Introduction

Before you even consider the "topics" issue, take some time now to find out how to save yourself headaches and agony by thoroughly understanding the assignment.

Good. Now that you have some guidelines on what you'll be doing, you need something to do it on: a topic.

Either luckily or unluckily depending on your own need for guidance, the professor may not only dole out the assignment but even hand out sheets of possible topics or actual thesis statements to defend. Here's a shortened version of one for a correspondence course on Shakespeare:

Choose one of the topics below and write a short essay clearly arguing a thesis that you have formed based on that topic.

1.        How does Love's Labor's Lost parody conventions of courtly love?

2.        Some critics have argued that nothing happens in Love's Labor's Lost. Is this true?

3.        How do we know from Romeo and Juliet's first meeting that their romance is doomed?

4.        How does Romeo and Juliet introduce the relation between love and death?

Remember: unless otherwise specified that you must only choose from the options given to you, don't be shy about taking the initiative to approach your professor with ideas of your own as long as it's not because the suggested topics look "too hard." Your topic should exist at the same level (or above!) any suggested topics. But you should also look for something you'd be motivated to do.

You may even be forced to go on your own with very little direction. Assignments often give students a word or page count and a deadline, with the only real direction about "subject matter" being that the paper has to look at some topic covered in the course in a more in-depth fashion. For example, in a first-year poetry course I took, one of our assignments, though it did not require secondary sources, was on a little slip of paper that read:

Write an essay of approximately 1,000 words (3-4 double spaced pages) in which you discuss your response to one of the poems we have discussed in the lectures or tutorials. Pay careful attention to the narrative elements: speaker, tone, diction, point of view, characters, setting, and/or plot. In paying close attention to both the text and your reaction to it, you will need to reflect on what you think the poem is about and the view of life it presents.

You'll still have to go through the idea-generation stage even if you're given a sheet of topics or possible theses. But locating something that might pique your interest off that sheet is pretty self-explanatory: follow your instincts. However, for the other, more-vaguely-expressed extreme in assignments as shown above, how are you supposed to come up with a topic of and on your own to generate ideas about?

Now that you don't feel that mental fuel tank is empty to begin with, it's time to fill it up.

Don't be immediately scared of a topic or "topics" in general. Too often, students are exasperated from the beginning because they don't feel they have any authority or knowledge about their subject area. That's not a great attitude to start with. Have faith in your own smarts and course work. You'll start the research in the next step. Nobody's expecting you to be an expert or get your paper published in a journal, so just start jotting down ideas about things related to your topic. You may even want to keep a journal to keep everything in one place. So step one is to relax.

Be sure though not just to put down things you think you should write about or might want to write about but basically just anything that comes to mind when you look at the topic. The important thing here is not to edit your meanderings; this is not the step for second-guessing what you've written. Connotations, associations, related concepts, connections--that's what you're looking for to get a topic. To accomplish this, try some specific invention techniques.

The real key to successful papers that you can actually enjoy writing <gasp!> is motivation, which is why your topic choice is so important. During your idea-generation activities, once you have started seeing great things jumping out at you, finish your "session" and then make a list of why a potential topic is important. To do this:

First think of yourself--is this something you believe in? that sounds fun? that you sincerely want to learn more about? that intrigues you? Even when you're given a set topic in advance, you can always frame it to suit your needs and style--so get something out of it. Or if you have more freedom, maybe it turns out that your favorite poet's work (from some English course you took a few semesters ago) fits into your unit on feminism. Why not see if you can explore that further now? Or maybe you're doing a double major...why not substantiate your decision and try and connect the two fields in a paper? Perhaps symbolic imagery or the French Revolution has always been something you wanted to really dig your hands into but never had a chance. The possibilities are endless. So go ahead and be selfish. Your paper will be the better for it.

Then think of the audience - will other people familiar with this subject care to read what you're writing? Do you have something to say or are you babbling and wasting space? Use common sense and intuition here. It might be loads of fun to talk about the evolution of the toilet paper roll, but if you suspect your readers will find themselves going "Yeah, so what?" and just reading for reading's sake, you'll be in trouble and your grade will reflect it.

Understanding the Assignment

In class, ask questions or take notes about what criteria will be used in marking your paper. How will the grade be broken down? What is your professor or T.A. really looking for? Your teacher(s) put a lot of work into planning the assignment so it's worth your while to pull as much information out of them as you can (just as you know you would if it were an exam situation <grin>. Hey, a lot of the time, research papers are worth as much if not more than the "final" anyway...). Asking direct questions is also a life-saver when profs don't explain the assignment clearly don't take the time to state it something important explicitly.

At home, (assuming you have some written text to work with) read, read, and then reread the assignment question. We're not trying to insult your intelligence by stating the obvious, but you can't give your profs what they're asking for unless you know what it is. Scrutinize the question.

Analyze it meticulously by highlighting key assignment words--argue (sometimes disguised as disagree/agree), analyze, discuss, evaluate, compare, contrast, reflect on-- that will direct you toward your paper's purpose (i.e., what type of essay you'll be doing). Then highlight all other key technical terms that are more course-specific and send student signal buttons flashing in your brain. Look up the words in the dictionary (specialized or otherwise) even if think you know what they mean; some words have multiple meanings and special jargon might mislead you if you guess.

Often the professor does the work for you and outlines some of the very components or issues that should be discussed in your paper; those are precious freebies, so don't throw them away! You'll use them later in constructing your outline.

