what is narrowed topic in research

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Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper

• Narrowing a Topic Idea
• Purpose of Guide
• Design Flaws to Avoid
• Independent and Dependent Variables
• Glossary of Research Terms
• Reading Research Effectively
• Broadening a Topic Idea
• Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
• Academic Writing Style
• Applying Critical Thinking
• Choosing a Title
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• Paragraph Development
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• Executive Summary
• The C.A.R.S. Model
• Background Information
• The Research Problem/Question
• Theoretical Framework
• Citation Tracking
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• Evaluating Sources
• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Tiertiary Sources
• Scholarly vs. Popular Publications
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Insiderness
• Using Non-Textual Elements
• Limitations of the Study
• Common Grammar Mistakes
• Writing Concisely
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Footnotes or Endnotes?
• Further Readings
• Generative AI and Writing
• USC Libraries Tutorials and Other Guides
• Bibliography

Importance of Narrowing the Research Topic

Whether you are assigned a general issue to investigate, must choose a problem to study from a list given to you by your professor, or you have to identify your own topic to investigate, it is important that the scope of the research problem is not too broad, otherwise, it will be difficult to adequately address the topic in the space and time allowed. You could experience a number of problems if your topic is too broad, including:

• You find too many information sources and, as a consequence, it is difficult to decide what to include or exclude or what are the most relevant sources.
• You find information that is too general and, as a consequence, it is difficult to develop a clear framework for examining the research problem.
• A lack of sufficient parameters that clearly define the research problem makes it difficult to identify and apply the proper methods needed to analyze it.
• You find information that covers a wide variety of concepts or ideas that can't be integrated into one paper and, as a consequence, you trail off into unnecessary tangents.

Lloyd-Walker, Beverly and Derek Walker. "Moving from Hunches to a Research Topic: Salient Literature and Research Methods." In Designs, Methods and Practices for Research of Project Management . Beverly Pasian, editor. ( Burlington, VT: Gower Publishing, 2015 ), pp. 119-129.

Strategies for Narrowing the Research Topic

A common challenge when beginning to write a research paper is determining how and in what ways to narrow down your topic . Even if your professor gives you a specific topic to study, it will almost never be so specific that you won’t have to narrow it down at least to some degree [besides, it is very boring to grade fifty papers that are all about the exact same thing!].

A topic is too broad to be manageable when a review of the literature reveals too many different, and oftentimes conflicting or only remotely related, ideas about how to investigate the research problem. Although you will want to start the writing process by considering a variety of different approaches to studying the research problem, you will need to narrow the focus of your investigation at some point early in the writing process. This way, you don't attempt to do too much in one paper.

Here are some strategies to help narrow the thematic focus of your paper :

• Aspect -- choose one lens through which to view the research problem, or look at just one facet of it [e.g., rather than studying the role of food in South Asian religious rituals, study the role of food in Hindu marriage ceremonies, or, the role of one particular type of food among several religions].
• Components -- determine if your initial variable or unit of analysis can be broken into smaller parts, which can then be analyzed more precisely [e.g., a study of tobacco use among adolescents can focus on just chewing tobacco rather than all forms of usage or, rather than adolescents in general, focus on female adolescents in a certain age range who choose to use tobacco].
• Methodology -- the way in which you gather information can reduce the domain of interpretive analysis needed to address the research problem [e.g., a single case study can be designed to generate data that does not require as extensive an explanation as using multiple cases].
• Place -- generally, the smaller the geographic unit of analysis, the more narrow the focus [e.g., rather than study trade relations issues in West Africa, study trade relations between Niger and Cameroon as a case study that helps to explain economic problems in the region].
• Relationship -- ask yourself how do two or more different perspectives or variables relate to one another. Designing a study around the relationships between specific variables can help constrict the scope of analysis [e.g., cause/effect, compare/contrast, contemporary/historical, group/individual, child/adult, opinion/reason, problem/solution].
• Time -- the shorter the time period of the study, the more narrow the focus [e.g., restricting the study of trade relations between Niger and Cameroon to only the period of 2010 - 2020].
• Type -- focus your topic in terms of a specific type or class of people, places, or phenomena [e.g., a study of developing safer traffic patterns near schools can focus on SUVs, or just student drivers, or just the timing of traffic signals in the area].
• Combination -- use two or more of the above strategies to focus your topic more narrowly.

NOTE : Apply one of the above strategies first in designing your study to determine if that gives you a manageable research problem to investigate. You will know if the problem is manageable by reviewing the literature on your more narrowed problem and assessing whether prior research is sufficient to move forward in your study [i.e., not too much, not too little]. Be careful, however, because combining multiple strategies risks creating the opposite problem--your problem becomes too narrowly defined and you can't locate enough research or data to support your study.

Booth, Wayne C. The Craft of Research . Fourth edition. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2016; Coming Up With Your Topic. Institute for Writing Rhetoric. Dartmouth College; Narrowing a Topic. Writing Center. University of Kansas; Narrowing Topics. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Strategies for Narrowing a Topic. University Libraries. Information Skills Modules. Virginia Tech University; The Process of Writing a Research Paper. Department of History. Trent University; Ways to Narrow Down a Topic. Contributing Authors. Utah State OpenCourseWare.

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• Next: Broadening a Topic Idea >>
• Last Updated: May 9, 2024 11:05 AM
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1-Research Questions

2. Narrowing a Topic

For many students, having to start with a research question is the biggest difference between how they did research in high school and how they are required to carry out their college research projects. It’s a process of working from the outside in: you start with the world of all possible topics (or your assigned topic) and narrow down until you’ve focused your interest enough to be able to tell precisely what you want to find out, instead of only what you want to “write about.”

Process of Narrowing a Topic

All Possible Topics -You’ll need to narrow your topic in order to do research effectively. Without specific areas of focus, it will be hard to even know where to begin.

Assigned Topics – When professors assign a topic you have to narrow, they have already started the narrowing process. Narrowing a topic means making some part of it more specific. Ideas about a narrower topic can come from anywhere. Often, a narrower topic boils down to deciding what’s interesting to you. One way to get ideas is to read background information from a source like Wikipedia.

Topic Narrowed by Initial Exploration –  It’s wise to do some more reading about that narrower topic to a) learn more about it and b) learn specialized terms used by professionals and scholars who study it.

Topic Narrowed to Research Question(s) –  A research question defines exactly what you are trying to find out. It will influence most of the steps you take to conduct the research.

ACTIVITY: Which Topic Is Narrower?

When we talk about narrowing a topic, we’re talking about making it more specific. You can make it more specific by singling out at least one part or aspect of the original to decrease the scope of the original. Now here’s some practice for you to test your understanding.

Why Narrow a Topic?

Once you have a need for research—say, an assignment—you may need to prowl around a bit online to explore the topic and figure out what you actually want to find out and write about.

For instance, maybe your assignment is to develop a poster about the season “spring” for an introductory horticulture course. The instructor expects you to narrow that topic to something you are interested in and that is related to your class.

Ideas about a narrower topic can come from anywhere. In this case, a narrower topic boils down to deciding what’s interesting to you about “spring” that is related to what you’re learning in your horticulture class and small enough to manage in the time you have.

One way to get ideas would be to read about spring in Wikipedia, looking for things that seem interesting and relevant to your class, and then letting one thing lead to another as you keep reading and thinking about likely possibilities that are more narrow than the enormous “spring” topic. (Be sure to pay attention to the references at the bottom of most Wikipedia pages and pursue any that look interesting. Your instructor is not likely to let you cite Wikipedia, but those references may be citable scholarly sources that you could eventually decide to use.)

Or, instead, if it is spring at the time you could start by just looking around, admire the blooming trees on campus, and decide you’d like your poster to be about bud development on your favorites, the crabapple trees.

What you’re actually doing to narrow your topic is making at least one aspect of your topic more specific. For instance, assume your topic is the maintenance of the 130 miles of sidewalks on OSU’s Columbus campus. If you made maintenance more specific, your narrower topic might be snow removal on Columbus OSU’s sidewalks. If instead, you made the 130 miles of sidewalks more specific, your narrower topic might be maintenance of the sidewalks on all sides of Mirror Lake.

Anna Narrows Her Topic and Works on a Research Question

The Situation: Anna, an undergraduate, has been assigned a research paper on Antarctica. Her professor expects students to (1) narrow the topic on something more specific about Antarctica because they won’t have time to cover that whole topic. Then they are to (2) come up with a research question that their paper will answer.

The professor explained that the research question should be something they are interested in answering and that it must be more complicated than what they could answer with a quick Google search. He also said that research questions often, but not always, start with either the word “how” or “why.”

What you should do:

• Read what Anna is thinking below as she tries to do the assignment.
• After the reading, answer the questions at the end of the monologue in your own mind.
• Check your answers with ours at the end of Anna’s interior monologue.
• Keep this demonstration in mind the next time you are in Anna’s spot, and you can mimic her actions and think about your own topic.

Anna’s Interior Monologue

Okay, I am going to have to write something—a research paper—about Antarctica. I don’t know anything about that place—I think it’s a continent. I can’t think of a single thing I’ve ever wanted to know about Antarctica. How will I come up with a research question about that place? Calls for Wikipedia, I guess.

At https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica . Just skimming. Pretty boring stuff. Oh, look– Antarctica’s a desert! I guess “desert” doesn’t have to do with heat. That’s interesting. What else could it have to do with? Maybe lack of precipitation? But there’s lots of snow and ice there. Have to think about that—what makes a desert a desert?

It says one to five thousand people live there in research stations. Year-round. Definitely, the last thing I’d ever do. “…there is no evidence that it was seen by humans until the 19th century.” I never thought about whether anybody lived in Antarctica first, before the scientists and stuff.

Lots of names—explorer, explorer… boring. It says Amundson reached the South Pole first. Who’s Amundson? But wait. It says, “One month later, the doomed Scott Expedition reached the pole.” Doomed? Doomed is always interesting. Where’s more about the Scott Expedition? I’m going to use that Control-F technique and type in Scott to see if I can find more about him on this page. Nothing beyond that one sentence shows up. Why would they have just that one sentence? I’ll have to click on the Scott Expedition link.

