| Finding a TopicRelating Your Interests to a TopicYour choice of a topic or subject is crucial to your research assignment. Your topic must not be too general (such as "Computer Games"), but should have a special edge or angle that you can explore (such as "Learned Dexterity with Video and Computer Games"). Examples of discipline-specific topics include:
Research Writing in the Humanities, Social Sciences & SciencesAssignments in literature, history, and the fine arts will often require you to interpret, evaluate, and perform causal analysis. Assignments in education, psychology, political science, and other social science disciplines will usually require analysis, definition, comparison, or a search for precedents leading to a proposal. In the sciences, your experiments and testing will usually require a discussion of the implications of your findings. Techniques you can use to speculate about your subject to discover ideas and to focus on the issues include: Keeping a Research JournalThe research journal is a place to record ideas in one source book or computer file. If you keep the journal on a computer file, you can download material from the Internet and use a scanner for other items. Free WritingFree writing involves focusing on a topic and then writing whatever comes to mind. Keep writing nonstop for a page or so to develop phrases, comparisons, personal anecdotes, and specific thoughts that help focus issues of concern. Listing Key WordsKey words can set the stage for writing the rough outline, by arranging major areas of exploration, with minor issues listed below them. ClusteringAnother method for discovering the hierarchy of your primary topics and subtopics is to cluster ideas around a central subject. Narrowing by ComparisonAny two works, any two persons, or any two groups may serve as the basis for a comparative study. For example, a historian could compare Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, both key characters in the Civil War. Asking QuestionsGeneral questions can examine terminology, issues, and causes. Rhetorical questions can use the modes of writing (comparison, definition, cause/effect, process, classification, and evaluation) as a basis. Questions can be framed from different discipline perspectives; for example, what is the effect of gambling on a state's economy (in the discipline of economics) versus what is the effect of gambling on an individual who may become addicted to gambling (in the discipline of psychology). Journalism questions explore the basic elements of a subject, including who, what, where, when, why, and how. Kenneth Burke's pentad questions five aspects of a topic, including act, agent, scene, agency, and purpose. Expressing Your ThesisA thesis sentence expands your topic into a scholarly proposal, one that you will try to prove and defend in your paper. The sentence should not state the obvious, such as "Langston Hughes was a great poet from Harlem." That sentence will not provoke an academic discussion because your readers know that most published poets have talent. The writer must narrow and isolate one issue by finding a critical focus, such as this one that a student considered for her essay: "Langston Hughes used a controversial vernacular language that paved the way for later artists, even today's rap musicians." Some of your instructors might want the research paper to develop an argument as expressed in an enthymeme, which is a claim supported with a because clause. For example, "Hyperactive children need medication because ADHD is a medical disorder, not a behavioral problem." CHECKLIST: Narrowing a General Subject into a Working TopicUnlike a general subject, a working topic should:
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