When in doubt, make an appointment with your instructor for 10 minutes and dictate your take on the assignment verbally. Note any unusual facial expressions; constant nodding is a good sign.

How do you pick your own topic?

With our aforementioned example I had at least two dozen poems to choose from. I had to first think "Which poems have we studied and did I have an automatic response to any while reading them?" and then "Which narrative elements can I fit into a 1,000-word paper?" It's a good thing I took the time to ask questions and understand the assignment since it turned out I only needed to focus on one or two at the most or even elements not mentioned on the assignment sheet.

Therefore, before you start the brainstorming pens and juices flowing, start thinking early. Is there a particular subject area within your discipline that you're interested in? Have you recently heard something in class or read something in the textbook that piqued your curiosity? Did a tutorial discussion really seem fascinating? Is there something worth exploring that will help you with a future course or even an upcoming exam for the present course? After all, who says you can't use a research paper as an in-depth study tool?

Make use of your readings. Material you covered in lecture. Facts or subheadings from the textbook. Your own notes or doodled questions in the margins of your page. Insights brought up in tutorial discussions. Or browse through an index of topics such as The Library of Congress Subject Headings or the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, or through more subject-specific catalogs easily found in most libraries.

Don't write anything down just yet. The idea is to get words, associated topics, and abstract concepts floating around your brain before you even start to touch a pen or keyboard. You want to get the mental juices, if not flowing, at least uncapped.

Don't fret. Even if none of the above works for you, our Invention Techniques page and the Topics links at the end of this step will give you a great list of starting-points to help you generate wonderful "somethings" from the "nothing" you feel you're faced with now.

Invention Techniques

There are probably an infinite number of methods, but five of the most popular ones are described below. Read about each one to see which works for you or do them all, one after another, to get your mind working a bit differently and approaching the topic from different angles. Experiment and try to have some fun.

Freewriting. Set a timer for five to ten minutes (you can always keep going after the beeper's gone off but an initial time limit is great for keeping you focused). Look at the topic and mull it over, roll it over your tongue, inhale it, let it bounce around the neural pathways of your brain for a second or two. Now ready? set? write! and don't stop! Keep your fingers typing or your pen moving on paper for the entire duration. Get it all out; a sort of intellectual diarrhea or stream-of-consciousness writing where you write what you think as you're thinking it. Don't worry about grammar, spelling, or forming sentences. Some of it won't make sense and that's okay. If you find yourself drawing a blank at some point, then just write, "I'm drawing a blank" to keep the flow going or try and articulate why you think you can't get very far with the subject. No rules for this idea-generation technique except that (1) you have to think <don't groan> and (2) you can't censor yourself or read over what you've done until the timer has sounded (if you're doing this on a computer, a neat trick is to darken the screen to prevent this kind of senseless cheating). BZZZZTTTT! Time's up: now you can finally look over your stuff. Freewriting is great because sometimes you'll find you'll be able to lift off entire sections and use them in your first draft.

Brainstorming. This is actually quite similar to freewriting in how to treat your thought processes (remember, still no censoring) but the organization--the way you jot down ideas--is a bit different. Instead of an endless, non-punctuated, free-flowing paragraph, you only note down key words or short phrases in list-form under your subject or broad topic. Set the timer, take a deep breath, and go crazy. If you get stuck, look at one of the list words and see if that doesn't trigger something new or if there's a general term (loaded abstractions like "power," "education," "culture," or "knowledge" are good examples) that keeps popping up and needs some fleshing out or isn't self-containing or self-explanatory. Assume nothing is self-explanatory--at this stage stating the obvious is the best way to tap into original territory. When you're done, use your word processor's cut and paste features (or arrows or color coding for you paper planners out there) to re-organize your terms and find relationships and common threads that might form subheadings.

Clustering/Webbing/Mapping. Basically the same as brainstorming but for more visually- or paper-oriented students. Rather than a list of concepts, you start with a central word written in the middle of an unlined piece of paper. As related concepts pop in your head, you indicate them as branches, arrows, in bubbles, or however you like to cluster. Some branches will lead to dead ends, others will flourish. At the end of a successful cluster session, you'll focus on the blossoming areas and will even be able to draw arrows between concepts to show their relationships. Again, no self-censorship allowed but don't beat a dead horse either. If one spark dies, return to the central or other provocative point you have scribbled in the lower right hand corner and try again.

Cubing. The general strategy of looking at your topic as you would a three-dimensional object with many sides. Sometimes you'll hear it called the Many Parts Strategy because it asks...no, pushes…you to consider your topic from a minimum of six different angles or avenues. For a more thorough description of the process, visit:

Heuristics. An impressive word that basically just means a learning aid or problem-solving technique that uses "self-education." Self-education is a bizarre but appropriate concept here because what you essentially do with any heuristic is interview yourself, tap into your own wealth of knowledge with the right drills in the right places, as it were. This is done by using questions as prompts.

One popular heuristic is the list of journalistic 5 Ws (and one H!): who, what, when, where, why, and how.

The University of Michigan OWL has another great example with the following set of five questions:

·         What am I writing about? (topic)

·         What am I trying to say about my topic? (controlling idea)

·         Why am I writing about my topic? (purpose)

·         Why should my reader(s) be interested in my controlling idea? (audience)

·         What knowledge do I have that makes me the right person to write about this topic?