But it gives me a page called Terra Nova Expedition. What does that have to do with Scott? And just who was Scott? And why was his expedition doomed? There he is in a photo before going to Antarctica. Guess he was English. Other photos show him and his team in the snow. Oh, the expedition was named Terra Nova after the ship they sailed this time—in 1911. Scott had been there earlier on another ship.

Lots of stuff about preparing for the trip. Then stuff about expedition journeys once they were in Antarctica. Not very exciting—nothing about being doomed. I don’t want to write about this stuff.

Wait. The last paragraph of the first section says “For many years after his death, Scott’s status as a tragic hero was unchallenged,” but then it says that in the 20th-century people looked closer at the expedition’s management and at whether Scott and some of his team could be personally blamed for the catastrophe. That “remains controversial,” it says. Catastrophe? Personally blamed? Hmm.

Back to skimming. It all seems horrible to me. They actually planned to kill their ponies for meat, so when they actually did it, it was no surprise. Everything was extremely difficult. And then when they arrived at the South Pole, they found that the explorer Amundsen had beaten them. Must have been a big disappointment.

The homeward march was even worse. The weather got worse. The dog sleds that were supposed to meet them periodically with supplies didn’t show up. Or maybe the Scott group was lost and didn’t go to the right meeting places. Maybe that’s what that earlier statement meant about whether the decisions that were made were good ones. Scott’s diary said the crystallized snow made it seem like they were pushing and pulling the sledges through dry sand .

It says that before things turned really bad ( really bad? You’ve already had to eat your horses !), Scott allowed his men to put 30 pounds of rocks with fossils on the sledges they were pushing and dragging. Now was that sensible? The men had to push or pull those sledges themselves. What if it was those rocks that actually doomed those men?

But here it says that those rocks are the proof of continental drift. So how did they know those rocks were so important? Was that knowledge worth their lives? Could they have known?

Wow–there is drama on this page! Scott’s diary is quoted about their troubles on the expedition—the relentless cold, frostbite, and the deaths of their dogs. One entry tells of a guy on Scott’s team “now with hands as well as feet pretty well useless” voluntarily leaving the tent and walking to his death. The diary says that the team member’s last words were ”I am just going outside and may be some time.” Ha!

They all seem lost and desperate but still have those sledges. Why would you keep pulling and pushing those sledges containing an extra 30 pounds of rock when you are so desperate and every step is life or death?

Then there’s Scott’s last diary entry, on March 29, 1912. “… It seems a pity but I do not think I can write more.” Well.

That diary apparently gave lots of locations of where he thought they were but maybe they were lost. It says they ended up only 11 miles from one of their supply stations. I wonder if anybody knows how close they were to where Scott thought they were.

I’d love to see that diary. Wouldn’t that be cool? Online? I’ll Google it.

Yes! At the British museum. Look at that! I can see Scott’s last entry IN HIS OWN HANDWRITING!

Actually, if I decide to write about something that requires reading the diary, it would be easier to not have to decipher his handwriting. Wonder whether there is a typed version of it online somewhere?

Maybe I should pay attention to the early paragraph on the Terra Nova Expedition page in Wikipedia—about it being controversial whether Scott and his team made bad decisions so that they brought most of their troubles on themselves. Can I narrow my topic to just the controversy over whether bad decisions of Scott and his crew doomed them? Maybe it’s too big a topic if I consider the decisions of all team members. Maybe I should just consider Scott’s decisions.

So what research question could come from that? Maybe: how did Scott’s decisions contribute to his team’s deaths in Antarctica? But am I talking about his decisions before or after they left for Antarctica? Or the whole time they were a team? Probably too many decisions involved. More focused: How did Scott’s decisions after reaching the South Pole help or hurt the chances of his team getting back safely? That’s not bad—maybe. If people have written about that. There are several of his decisions discussed on the Wikipedia page, and I know there are sources at the bottom of that page.

Let me think—what else did I see that was interesting or puzzling about all this? I remember being surprised that Antarctica is a desert. So maybe I could make Antarctica as a desert my topic. My research question could be something like: Why is Antarctica considered a desert? But there has to be a definition of deserts somewhere online, so that doesn’t sound complicated enough. Once you know the definition of desert, you’d know the answer to the question. Professor Sanders says research questions are more complicated than regular questions.

What’s a topic I could care about? A question I really wonder about? Maybe those rocks with the fossils in them. It’s just so hard to imagine desperate explorers continuing to push those sledges with an extra 30 pounds of rocks on them. Did they somehow know how important they would be? Or were they just curious about them? Why didn’t they ditch them? Or maybe they just didn’t realize how close to death they were. Maybe I could narrow my Antarctica topic to those rocks.

Maybe my narrowed topic could be something like: The rocks that Scott and his crew found in Antarctica that prove continental drift. Maybe my research question could be: How did Scott’s explorers choose the rocks they kept?

Well, now all I have is questions about my questions. Like, is my professor going to think the question about the rocks is still about Antarctica? Or is it all about continental drift or geology or even the psychology of desperate people? And what has been written about the finding of those rocks? Will I be able to find enough sources? I’m also wondering whether my question about Scott’s decisions is too big—do I have enough time for it?

I think my professor is the only one who can tell me whether my question about the rocks has enough to do with Antarctica. Since he’s the one who will be grading my paper. But a librarian can help me figure out the other things.

So Dr. Sanders and a librarian are next.

Reflection Questions

• Was Anna’s choice to start with Wikipedia a good choice? Why or why not?
• Have you ever used that Control-F technique?
• At what points does Anna think about where to look for information?
• At the end of this session, Anna hasn’t yet settled on a research question. So what did she accomplish? What good was all this searching and thinking?

Our Answers:

• Was Anna’s choice to start with Wikipedia a good choice? Why or why not? Wikipedia is a great place to start a research project. Just make sure you move on from there, because it’s a not a good place to end up with your project. One place to move on to is the sources at the bottom of most Wikipedia pages.
• Have you ever used that Control-F technique? If you haven’t used the Control-F technique, we hope you will. It can save you a lot of time and effort reading online material.
• At what points does Anna think about where to look for information ? When she began; when she wanted to know more about the Scott expedition; when she wonders whether she could read Scott’s diary online; when she thinks about what people could answer her questions.
• At the end of this session, Anna hasn’t yet settled on a research question. So what did she accomplish? What good was all this reading and thinking? There are probably many answers to this question. Ours includes that Anna learned more about Antarctica, the subject of her research project. She focused her thinking (even if she doesn’t end up using the possible research questions she’s considering) and practiced critical thinking skills, such as when she thought about what she could be interested in, when she worked to make her potential research questions more specific, and when she figured out what questions still needed answering at the end. She also practiced her skills at making meaning from what she read, investigating a story that she didn’t expect to be there and didn’t know had the potential of being one that she is interested in. She also now knows what questions she needs answered and whom to ask. These thinking skills are what college is all about. Anna is way beyond where she was when she started.

Choosing & Using Sources: A Guide to Academic Research Copyright © 2015 by Teaching & Learning, Ohio State University Libraries is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Research Tips and Tricks

• Getting Started
• Understanding the Assignment
• Topic Selection Tips

Topic Narrowing

Ways to narrow your topic, be careful, tools to help, youtube videos about narrowing a topic.

• Breaking Topic Into Keywords
• Developing A Search Strategy
• Scholarly vs Popular Sources
• What Are Primary Sources?
• Finding Scholarly Articles
• Finding Scholarly Books
• Finding Primary Sources
• Citing My Sources This link opens in a new window

Instructional Librarian

Talk to your professor

A common challenge when beginning to write a research paper is determining how to narrow down your topic. 

Even if your professor gives you a topic to study, it will seldom be specific enough that you will not have to narrow it down, at least to some degree.

A topic is too broad to be manageable when you find that you have too many different, conflicting or only remotely related ideas. 

Although you will want to start the writing process by considering a variety of different approaches to studying the research problem, you will need to narrow the focus of your investigation at some point early in the writing process - this way you don't attempt to do too much in one paper.

Here are some strategies to help narrow your topic :

Aspect  -- choose one lens through which to view the research problem, or look at just one facet of it.

• e.g., rather than studying the role of food in South Asian religious rituals, explore the role of food in Hindu ceremonies or the role of one particular type of food among several religions.

Components  -- determine if your initial variable or unit of analysis can be broken into smaller parts, which can then be analyzed more precisely. 

• e.g., a study of tobacco use among adolescents can focus on just chewing tobacco rather than all forms of usage or, rather than adolescents in general, focus on female adolescents in a specific age range who choose to use tobacco.

Methodology  -- how you gather information can reduce the domain of interpretive analysis needed to address the research problem.

• e.g., a single case study can be designed to generate data that does not require as extensive an explanation as using multiple cases.

Place  -- generally, the smaller the geographic unit of analysis, the more narrow the focus.

• e.g., rather than study trade relations in North America, study trade relations between Mexico and the United States. 

Relationship  -- ask yourself how do two or more different perspectives or variables relate to one another. Designing a study around the relationships between specific variables can help constrict the scope of analysis. 

• e.g., cause/effect, compare/contrast, contemporary/historical, group/individual, male/female, opinion/reason, problem/solution.

Time  -- the shorter the time period of the study, the more narrow the focus.

• e.g., study of relations between Russia and the United States during the Vietnam War.

Type  -- focus your topic in terms of a specific type or class of people, places, or phenomena. 

• e.g., a study of developing safer traffic patterns near schools can focus on SUVs, or just student drivers, or just the timing of traffic signals in the area.

Cause  -- focus your topic to just one cause for your topic.

• e.g., rather than writing about all the causes of WW1, just write about nationalism.

When narrowing your topic, make sure you don't narrow it too much. A topic is too narrow if you can state it in just a few words.

