Topics & Assignments: Choosing a Topic

• It can be challenging to predict the difference between a 'just right' topic and 'too small.' We suggest starting a little bigger going into your first search. You can always narrow down your topic later.

Many assignments will pose a question that should guide your topic, but that is too broad to be your topic. These assignments are designed for you to choose a topic within the broader question.

Example Assignment: 

What Is The Topic?

• A solution to the social problems within education?
  • This is far too broad.
  • Trying to search keywords based on this question will not get the best results.
• This question does not answer the "What": What problems? 
  • Journal articles are specific. 
  • To find useful articles about a solution, the search will need keywords specific to a specific problem.
• This assignment is actually asking you to identify one social problem, and one potential solution. The search keywords need to relate to the specific problem.

Example Topic Choice

• In this assignment, the textbook reading broadly identifies the social problems within education. 
• Unequal opportunity between low income and high income schools is discussed.
  • Background research shows that one issue of unequal opportunity is unequal access to the internet at home, since many assignments ask students to do research at home. Distance learning in 2020 highlighted this divide.
• Topic: What are solutions to digital inequality in education?
  • Searches based on this topic will be specific and easier to find.

A good research question is focused. 

1. What:

• Start with your general topic.

2. When:

• Not just for eras or years, can also be age or circumstance.

3. Where:

• What location? Can be as broad as a country, as specific as a town or company, or might be generic as in 'at school' or 'online'.

4: Who:

• What group are you looking at?

5. Why:

• Significance or impact.

Working through the research question format will help you focus what aspects of your topic you want to address in your paper. 

Topic: Three ways bullying can negatively impact children.

Creating a Question:

• What:

  • Bullying

• Who: 

  • Children is pretty broad.

  • Teensis more specific.

• Where:

  • There are many possibilities: online, at school, after school.

  • Choosing onlinewe can change the topic to cyberbullying.

• When:

  • Teensis most of the way to a when as well as a who.

  • If this topic turns out to be too broad, we can add more to when, such as "on social media," "outside of school," or "during school breaks."

• Why: 

  • What effect? There may be many, choosing one area of impact will help focus the search and the paper.

  • We can choose mental healthas the element to focus on. 

Final Question:

How does social media cyberbullying affect teen mental health?

This creates a version of the topic that is focused enough to fit into a short paper, won't result in thousands of search results, but still has room to talk about three different ways teens' mental health is impacted by bullying.  

Why not try and think up three ways right now?

• Answering the question should be based on research!

We'll need to do some pre-research or beginning research to see what articles say about the topic. Otherwise we might choose a subtopic that isn't supported by the sources we have access to.