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In this video, you will learn how to develop a good research topic.
To start out, let's first
answer the question "Why it's important to know how to develop a good research
topic."
Think of it this way:
during your time as a student, and perhaps even later,
you will probably write a good number research papers.
While some instructors may provide you with their
list of research topics to choose from, others,
like now, let you choose your own topic. So
what can you write about? Well let's first answer the question "what makes a topic
really
good?" Three things worth to mention here.
First, it's a topic that strongly interests you.
This is very important. Make sure that the topic you pick, and the
topic you will write is a topic that interests you,
fascinates you as you want to talk about.
Really, there's nothing worse than spending a lot of time writing about a
topic
that bores you. Second, make sure your topic is
creative. What do we mean by that? Well,
there are some topics that have just been written about
over and over and over again. Can you come up with a topic that perhaps has
been covered that much?
Try to pick something that is creative and exciting to you
and your peers. Writing about Shakespeare's dramas is great,
but that topic in itself has been covered extensively.
Try to find something that might be a little more creative than that.
And third, speaking of Shakespeare's dramas,
make sure you pick something that is not too broad. Look at your assignment
prompt.
How many pages are you supposed to write? If you get a five page paper as an
assignment,
well Shakespeare's dramas is just going to be a little bit
too broad. So make sure that the topic you choose
fits the scope of your paper. Sometimes,
it can be really difficult to find a topic that is not too broad.
Here are a couple of words of advice on what to do
when your topic seems too broad. Let's say
you are in an environmental science class.
Your teacher gives you this assignment prompt.
"Write a research paper on a topic dealing with the current environmental
issue. Your paper should not exceed five pages
and should be based on a topic that strongly interests
you." Well, you say, that's no problem,
I know exactly what to write about. I saw this show the other day on TV
and it talked about the effects deforestation on Gorillas
in Africa. I think that's a great topic.
I know it interests me and
it's creative, so let's write about it.
Well, not so fast. Remember,
your paper is only supposed to be five pages.
How are you going to fit that topic into a five page paper?
That's going to be difficult. So what could you do instead
The key is to add more context.
For example, you could add some geographical context your paper.
Is there a geographic region or country in which gorillas are specifically
affected
by deforestation? Perhaps you want to focus more
on a historical context. Is there a certain time aspect you want to write
about?
Perhaps the time when deforestation really started to affect gorillas?
And third, with this topic,
you could also add biological context. Perhaps there's a specific subspecies of
the gorrilla
that you're interested to write about. So when we combine all three contexts
and incorporate them into the original topic,
this is what we get: something like "Current
effects up deforestation on the mountain gorilla
in Southwest Gonda." We were able to incorporate the historical context,
the biological context and the geographical context.
Adding context really is a great way
of narrowing your topic.