For example:

• How many soldiers died during the first world war?
• Who was the first President of the United States?
• Why is ocean water salty?
• Why are Pringles shaped the way they are?
• Developing a Research Topic This exercise is designed to help you develop a thoughtful topic for your research assignment, including methods for narrowing your topic.
• What Makes a Good Research Question?
• Narrowing Your topic
• Four Steps To Narrow Your Research Topic

• << Previous: Topic Selection Tips
• Next: Breaking Topic Into Keywords >>
• Last Updated: Apr 9, 2024 10:45 AM
• URL: https://kingsu.libguides.com/research

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1 Narrowing a Topic

Defining your research question is a process of working from the outside in: you start with the world of all possible topics (or your assigned topic) and narrow down until you have focused your interest enough to be able to state precisely what you want to find out, instead of only what you want to “write about.”

Going through this process can be the hardest part of doing research, but once you have a question that is realistically scoped (not too broad, not too narrow) it will guide the rest of your work.

 The Process of Narrowing a Topic

ACTIVITY: Which Topic is Narrower? 

Now it’s your turn. Practice thinking about narrower topics with these 3 examples. Click the arrow to show the next question.

TIP: Use Some of the 5 W’s to Help Narrow Your Topic to a Searchable Question

Your assignment is to write on the topic of higher education. You decide you want to write about the high cost of tuition, but that is still too broad.

Start by asking some or all of the following questions.

From asking these questions, you might come up with a research question like this:

“How does the high cost of tuition impact the degree completion of mature college students?”

Image: “ Rq-narrow ” by Teaching and Learning, University Libraries is licensed under CC BY-4.0 .

Doing Research Copyright © 2020 by Celia Brinkerhoff is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Narrowing a Topic

For many students, having to start with a research question is the biggest difference between how they did research in high school and how they are required to carry out their college research projects. It’s a process of working from the outside in: you start with the world of all possible topics (or your assigned topic) and narrow down until you’ve focused your interest enough to be able to tell precisely what you want to find out, instead of only what you want to “write about.”

Process of Narrowing a Topic

Visualize narrowing a topic as starting with all possible topics and choosing narrower and narrower subsets until you have a specific enough topic to form a research question.

All Possible Topics – You’ll need to narrow your topic to do research effectively. Without specific areas of focus, it will be hard to even know where to begin.

Assigned Topics –  Ideas about a narrower topic can come from anywhere. Often, a narrower topic boils down to deciding what’s interesting to you. One way to get ideas is to read background information in a source like Wikipedia.

Topic Narrowed by Initial Exploration –  It’s wise to do some background reading about that narrower topic to a) learn more about it and b) learn specialized terms used by professionals and scholars who study it.

Topic Narrowed to Research Question(s) –  A research question defines exactly what you are trying to find out. It will influence most of the steps you take to conduct the research.

Why Narrow a Topic?

Once you have a need for research—say, an assignment—you may need to prowl around a bit online to explore the topic and figure out what you actually want to find out and write about. For instance, maybe your assignment is to develop a poster about “spring” for an introductory horticulture course. The instructor expects you to narrow that topic to something you are interested in and that is related to your class.

Another way to view a narrowed topic is as a sliver of the whole topic.

Ideas about a narrower topic can come from anywhere. In this case, a narrower topic boils down to deciding what’s interesting to you about “spring” that is related to what you’re learning in your horticulture class and small enough to manage in the time you have. One way to get ideas would be to read about spring in Wikipedia, a reference database such as CREDO, or a subject encyclopedia. Look for things that seem interesting and relevant to your class, and then let one thing lead to another as you keep reading and thinking about likely possibilities that are more narrow than the enormous “spring” topic. Be sure to pay attention to the references at the bottom of most Wikipedia pages and pursue any that look interesting. Your instructor is not likely to let you cite Wikipedia, but those references may be scholarly sources that you could eventually decide to use and cite.

Or, instead, if it is spring at the time you could start by just looking around, admire the blooming trees on campus, and decide you’d like your poster to be about bud development on your favorites, the crabapple trees.

Jada Narrows Her Topic and Works on a Research Question

The Situation: Jada, an undergraduate, has been assigned a research paper on Antarctica. Her professor expects students to narrow the topic to something more specific about Antarctica because they won’t have time to cover that whole topic. Then they are to come up with a research question that their paper will answer.

The professor explained that the research question should be something they are interested in answering and that it must be more complicated than what they could answer with a quick Google search. She also said that research questions often start with either the word “how” or “why.”

Try it out:

• Read what Jada is thinking below as she tries to do the assignment.
• After the reading, answer the questions based on your own approach to research.
• Check your answers with ours.
• Keep this passage in mind the next time you start a research topic and mimic the process that Jada uses.

Jada’s Thoughts

Okay, I have to write—a research paper—about Antarctica. I don’t know anything about that place—and I can’t think of a single thing I’d like to know about Antarctica. Calls for Wikipedia, I guess.

Guess I’ll go here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica . Just skimming. Pretty boring stuff. Oh, look– Antarctica’s a desert! I guess “desert” doesn’t have to do with heat. That’s interesting. Why is it considered a desert, there’s lots of snow and ice there. Have to think about that—what makes a desert a desert.

It says one to five thousand people live there in research stations. Year-round. And there is no evidence that it was seen by humans until the 19th century. I never thought about whether anybody lived in Antarctica first, before explorers and scientists.

Lots of names—explorers, others. It says Amundsen reached the South pole first. Who’s Amundsen? But wait. It says, “One month later, the doomed Scott Expedition reached the pole.” Doomed? Doomed is always interesting. Where is there more information about the Scott Expedition? There is only one sentence. Why would they have just that one sentence? I’ll have to click on the Scott Expedition link.

Terra Nova…

But it gives me a page called Terra Nova Expedition. What does that have to do with Scott? Who was he and why was his expedition doomed? There he is in a photo before going to Antarctica. Guess he was English. Other photos show him and his team in the snow. Oh, the expedition was named Terra Nova after the ship they sailed this time—in 1911. Scott was also there earlier on another ship.

Lots of info about preparing for the trip. Then stuff about expedition journeys once they were in Antarctica. Not very exciting—nothing about being doomed.

Wait. The last paragraph of the first section says “For many years after his death, Scott’s status as a tragic hero was unchallenged,” but then it says that in the 20th-century people looked closer at the expedition’s management and at whether Scott and some of his team could be personally blamed for the catastrophe. That “remains controversial,” it says. Catastrophe? Personally, blamed? Hmm.

Back to skimming. It all seems horrible to me. They actually planned to kill their ponies for meat. Everything was extremely difficult. And then when they arrived at the South Pole, they found that the explorer Amundsen had beaten them. Must have been a big disappointment.

The homeward march was even worse. The weather was bad. The dog sleds that were supposed to meet them periodically with supplies didn’t show up. Or maybe the Scott group was lost and didn’t go to the right meeting places. Maybe that’s what that earlier statement meant about whether the decisions that were made were good ones. Scott’s diary said the crystallized snow made it seem like they were pushing and pulling the sleds through dry sand .

It says that before things turned really bad, Scott allowed his men to put 30 pounds of rocks with fossils on the sleds they were pushing and dragging. Now was that sensible? But here it says that those rocks are the proof of continental drift. So how did they know those rocks were so important? Was that knowledge worth their lives? Could they have known?

Scott’s diary is quoted about their troubles on the expedition—the relentless cold, frostbite, and the deaths of their dogs. One entry tells of a guy on Scott’s team “now with hands as well as feet pretty well useless” voluntarily leaving the tent and walking to his death. The diary says that the team member’s last words were ”I am just going outside and may be some time.”

They all seem lost and desperate but still have those sleds. Why would you keep pulling and pushing those sleds containing an extra 30 pounds of rock when you are so desperate and every step is life or death?

Then there’s Scott’s last diary entry, on March 29, 1912. “… It seems a pity but I do not think I can write more.”. The diary apparently gave lots of locations of where he thought they were but maybe they were lost. It says they ended up only 11 miles from one of their supply stations.

I’d love to see that diary. Wouldn’t that be cool? Online? I’ll Google it. Yes! it’s at the British Museum. Look at that! I can see Scott’s last entry IN HIS OWN HANDWRITING! And there’s a digital copy too.

I wonder if I should narrow my topic to just the controversy over whether the expedition was doomed because of the bad decisions made by Scott and his crew?  Maybe it’s too big a topic if I consider the decisions of all team members. Maybe I should just consider Scott’s decisions. They should be noted in the diary.

So what research question could come from that? Maybe: how did Scott’s decisions contribute to his team’s deaths in Antarctica? Need to be more focused: How did Scott’s decisions after reaching the South Pole help or hurt the chances of his team getting back safely? There are several of his decisions discussed on the Wikipedia page, and I know there are sources at the bottom of that page.

Really, a desert?

Let me think—what else did I see that was interesting or puzzling about all this? I remember being surprised that Antarctica is a desert. So maybe I could make the desert of Antarctica my topic. My research question could be something like: Why is Antarctica considered a desert? But there has to be a definition of deserts somewhere online, so that doesn’t sound complicated enough. Maybe those rocks with the fossils in them. It’s just so hard to imagine desperate explorers continuing to push those sleds with an extra 30 pounds of rocks on them. Did they somehow know how important they would be? Why didn’t they ditch them? Or maybe they just didn’t realize how close to death they were. Maybe I could narrow my Antarctica topic to those rocks.

Maybe my topic could be something like The rocks that Scott and his crew found in Antarctica that prove continental drift. Maybe my research question could be: How did Scott’s explorers choose the rocks they kept? Or maybe I should stick with why Scott and his crew made bad decisions.

I should ask.

I think my professor is the only one who can tell me whether my question about the rocks has enough to do with Antarctica. Since she’s the one who will be grading my paper. But a librarian can help me figure out the other things. So Dr. Sanders and a librarian are next.

• Was Jada’s choice to start with Wikipedia a good choice? Why or why not?
• Have you ever skimmed resources first and then read more deeply later?
• At what points does Jada think about where to look for information?
• At the end of this session, Jada hasn’t yet settled on a research question. So what did she accomplish? What good was all this searching and thinking?

Our Answers

• Was Jada’s choice to start with Wikipedia a good choice? Although not usually cited in research papers, Wikipedia is a good place to learn more about all kinds of topics.  Information is usually general in nature and you can check out the references at the bottom of the page. Use those links to find additional resources. This may lead you to library based sources like subject dictionaries, encyclopedias, or guides.
• Have you ever skimmed resources first and then read more deeply later? When first exploring your topic you may choose to skim resources. That is a very brief read looking for interesting and useful information. Later when you select a topic and look for resources that provide deeper, more focused information.
• At what points does Jada think about where to look for information? After receiving the core part of the topic (Antarctica), she begins looking for general information and becomes curious about the Scott expedition. As she learns more she thinks about where she can look for additional information, such as the diary mentioned in Wikipedia..
• At the end of this session, Jada hasn’t yet settled on a research question. So what did she accomplish? What good was all this searching and thinking? The background information that Jada looked at helped her to focus on the problems with the Scott Expedition. She slowly narrows down some of the issues and centers on the weight of the rocks.  She considers two different questions (one more narrow than the other) and intends to seek input from the professor and librarian.  Taking the time to explore her topic has given her ideas useful for a solid research question.

Exercise: Determine the Topic Order

Critical Thinking in Academic Research Copyright © 2022 by Cindy Gruwell and Robin Ewing is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Chapter 1: Research Questions

Narrowing a topic.

For many students, having to start with a research question is the biggest difference between how they did research in high school and how they are required to carry out their college research projects. It’s a process of working from the outside in: you start with the world of all possible topics (or your assigned topic) and narrow down until you’ve focused your interest enough to be able to tell precisely what you want to find out instead of only what you want to “write about.”

Process of Narrowing a Topic

Visualize narrowing a topic as starting with all possible topics and choosing narrower and narrower subsets until you have a specific enough topic to form a research question.

All Possible Topics —You’ll need to narrow your topic in order to do research effectively. Without specific areas of focus, it will be hard to even know where to begin.

Assigned Topics —Ideas about a narrower topic can come from anywhere. Often, a narrower topic boils down to deciding what’s interesting to you. One way to get ideas is to read background information in a source like Wikipedia.

Topic Narrowed by Initial Exploration —It’s wise to do some more reading about that narrower topic to a) learn more about it and b) learn specialized terms used by professionals and scholars who study it.

Topic Narrowed to Research Question(s) —A research question defines exactly what you are trying to find out. It will influence most of the steps you take to conduct the research.

ACTIVITY: Which Topic Is Narrower?

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Why Narrow a Topic?

Once you have a need for research—say, an assignment—you may need to prowl around a bit online to explore the topic and figure out what you actually want to find out and write about.

For instance, maybe your assignment is to develop a poster about “spring” for an introductory horticulture course. The instructor expects you to narrow that topic to something you are interested in and that is related to your class.

Another way to view a narrowed topic is as a sliver of the whole topic.

Ideas about a narrower topic can come from anywhere. In this case, a narrower topic boils down to deciding what’s interesting to you about “spring” that is related to what you’re learning in your horticulture class and small enough to manage in the time you have.

One way to get ideas would be to read about spring in Wikipedia, looking for things that seem interesting and relevant to your class, and then letting one thing lead to another as you keep reading and thinking about likely possibilities that are more narrow than the enormous “spring” topic. (Be sure to pay attention to the references at the bottom of most Wikipedia pages and pursue any that look interesting. Your instructor is not likely to let you cite Wikipedia, but those references may be citable scholarly sources that you could eventually decide to use.)

Or, instead, if it is spring at the time you could start by just looking around, admire the blooming trees on campus, and decide you’d like your poster to be about bud development on your favorites, the crabapple trees.

• Choosing & Using Sources: A Guide to Academic Research. Authored by : Teaching & Learning, Ohio State University Libraries. Provided by : The Ohio State University. Located at : https://osu.pb.unizin.org/choosingsources/ . License : CC BY: Attribution

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Narrow or Broaden

Unpacking your assignment.

Have you been assigned a topic or can you chose your own?

→The "Developing A Topic" video can help you if you are choosing your own topic (see below).

How many pages will your paper be? Or how long will your presentation be?

Are you required to use a certain number of books or journal articles?

Are you required to include specific types of research resources such as scholarly, peer-reviewed, primary, current?

What is the purpose of your assignment? Can you explain it to a friend?

→Note prompts from your professor like "compare and contrast"; "trace the development of"; "construct a well-researched argument"; "support your conclusion" to know what your assignment should do. If you still don't understand, ask!

When is it due?

→Create a time line that breaks up the work into chunks:

·          Do background reading to understand the topic--what are the important issues, people, events, vocabulary? Use your text and subject encyclopedias

·          Put your topic into a question form--your paper is the answer to the question.

·          Gather keywords for searches in the library catalog and appropriate library databases. Ask for help from a librarian if needed.

·          Gather your materials, read, highlight and/or take notes.

·          Write a draft of your paper. Get feedback from a classmate, The Writing & Media Lab, or your professor.

·          Write final version of your paper.

·          Make your bibliography or works cited page. The library has tools to help with this.

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5.3: Narrowing a Topic

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Process of Narrowing a Topic

Visualize narrowing a topic as starting with all possible topics and choosing narrower and narrower subsets until you have a specific enough topic to form a research question.

All Possible Topics – You’ll need to narrow your topic to do research effectively. Without specific areas of focus, it will be hard to even know where to begin.

Assigned Topics – Ideas about a narrower topic can come from anywhere. Often, a narrower topic boils down to deciding what’s interesting to you. One way to get ideas is to read background information in a source like Wikipedia.

Topic Narrowed by Initial Exploration – It’s wise to do some background reading about that narrower topic to a) learn more about it and b) learn specialized terms used by professionals and scholars who study it.

Topic Narrowed to Research Question(s) – A research question defines exactly what you are trying to find out. It will influence most of the steps you take to conduct the research.

Why Narrow a Topic?

Once you have a need for research—say, an assignment—you may need to prowl around a bit online to explore the topic and figure out what you actually want to find out and write about. For instance, maybe your assignment is to develop a poster about “spring” for an introductory horticulture course. The instructor expects you to narrow that topic to something you are interested in and that is related to your class.

Another way to view a narrowed topic is as a sliver of the whole topic.

Ideas about a narrower topic can come from anywhere. In this case, a narrower topic boils down to deciding what’s interesting to you about “spring” that is related to what you’re learning in your horticulture class and small enough to manage in the time you have. One way to get ideas would be to read about spring in Wikipedia, a reference database such as CREDO, or a subject encyclopedia. Look for things that seem interesting and relevant to your class, and then let one thing lead to another as you keep reading and thinking about likely possibilities that are more narrow than the enormous “spring” topic. Be sure to pay attention to the references at the bottom of most Wikipedia pages and pursue any that look interesting. Your instructor is not likely to let you cite Wikipedia, but those references may be scholarly sources that you could eventually decide to use and cite.

Or, instead, if it is spring at the time you could start by just looking around, admire the blooming trees on campus, and decide you’d like your poster to be about bud development on your favorites, the crabapple trees.

Jada Narrows Her Topic and Works on a Research Question

The Situation: Jada, an undergraduate, has been assigned a research paper on Antarctica. Her professor expects students to narrow the topic to something more specific about Antarctica because they won’t have time to cover that whole topic. Then they are to come up with a research question that their paper will answer.

The professor explained that the research question should be something they are interested in answering and that it must be more complicated than what they could answer with a quick Google search. She also said that research questions often start with either the word “how” or “why.”

Try it out:

• Read what Jada is thinking below as she tries to do the assignment.
• After the reading, answer the questions based on your own approach to research.
• Check your answers with ours.
• Keep this passage in mind the next time you start a research topic and mimic the process that Jada uses.

Jada’s Thoughts

Okay, I have to write—a research paper—about Antarctica. I don’t know anything about that place—and I can’t think of a single thing I’d like to know about Antarctica. Calls for Wikipedia, I guess.

Guess I’ll go here https://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica . Just skimming. Pretty boring stuff. Oh, look– Antarctica’s a desert! I guess “desert” doesn’t have to do with heat. That’s interesting. Why is it considered a desert, there’s lots of snow and ice there. Have to think about that—what makes a desert a desert.

It says one to five thousand people live there in research stations. Year-round. And there is no evidence that it was seen by humans until the 19th century. I never thought about whether anybody lived in Antarctica first, before explorers and scientists.

Lots of names—explorers, others. It says Amundsen reached the South pole first. Who’s Amundsen? But wait. It says, “One month later, the doomed Scott Expedition reached the pole.” Doomed? Doomed is always interesting. Where is there more information about the Scott Expedition? There is only one sentence. Why would they have just that one sentence? I’ll have to click on the Scott Expedition link.

Terra Nova…

But it gives me a page called Terra Nova Expedition. What does that have to do with Scott? Who was he and why was his expedition doomed? There he is in a photo before going to Antarctica. Guess he was English. Other photos show him and his team in the snow. Oh, the expedition was named Terra Nova after the ship they sailed this time—in 1911. Scott was also there earlier on another ship.

Lots of info about preparing for the trip. Then stuff about expedition journeys once they were in Antarctica. Not very exciting—nothing about being doomed.

Wait. The last paragraph of the first section says “For many years after his death, Scott’s status as a tragic hero was unchallenged,” but then it says that in the 20th-century people looked closer at the expedition’s management and at whether Scott and some of his team could be personally blamed for the catastrophe. That “remains controversial,” it says. Catastrophe? Personally, blamed? Hmm.

