The DK Handbook defines topic as "a general area of interest" such as computer game violence, children's education, automobiles, racism, women's rights, etc. A topic starts out broad and eventually has to be narrowed down by research. There are a few ways to choose a topic. They include asking yourself some questions, talking to others, and going online. Before starting research, a topic must be narrowed down. A narrowed topic is usually linked to a particular isssue or controversy of some sort that will be of interest to a certain audience. The best way to do that is using you initial, broad research to find possible areas that might be useful, surprising, or provocative to your audience. It is also important to keep an open mind when narrowing a topic because the wider you look for information on a specific topic, chances are you will be surprised by what you find which can cause you to be more engaged resulting in a stronger argument. Other strategies for narrowing a topic include brainstorming, freewriting, and clustering.
In addition to narrowing your topic, you must also generate some questions in order to have a better sense of what you need to find to write a strong paper. By generating questions, you will be able to see things such as areas of research you might not have considered otherwise, possible ways for shaping your purpose, questions your audience might have that you need to address, and specific research directions you need to take. Those questions may be questions of fact, definition, interpretation, consequence, value, and policy. By using these research questions, you can generate as many other questions on your narrowed topic as you can. Just let the questions come, and don't judge them because one question might lead to another. The more questions, the more you will have a sense of what further research you need to do.
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