates this concept:

 

Broad Topic	Narrow Topic
Natural Disasters	earthquakes hurricanes tsunamis tornadoes

  

 

  

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