Back to skimming. It all seems horrible to me. They actually planned to kill their ponies for meat. Everything was extremely difficult. And then when they arrived at the South Pole, they found that the explorer Amundsen had beaten them. Must have been a big disappointment.

The homeward march was even worse. The weather was bad. The dog sleds that were supposed to meet them periodically with supplies didn’t show up. Or maybe the Scott group was lost and didn’t go to the right meeting places. Maybe that’s what that earlier statement meant about whether the decisions that were made were good ones. Scott’s diary said the crystallized snow made it seem like they were pushing and pulling the sleds through dry sand .

It says that before things turned really bad, Scott allowed his men to put 30 pounds of rocks with fossils on the sleds they were pushing and dragging. Now was that sensible? But here it says that those rocks are the proof of continental drift. So how did they know those rocks were so important? Was that knowledge worth their lives? Could they have known?

Scott’s diary is quoted about their troubles on the expedition—the relentless cold, frostbite, and the deaths of their dogs. One entry tells of a guy on Scott’s team “now with hands as well as feet pretty well useless” voluntarily leaving the tent and walking to his death. The diary says that the team member’s last words were ”I am just going outside and may be some time.”

They all seem lost and desperate but still have those sleds. Why would you keep pulling and pushing those sleds containing an extra 30 pounds of rock when you are so desperate and every step is life or death?

A diary…

Then there’s Scott’s last diary entry, on March 29, 1912. “… It seems a pity but I do not think I can write more.”. The diary apparently gave lots of locations of where he thought they were but maybe they were lost. It says they ended up only 11 miles from one of their supply stations.

I’d love to see that diary. Wouldn’t that be cool? Online? I’ll Google it. Yes! it’s at the British Museum. Look at that! I can see Scott’s last entry IN HIS OWN HANDWRITING! And there’s a digital copy too.

I wonder if I should narrow my topic to just the controversy over whether the expedition was doomed because of the bad decisions made by Scott and his crew? Maybe it’s too big a topic if I consider the decisions of all team members. Maybe I should just consider Scott’s decisions. They should be noted in the diary.

So what research question could come from that? Maybe: how did Scott’s decisions contribute to his team’s deaths in Antarctica? Need to be more focused: How did Scott’s decisions after reaching the South Pole help or hurt the chances of his team getting back safely? There are several of his decisions discussed on the Wikipedia page, and I know there are sources at the bottom of that page.

Really, a desert?

Let me think—what else did I see that was interesting or puzzling about all this? I remember being surprised that Antarctica is a desert. So maybe I could make the desert of Antarctica my topic. My research question could be something like: Why is Antarctica considered a desert? But there has to be a definition of deserts somewhere online, so that doesn’t sound complicated enough. Maybe those rocks with the fossils in them. It’s just so hard to imagine desperate explorers continuing to push those sleds with an extra 30 pounds of rocks on them. Did they somehow know how important they would be? Why didn’t they ditch them? Or maybe they just didn’t realize how close to death they were. Maybe I could narrow my Antarctica topic to those rocks.

Maybe my topic could be something like The rocks that Scott and his crew found in Antarctica that prove continental drift. Maybe my research question could be: How did Scott’s explorers choose the rocks they kept? Or maybe I should stick with why Scott and his crew made bad decisions.

I should ask.

I think my professor is the only one who can tell me whether my question about the rocks has enough to do with Antarctica. Since she’s the one who will be grading my paper. But a librarian can help me figure out the other things. So Dr. Sanders and a librarian are next.

• Was Jada’s choice to start with Wikipedia a good choice? Why or why not?
• Have you ever skimmed resources first and then read more deeply later?
• At what points does Jada think about where to look for information?
• At the end of this session, Jada hasn’t yet settled on a research question. So what did she accomplish? What good was all this searching and thinking?

Our Answers

• Was Jada’s choice to start with Wikipedia a good choice? Although not usually cited in research papers, Wikipedia is a good place to learn more about all kinds of topics. Information is usually general in nature and you can check out the references at the bottom of the page. Use those links to find additional resources. This may lead you to library based sources like subject dictionaries, encyclopedias, or guides.
• Have you ever skimmed resources first and then read more deeply later? When first exploring your topic you may choose to skim resources. That is a very brief read looking for interesting and useful information. Later when you select a topic and look for resources that provide deeper, more focused information.
• At what points does Jada think about where to look for information? After receiving the core part of the topic (Antarctica), she begins looking for general information and becomes curious about the Scott expedition. As she learns more she thinks about where she can look for additional information, such as the diary mentioned in Wikipedia..
• At the end of this session, Jada hasn’t yet settled on a research question. So what did she accomplish? What good was all this searching and thinking? The background information that Jada looked at helped her to focus on the problems with the Scott Expedition. She slowly narrows down some of the issues and centers on the weight of the rocks. She considers two different questions (one more narrow than the other) and intends to seek input from the professor and librarian. Taking the time to explore her topic has given her ideas useful for a solid research question.

Exercise: Determine the Topic Order

An interactive H5P element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://minnstate.pressbooks.pub/ctar/?p=59#h5p-7

Selecting a Research Topic

Why should i narrow my research topic, considerations, topic selection process.

• Topic Selection Strategies
• EBSCO's Research Starters
• Defining Scope

If you have a need to conduct research for a course at any level, you should understand the significance of narrowing down your research topic.  Reasons for narrowing down a research topic are:

• The field you are studying is much too broad, so you cannot formulate a research question or hypothesis from it.
• You are not quite sure what you want to cover in your research project/paper.
• You feel overwhelmed by the research topic you have already selected.
• Your assignment requires you to research a topic that has not yet been covered (research gap).

Before you begin your search for a research topic, there are some things to consider that could impact the topic you choose:

• In what field of study is your assignment?  In what course is your project?
• Does your assignment require you to research a specific topic within a particular discipline?
• How narrow or broad does your topic need to be?
• Who will be reading your paper?
• Will you be presenting your project to an audience?
• What type of paper are you writing?  This may determine the scope of your topic.

The process of narrowing down a research topic can be illustrated by the image below ("Choosing & Using Sources," 2016).  It illustrates the process of thinking about all potential research topics, then narrowing it down to a specific research question.  This diagram can assist you in determining your topic because it illustrates how all possible topics and subjects transform into your final research topic.  It is also recommended that you refer to your assignment instructions for guidance on topic selection.

All possible topics:  Represents all potential topics in your field of discipline.  This is often overwhelming, so it is typical to rule out irrelevant topics to create a "smaller" pool of topics.

Assigned topic:  This is a combination of determining topics that are interesting to you and that fulfill your assignment requirements.  You might have more than one topic, so you may need to narrow them down further.

Topic narrowed by initial exploration:  This results from conducting preliminary research on your assigned topic(s).  During this process, you will learn more about the topics you are considering.  From there, you can determine if the topic is still of interest.

Topic narrowed to research question(s):  From the information you have learned in your preliminary research, you formulate a research question that identifies what your paper/project will attempt to discover.

The video below from Wilsey Library demonstrates how to narrow down a general research topic.

• << Previous: Welcome
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• Last Updated: May 22, 2023 10:46 AM
• URL: https://library.tiffin.edu/selectingaresearchtopic

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Develop Research Topics

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Is your topic too big?

Oftentimes, students choose topics that are too broad because they believe they have plenty of space to cover everything in a 5-10 page paper (or however long your paper is). However, in order to make a thorough, in-depth argument, you often need to choose a topic that is narrower than you think. Here are some examples:

• Instead of  How are women represented in movies?  Try  How is female sexuality represented in horror movies?
• Instead of  Is technology negatively affecting high school students?  Try  Is the ubiquity of smartphones making it difficult for high school students to concentrate in the classroom?
• Instead of Have political campaigns become more negative?  Try  How has the 24 hour news cycle contributed to negative rhetoric in recent presidential campaigns?

The following video explains how you can narrow the focus of your topic by asking: who, what, when, where, why, which, and how?

Is your topic too small?

Sometimes when a student is very passionate about a topic, they want to research a specific aspect of that topic. But be aware: a too-narrow topic might make it difficult to find the necessary resources to fully flesh out your argument. If you feel that your topic is too specific, consider pulling back and looking at the bigger picture.

• Instead of  How does the television show  Rick and Morty  explore dysfunctional father-son relationships?  Try  How are father-son relationships represented in animated television shows from the past two decades?
• Instead of  Is Snapchat contributing to low self-esteem among 13-15 year old girls?  Try  How do visually-charged social media platforms affect the self-esteem of teenage girls?
• Instead of  Why does Skee-Ball continue to be a popular game in arcades?  Try What is the relationship between nostalgia and arcade culture? 

The following video explains how you can modify or broaden your topic by examining alternate timelines, locations, or finding related topics:

• << Previous: Exploring Topic Ideas
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• Last Updated: Feb 8, 2024 2:42 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.vcu.edu/develop-research-topics

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Finding and Exploring Your Topic

• Narrowing/Broadening Your Topic
• General Brainstorming
• Subject-Specific Brainstorming
• Understanding Your Topic

Brainstorming

A bubble chart like the one below can help you brainstorm different ways that your topic can be narrowed or broadened.

Narrowing Your Topic

Sometimes a topic that seems like the right size for your paper can seem way too big after you’ve learned a little more about it.   When this happens, you need to narrow the focus of your paper.   You can do this by considering different ways to restrict your paper topic.

Some of the ways you can limit your paper topic are by:

• Who – population or group (e.g., college students; women; Asian Americans)
• What – discipline or focus (e.g., sociological or historical perspective)
• Where – geographic location (e.g., United States; universities; small towns)
• When – time period or era (19 th century; Renaissance; Vietnam War)
• Why – why is the topic important? (to the class, to the field, or to you)

For example, a paper about alcohol use would be very broad.   But a paper about reasons for alcohol abuse by female college students in the United States during the 1990s might be just right.

Goldilocker: An Online Tool For Narrowing Your Topic

The University of Michigan Library Learning and Teaching Team has created an online tool to help you narrow your topic.  The Goldilocker tool can be used as a stand alone/personal exercise to articulate your topic in a much more narrow fashion.  It can also be used in conjunction with University of Michigan courses and classes outside of the university.  

Broadening Your Topic

Sometimes you will find that your topic is too narrow - there is not enough published on your topic.  When this happens, you can try to broaden your topic.  There are a couple of strategies you can try when broadening your topic.

One strategy is to choose less specific terms for your search, e.g., standardized tests instead of SATs, or performance-enhancing drugs instead of anabolic steroids.

Another strategy is to broaden your topic by changing or removing limits or filters from your topic:

• Who - population or group (e.g., instead of college students, choose a broader section of the population)
• What  - discipline or focus (e.g., instead of choosing a sociological perspective, look at a number of perspectives)
• Where  - geographic location (e.g., instead of Michigan, choose United States)
• When  - time period or era (e.g., instead of 1984, choose 1980s or 20th century)

For example, a paper about alcohol use by college students at the University of Michigan in 1984 might be too narrow of a focus.  But a paper about alcohol use by college students in the 1980s might be just right.

How to Narrow the Research Topic for Your Paper

• Writing Research Papers
• Writing Essays
• English Grammar
• M.Ed., Education Administration, University of Georgia
• B.A., History, Armstrong State University

It is typical for students to set off on a research topic only to find out that the one they've chosen is too broad. If you are lucky, you will find out before you conduct too much research, because much of the early research you carry out might be useless once you finally narrow your topic.

It is a good idea to run your initial research idea by a teacher or librarian to get an expert opinion. He or she will save you some time and give you some tips on narrowing the scope of your topic.

What Is Too Broad?

Students get tired of hearing that their chosen topic is too broad, but it is a very common problem. How do you know if your topic is too broad?

• If you find yourself in the library staring at a entire section of books that could work as references for your topic, it is too broad! A good topic addresses a specific question or problem. You should see only four or five books on the shelf that address your specific research question (maybe fewer!).
• If your topic can be summed up in a word or two, like smoking, school cheating , education, overweight teens, corporal punishment , Korean War, or hip-hop, it is too broad.
• If you have trouble coming up with a thesis statement, your topic is probably too broad.​

A good research project must be narrowed down in order to be meaningful and manageable.

How to Narrow Your Topic

The best way to narrow your topic is to apply a few of the old familiar question words, like who, what, where, when, why, and how.

• Paddling as punishment:
• Where? : "Paddling in grade school"
• What and where? : "Emotional effects of paddling in grade school"
• What and who? : "Emotional effects of paddling on female children"
• Hip-hop dancing:
• What? : "Hip-hop as therapy"
• What and where? : "Hip-hop as therapy in Japan"
• What, where, and who? : "Hip-hop as therapy for delinquent youth in Japan"

Eventually, you will see that the process of narrowing your research topic actually makes your project more interesting. Already, you're one step closer to a better grade!

Another Tactic

Another good method for narrowing your focus involves brainstorming a list of terms and questions related to your broad topic. To demonstrate, let's start with a broad subject, like unhealthy behavior as an example.

Imagine that your instructor has given this subject as a writing prompt. You can make a list of somewhat-related, random nouns and see if you can ask questions to relate the two topics. This results in a narrow subject! Here is a demonstration:

This might look random, but your next step is to come up with a question that connects the two subjects. The answer to that question is the starting point for a thesis statement , and a brainstorming session like this can lead to great research ideas.

• Art and unhealthy behavior:
• Is there a specific piece of art that represents the hazards of smoking?
• Is there a famous artist who died from an unhealthy habit?
• Sandwiches and unhealthy behavior:
• What happens if you eat sandwiches every day for dinner?
• Are ice cream sandwiches really bad for us?
• What Is a Research Paper?
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• How to Develop a Research Paper Timeline
• Composition Type: Problem-Solution Essays
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• Tips for Writing an Art History Paper

Narrowing your research topic

Contributors: Derrian Goebel

Narrowing a research topic is moving from a general topic, like global warming, to a tighter research focus, such as helping the environment by improving travel modes (example below). However, you can’t just forget about the big picture—how your argument/claim fits into the bigger discussion including connections to other viewpoints on your topic.

To ensure a connection with other viewpoints and the bigger picture, ask yourself some questions when revising your paper:

• Are you showing readers how your narrowed topic effects, or relates to, the bigger picture?
• When going through each topic point, do you acknowledge opposing viewpoints?
• When you are ready to relate your narrowed topic to the bigger picture, do you mention other topics included in the larger discussion?

Example: Solving Global Warming—Do Something

• Plant trees
• Best travel

Bigger picture

“Solving Global Warming—Do Something” is the larger discussion about climate change and the environment. “Use less,” “plant trees” and “be a catalyst” are some branches stemming from the larger discussion. The “best travel” topic is only one part of the global warming bigger picture. Articulate the multiple standpoints within the bigger picture :

• So, for example in the previous picture, you will need to be able to locate your narrowed topic (best travel) in relation to the other parts of the main issue.
• Show your readers how your focused subject is connected to these other conversations.

Narrowed research topic

How people can buy hybrid/electric cars, car pool with co-workers, walk, bike or use public transportation (above). Opposing viewpoints are ones that argue within your focused area.

Explore the multiple arguments, perspectives and alternative positions within your narrowed research topic:

• Take the time and give fair consideration to these other perspectives, which will benefit your argument by offering readers a fair report.

For example, not everyone will live close enough to their work to walk or ride a bike. These, too, are parts of the argument—they are the alternative point(s) of view.

• If you can argue, then do so: “People may not be able to walk or ride a bike, but what about the bus?” Otherwise, it is best to simply acknowledge and move on: “…which is a good point.” This is an example of fair reporting.

So overall, when your teacher asks you to focus your research, don’t forget that connection to the bigger discussion in which you were initially interested. Also, don’t forget other opinions for a fair and balanced essay.

How To Choose A Research Topic

Step-By-Step Tutorial With Examples + Free Topic Evaluator

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Expert Reviewer: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | April 2024

Choosing the right research topic is likely the  most important decision you’ll make on your dissertation or thesis journey. To make the right choice, you need to take a systematic approach and evaluate each of your candidate ideas across a consistent set of criteria. In this tutorial, we’ll unpack five essential criteria that will help you evaluate your prospective research ideas and choose a winner.

Overview: The “Big 5” Key Criteria

• Topic originality or novelty
• Value and significance
• Access to data and equipment
• Time limitations and implications
• Ethical requirements and constraints

Criterion #1: Originality & Novelty

As we’ve discussed extensively on this blog, originality in a research topic is essential. In other words, you need a clear research gap . The uniqueness of your topic determines its contribution to the field and its potential to stand out in the academic community. So, for each of your prospective topics, ask yourself the following questions:

• What research gap and research problem am I filling?
• Does my topic offer new insights?
• Am I combining existing ideas in a unique way?
• Am I taking a unique methodological approach?

To objectively evaluate the originality of each of your topic candidates, rate them on these aspects. This process will not only help in choosing a topic that stands out, but also one that can capture the interest of your audience and possibly contribute significantly to the field of study – which brings us to our next criterion.

Criterion #2: Value & Significance

Next, you’ll need to assess the value and significance of each prospective topic. To do this, you’ll need to ask some hard questions.

• Why is it important to explore these research questions?
• Who stands to benefit from this study?
• How will they benefit, specifically?

By clearly understanding and outlining the significance of each potential topic, you’ll not only be justifying your final choice – you’ll essentially be laying the groundwork for a persuasive research proposal , which is equally important.

Criterion #3: Access to Data & Equipment

Naturally, access to relevant data and equipment is crucial for the success of your research project. So, for each of your prospective topic ideas, you’ll need to evaluate whether you have the necessary resources to collect data and conduct your study.

Here are some questions to ask for each potential topic:

• Will I be able to access the sample of interest (e.g., people, animals, etc.)?
• Do I have (or can I get) access to the required equipment, at the time that I need it?
• Are there costs associated with any of this? If so, what are they?

Keep in mind that getting access to certain types of data may also require special permissions and legalities, especially if your topic involves vulnerable groups (patients, youths, etc.). You may also need to adhere to specific data protection laws, depending on the country. So, be sure to evaluate these aspects thoroughly for each topic. Overlooking any of these can lead to significant complications down the line.

Criterion #4: Time Requirements & Implications

Naturally, having a realistic timeline for each potential research idea is crucial. So, consider the scope of each potential topic and estimate how long each phase of the research will take — from literature review to data collection and analysis, to writing and revisions. Underestimating the time needed for a research project is extremely common , so it’s important to include buffer time for unforeseen delays.

Remember, efficient time management is not just about the duration but also about the timing . For example, if your research involves fieldwork, there may specific times of the year when this is most doable (or not doable at all).  So, be sure to consider both time and timing for each of your prospective topics.

Criterion #5: Ethical Compliance

Failing to adhere to your university’s research ethics policy is a surefire way to get your proposal rejected . So, you’ll need to evaluate each topic for potential ethical issues, especially if your research involves human subjects, sensitive data, or has any potential environmental impact.

Remember that ethical compliance is not just a formality – it’s a responsibility to ensure the integrity and social responsibility of your research. Topics that pose significant ethical challenges are typically the first to be rejected, so you need to take this seriously. It’s also useful to keep in mind that some topics are more “ethically sensitive” than others , which usually means that they’ll require multiple levels of approval. Ideally, you want to avoid this additional admin, so mark down any prospective topics that fall into an ethical “grey zone”.

If you’re unsure about the details of your university’s ethics policy, ask for a copy or speak directly to your course coordinator. Don’t make any assumptions when it comes to research ethics!

Key Takeaways

In this post, we’ve explored how to choose a research topic using a systematic approach. To recap, the “Big 5” assessment criteria include:

• Topic originality and novelty
• Time requirements
• Ethical compliance

Be sure to grab a copy of our free research topic evaluator sheet here to fast-track your topic selection process. If you need hands-on help finding and refining a high-quality research topic for your dissertation or thesis, you can also check out our private coaching service .

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Research Process

• Brainstorming
• Explore Google This link opens in a new window
• Explore Web Resources
• Explore Background Information
• Explore Books
• Explore Scholarly Articles

Narrowing a Topic

• Primary and Secondary Resources
• Academic, Popular & Trade Publications
• Scholarly and Peer-Reviewed Journals
• Grey Literature
• Clinical Trials
• Evidence Based Treatment
• Scholarly Research
• Database Research Log
• Search Limits
• Keyword Searching
• Boolean Operators
• Phrase Searching
• Truncation & Wildcard Symbols
• Proximity Searching
• Field Codes
• Subject Terms and Database Thesauri
• Reading a Scientific Article
• Website Evaluation
• Article Keywords and Subject Terms
• Cited References
• Citing Articles
• Related Results
• Search Within Publication
• Database Alerts & RSS Feeds
• Personal Database Accounts
• Persistent URLs
• Literature Gap and Future Research
• Web of Knowledge
• Annual Reviews
• Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
• Finding Seminal Works
• Exhausting the Literature
• Finding Dissertations
• Researching Theoretical Frameworks
• Research Methodology & Design
• Tests and Measurements
• Organizing Research & Citations This link opens in a new window
• Scholarly Publication
• Learn the Library This link opens in a new window

The Library cannot provide guidance on choosing, narrowing down, or developing their research topic. Please contact your Professors and Dissertation Chair, or consult the Dissertation Center for assistance. We have also provided recommended resources below.

However, the Library can assist you with searching for scholarly literature on potential topic ideas. You may contact us via phone, chat, Ask a Librarian, or schedule a one-on-one research consultation appointment. During a research consultation, reference librarians can help you with the following:

• Developing your research strategy
• Identifying relevant databases and journals
• Finding and evaluating information resources
• Discovering alternative search terms for your topic
• Using advanced search techniques for specific databases
• Narrowing your search results

For more information about the Research Consultation service and to book a session, please refer to the  Research Consultations LibGuide . When filling out the form, please be as thorough as possible to allow us to fully prepare for our session. All sessions are held through Zoom.

Academic Success Center Resources

Use the Academic Success Center website to learn about coaching and access writing , statistics , editing , and APA Style resources. They also provide a step-by-step guide to narrowing a research topic.

For questions about academic coaching services, please contact the Academic Success Center via their Ask a Coach page. On this page, you can search their FAQs, ask a question, or chat live with a coach via ASC Chat.

• ASC - Narrowing Your Topic
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The Center for Teaching and Learning and our Guest Presenter, Dr. Brian Allen, School of Business, help students with narrowing down their research topic, especially dissertation students.

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Choosing Your Topic: Example Topics

What is a manageable topic.

A manageable topic is a topic that isn't too broad or too narrow.  A topic that is too narrow will find very few, if any, results.

Broad topics:

A topic that is too broad focuses on one important concept. This kind of search will will find thousands of results for you to look through. These are examples of broad topics:

health care

Narrow topics

A topic that is too narrow usually has many concepts, or focuses on a specific geographic area or group. This type of search will find few, if any, results. These are examples of narrow topics:

• keywords: burnout, neonatal nurses, 30-40, Chicago
• keywords: academic achievement, 3rd graders, Florida, private schools
• keywords: drought, bird migration, Mississippi River, Wabasha County, Minnesota

Manageable topic

A manageable topic generally focuses on two to three important concepts. This allows a search to bring back enough information without having to look through thousands of items.These are examples of  manageable topics:

• keywords: leadership, employee retention
• keywords: socioeconomic status, academic achievement, elementary schools

What makes these topics problematic in terms of research?

This is very broad. What about obesity? Causes? Effects? Relationship to other issues? Add concepts to build a topic that is a better research choice.

Does mentoring improve the academic achievement of African American males in high school?

This is a fairly specific topic that includes concepts that are often researched. The topic may be fine for your paper, but you may need to remove some of the concepts when you search for articles. For example, many researchers will not limit their study to one gender, but they may include a gender breakdown in their results.

Does maternal attachment affect the ability of future accountants to comply with Sarbanes Oxley?

This exact topic is probably not of interest to researchers. While there are some researchers looking at maternal attachment and others who research Sarbanes Oxley, it's extremely unlikely that research has tied the two together.

What factors influence the growth of farmers' markets in Miami?

The addition of a location to this topic may result in very few results. Depending on the type of research you are doing (discussion, paper, dissertation), you may want to remove the geographic limit. Both the scope and the purpose of your research project will affect whether this topic needs to be refined.

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Answered By: Allison Ball Last Updated: Apr 25, 2024     Views: 89103

Once you have chosen a research topic, you will need to narrow it down into a research statement or question. The sooner you do this in your research process, the more time you'll save because you can conduct more focused searches.

Below are some common ways you can narrow down a research topic, or get started by using our Brainstorming Topics & Search Terms tutorial . 

By demographic characteristics 

Narrow it down by age group, occupation, ethnic group, gender, etc.  

e.g. challenges faced by international college graduates entering the workforce

By relevant issues

Try to identify key issues related to your topic, especially ones that you have an opinion on. You can turn your opinion into your thesis statement or research question.

e.g. challenges faced by college graduates who are unable to find work related to their degrees

By location 

Focus on a specific country, province, city, or type of environment (rural vs. urban). 

e.g. challenges faced by college graduates entering the workforce in rural Ontario

By timeframe 

Decide whether you want to study recent events or a historical time period. This will also help you decide how current the information you use must be.

e.g. challenges faced by college graduates entering the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic

You can take the perspective of looking for causes of an issue you are researching.

e.g. Do employers hire fewer recent college graduates?

For more ideas, see Narrowing the Scope on our Brainstorming Guide.

When developing a research question, think about: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. Also consider what information you need in order to prove your thesis and try some test searches on the library website to ensure you can find enough relevant research to back up your ideas before you settle on your final topic.

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9.1 Selecting and Narrowing a Topic

Learning objectives.

• Employ audience analysis.
• Determine the general purpose of a speech.
• List strategies for narrowing a speech topic.
• Compose an audience-centered, specific purpose statement for a speech.
• Compose a thesis statement that summarizes the central idea of a speech.

There are many steps that go into the speech-making process. Many people do not approach speech preparation in an informed and systematic way, which results in many poorly planned or executed speeches that are not pleasant to sit through as an audience member and don’t reflect well on the speaker. Good speaking skills can help you stand out from the crowd in increasingly competitive environments. While a polished delivery is important and will be discussed more in Chapter 10 “Delivering a Speech” , good speaking skills must be practiced much earlier in the speech-making process.

Analyze Your Audience

Audience analysis is key for a speaker to achieve his or her speech goal. One of the first questions you should ask yourself is “Who is my audience?” While there are some generalizations you can make about an audience, a competent speaker always assumes there is a diversity of opinion and background among his or her listeners. You can’t assume from looking that everyone in your audience is the same age, race, sexual orientation, religion, or many other factors. Even if you did have a fairly homogenous audience, with only one or two people who don’t match up, you should still consider those one or two people. When I have a class with one or two older students, I still consider the different age demographics even though twenty other students are eighteen to twenty-two years old. In short, a good speaker shouldn’t intentionally alienate even one audience member. Of course, a speaker could still unintentionally alienate certain audience members, especially in persuasive speaking situations. While this may be unavoidable, speakers can still think critically about what content they include in the speech and the effects it may have.

Good speakers should always assume a diversity of backgrounds and opinions among their audience members.

TEDx UniversityofTulsa – Audience – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Even though you should remain conscious of the differences among audience members, you can also focus on commonalities. When delivering a speech in a college classroom, you can rightfully assume that everyone in your audience is currently living in the general area of the school, is enrolled at the school, and is currently taking the same speech class. In professional speeches, you can often assume that everyone is part of the same professional organization if you present at a conference, employed at the same place or in the same field if you are giving a sales presentation, or experiencing the nervousness of starting a new job if you are leading an orientation or training. You may not be able to assume much more, but that’s enough to add some tailored points to your speech that will make the content more relevant.

Demographic Audience Analysis

Demographics are broad sociocultural categories, such as age, gender, race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, education level, religion, ethnicity, and nationality that are used to segment a larger population. Since you are always going to have diverse demographics among your audience members, it would be unwise to focus solely on one group over another. As a speaker, being aware of diverse demographics is useful in that you can tailor and vary examples to appeal to different groups of people. As you can read in the “Getting Real” feature in this chapter, engaging in audience segmentation based on demographics is much more targeted in some careers.

Psychological Audience Analysis

Psychological audience analysis considers your audience’s psychological dispositions toward the topic, speaker, and occasion and how their attitudes, beliefs, and values inform those dispositions. When considering your audience’s disposition toward your topic, you want to assess your audience’s knowledge of the subject. You wouldn’t include a lesson on calculus in an introductory math course. You also wouldn’t go into the intricacies of a heart transplant to an audience with no medical training. A speech on how to give a speech would be redundant in a public speaking class, but it could be useful for high school students or older adults who are going through a career transition. Students in my class recently had to theme their informative speeches around the topic of renewable energy. They were able to tie their various topics to a new renewable energy production plant that opened that semester on our campus. They had to be careful not to overrun their speech with scientific jargon. One student compared the concept of biogasification to the natural gas production that comes from living creatures like humans and cows. This comparison got a laugh from the audience and also made the seemingly complex concept more understandable.

The audience may or may not have preconceptions about you as a speaker. One way to positively engage your audience is to make sure you establish your credibility. In terms of credibility , you want the audience to see you as competent, trustworthy, and engaging. If the audience is already familiar with you, they may already see you as a credible speaker because they’ve seen you speak before, have heard other people evaluate you positively, or know that you have credentials and/or experience that make you competent. If you know you have a reputation that isn’t as positive, you will want to work hard to overcome those perceptions. To establish your trustworthiness, you want to incorporate good supporting material into your speech, verbally cite sources, and present information and arguments in a balanced, noncoercive, and nonmanipulative way. To establish yourself as engaging, you want to have a well-delivered speech, which requires you to practice, get feedback, and practice some more. Your verbal and nonverbal delivery should be fluent and appropriate to the audience and occasion. We will discuss speech delivery more in Chapter 10 “Delivering a Speech” .

The circumstances that led your audience to attend your speech will affect their view of the occasion. A captive audience includes people who are required to attend your presentation. Mandatory meetings are common in workplace settings. Whether you are presenting for a group of your employees, coworkers, classmates, or even residents in your dorm if you are a resident advisor, you shouldn’t let the fact that the meeting is required give you license to give a half-hearted speech. In fact, you may want to build common ground with your audience to overcome any potential resentment for the required gathering. In your speech class, your classmates are captive audience members.

When you speak in a classroom or at a business meeting, you may have a captive audience.

Presbyterian Women – Business Meeting – CC BY-NC 2.0.

View having a captive classroom audience as a challenge, and use this space as a public speaking testing laboratory. You can try new things and push your boundaries more, because this audience is very forgiving and understanding since they have to go through the same things you do. In general, you may have to work harder to maintain the attention of a captive audience. Since coworkers may expect to hear the same content they hear every time this particular meeting comes around, and classmates have to sit through dozens and dozens of speeches, use your speech as an opportunity to stand out from the crowd or from what’s been done before.

A voluntary audience includes people who have decided to come hear your speech. This is perhaps one of the best compliments a speaker can receive, even before they’ve delivered the speech. Speaking for a voluntary audience often makes me have more speaking anxiety than I do when speaking in front of my class or my colleagues, because I know the audience may have preconceived notions or expectations that I must live up to. This is something to be aware of if you are used to speaking in front of captive audiences. To help adapt to a voluntary audience, ask yourself what the audience members expect. Why are they here? If they’ve decided to come and see you, they must be interested in your topic or you as a speaker. Perhaps you have a reputation for being humorous, being able to translate complicated information into more digestible parts, or being interactive with the audience and responding to questions. Whatever the reason or reasons, it’s important to make sure you deliver on those aspects. If people are voluntarily giving up their time to hear you, you want to make sure they get what they expected.

A final aspect of psychological audience analysis involves considering the audience’s attitudes, beliefs, and values, as they will influence all the perceptions mentioned previously. As you can see in Figure 9.1 “Psychological Analysis: Attitudes, Beliefs, and Values” , we can think of our attitudes, beliefs, and values as layers that make up our perception and knowledge.

Figure 9.1 Psychological Analysis: Attitudes, Beliefs, and Values

At the outermost level, attitudes are our likes and dislikes, and they are easier to influence than beliefs or values because they are often reactionary. If you’ve ever followed the approval rating of a politician, you know that people’s likes and dislikes change frequently and can change dramatically based on recent developments. This is also true interpersonally. For those of you who have siblings, think about how you can go from liking your sisters or brothers, maybe because they did something nice for you, to disliking them because they upset you. This seesaw of attitudes can go up and down over the course of a day or even a few minutes, but it can still be useful for a speaker to consider. If there is something going on in popular culture or current events that has captured people’s attention and favor or disfavor, then you can tap into that as a speaker to better relate to your audience.

When considering beliefs, we are dealing with what we believe “is or isn’t” or “true or false.” We come to hold our beliefs based on what we are taught, experience for ourselves, or have faith in. Our beliefs change if we encounter new information or experiences that counter previous ones. As people age and experience more, their beliefs are likely to change, which is natural.

Our values deal with what we view as right or wrong, good or bad. Our values do change over time but usually as a result of a life transition or life-changing event such as a birth, death, or trauma. For example, when many people leave their parents’ control for the first time and move away from home, they have a shift in values that occurs as they make this important and challenging life transition. In summary, audiences enter a speaking situation with various psychological dispositions, and considering what those may be can help speakers adapt their messages and better meet their speech goals.

Situational Audience Analysis

Situational audience analysis considers the physical surroundings and setting of a speech. It’s always a good idea to visit the place you will be speaking ahead of time so you will know what to expect. If you expect to have a lectern and arrive to find only a table at the front of the room, that little difference could end up increasing your anxiety and diminishing your speaking effectiveness. I have traveled to many different universities, conference facilities, and organizations to speak, and I always ask my host to show me the room I will be speaking in. I take note of the seating arrangement, the presence of technology and its compatibility with what I plan on using, the layout of the room including windows and doors, and anything else that’s relevant to my speech. Knowing your physical setting ahead of time allows you to alter the physical setting, when possible, or alter your message or speaking strategies if needed. Sometimes I open or close blinds, move seats around, plug my computer in to make sure it works, or even practice some or all of my presentation. I have also revised a speech to be more interactive and informal when I realized I would speak in a lounge rather than a classroom or lecture hall.

“Getting Real”

Marketing Careers and Audience Segmentation

Advertisers and marketers use sophisticated people and programs to ensure that their message is targeted to particular audiences. These people are often called marketing specialists (Career Cruising, 2012). They research products and trends in markets and consumer behaviors and may work for advertising agencies, marketing firms, consulting firms, or other types of agencies or businesses. The pay range is varied, from $35,000 to $166,000 a year for most, and good communication, creativity, and analytic thinking skills are a must. If you stop to think about it, we are all targeted based on our demographics, psychographics, and life situations. Whereas advertisers used to engage in more mass marketing, to undifferentiated receivers, the categories are now much more refined and the target audiences more defined. We only need to look at the recent increase in marketing toward “tweens” or the eight-to-twelve age group. Although this group was once lumped in with younger kids or older teens, they are now targeted because they have “more of their own money to spend and more influence over familial decisions than ever before” (Siegel et al., 2004).

Whether it’s Red Bull aggressively marketing to the college-aged group or gyms marketing to single, working, young adults, much thought and effort goes into crafting a message with a particular receiver in mind. Some companies even create an “ideal customer,” going as far as to name the person, create a psychological and behavioral profile for them, and talk about them as if they were real during message development (Solomon, 2006).

Facebook has also revolutionized targeted marketing, which has led to some controversy and backlash (Greenwell, 2012). The “Like” button on Facebook that was introduced in 2010 is now popping up on news sites, company pages, and other websites. When you click the “Like” button, you are providing important information about your consumer behaviors that can then be fed into complicated algorithms that also incorporate demographic and psychographic data pulled from your Facebook profile and even information from your friends. All this is in an effort to more directly market to you, which became easier in January of 2012 when Facebook started allowing targeted advertisements to go directly into users’ “newsfeeds.”

Markets are obviously segmented based on demographics like gender and age, but here are some other categories and examples of market segments: geography (region, city size, climate), lifestyle (couch potato, economical/frugal, outdoorsy, status seeker), family life cycle (bachelors, newlyweds, full nesters, empty nesters), and perceived benefit of use (convenience, durability, value for the money, social acceptance), just to name a few (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2000).

• Make a list of the various segments you think marketers might put you in. Have you ever thought about these before? Why or why not?
• Take note of the advertisements that catch your eye over a couple days. Do they match up with any of the segments you listed in the first question?
• Are there any groups that you think it would be unethical to segment and target for marketing? Explain your answer.

Determine Your Purpose, Topic, and Thesis

General purpose.

Your speeches will usually fall into one of three categories. In some cases we speak to inform, meaning we attempt to teach our audience using factual objective evidence. In other cases, we speak to persuade, as we try to influence an audience’s beliefs, attitudes, values, or behaviors. Last, we may speak to entertain or amuse our audience. In summary, the general purpose of your speech will be to inform, to persuade, or to entertain.

You can see various topics that may fit into the three general purposes for speaking in Table 9.1 “General Purposes and Speech Topics” . Some of the topics listed could fall into another general purpose category depending on how the speaker approached the topic, or they could contain elements of more than one general purpose. For example, you may have to inform your audience about your topic in one main point before you can persuade them, or you may include some entertaining elements in an informative or persuasive speech to help make the content more engaging for the audience. There should not be elements of persuasion included in an informative speech, however, since persuading is contrary to the objective approach that defines an informative general purpose. In any case, while there may be some overlap between general purposes, most speeches can be placed into one of the categories based on the overall content of the speech.

Table 9.1 General Purposes and Speech Topics

Choosing a Topic

Once you have determined (or been assigned) your general purpose, you can begin the process of choosing a topic. In this class, you may be given the option to choose any topic for your informative or persuasive speech, but in most academic, professional, and personal settings, there will be some parameters set that will help guide your topic selection. Speeches in future classes will likely be organized around the content being covered in the class. Speeches delivered at work will usually be directed toward a specific goal such as welcoming new employees, informing about changes in workplace policies, or presenting quarterly sales figures. We are also usually compelled to speak about specific things in our personal lives, like addressing a problem at our child’s school by speaking out at a school board meeting. In short, it’s not often that you’ll be starting from scratch when you begin to choose a topic.

Whether you’ve received parameters that narrow your topic range or not, the first step in choosing a topic is brainstorming. Brainstorming involves generating many potential topic ideas in a fast-paced and nonjudgmental manner. Brainstorming can take place multiple times as you narrow your topic. For example, you may begin by brainstorming a list of your personal interests that can then be narrowed down to a speech topic. It makes sense that you will enjoy speaking about something that you care about or find interesting. The research and writing will be more interesting, and the delivery will be easier since you won’t have to fake enthusiasm for your topic. Speaking about something you’re familiar with and interested in can also help you manage speaking anxiety. While it’s good to start with your personal interests, some speakers may get stuck here if they don’t feel like they can make their interests relevant to the audience. In that case, you can look around for ideas. If your topic is something that’s being discussed in newspapers, on television, in the lounge of your dorm, or around your family’s dinner table, then it’s likely to be of interest and be relevant since it’s current. