LibGuides: Research Help: Topic Development

Tips for Topic Development

When your instructor permits you to create your own topic for a research and writing assignment, keep these tips in mind:

Review your class readings and class discussions to help you choose a topic. A good topic will often build on ideas that you have already learned about in class.
Do some reading on a topic or topics that interest you.
Consult your class instructor, a librarian, or a writing coach. Discussing your ideas for a topic with an experienced researcher can help you choose a topic that will be interesting and practical to research.

For more information, see Lumen Learning's Preliminary Research Strategies

Turning a Topic into a Research Question or Thesis Statement

The following figure gives some ideas for how to progress from a general topic to a research question to a thesis statement.

Turning a topic into a research question or thesis statement

Transcript of this image

**Turning a Topic into a Research Question or Thesis Statement**
	General Topic	Research Question	Thesis Statement
Definition	The assignment your instructor provides, or the general area or issue in which you are interested	The question a researcher asks that guides his or her inquiry into a topic	A summary statement of the writer's main point
Example	Female managers in the workplace	How do female managers' work-life balance decisions affect their opportunities to be promoted to upper-level management positions inFortune 500 IT companies?	Female managers encounter a glass ceiling in upper-level management positions inFortune 500 IT companies.

Narrowing Your Topic

Narrowing your topic is often the most difficult aspect of formulating a research question. The figure below gives further tips on how to focus your topic.

Transcript of this image

**Narrowing your Topic**
Broad Topic: Female Managers
	Limit by Location	Limit by Type of Company	Limit by Time Period
Narrowed Topic	Female managers in Asia	Female managers in Fortune500 companies	Female managers in the twentieth century
Further Narrowed Topic	Female managers in Japan	Female managers in Fortune500 IT companies	Female managers in the 1990s
Research Question	How is the promotion of women to positions in upper management in IT companies in Japan different from that in the United States?	How do female managers' work-life balance decisions affect their opportunities to be promoted to upper-level management positions inFortune 500 IT companies?	How did the promotional opportunities and job experiences of female managers differ from those of male managers in the mid-1990s?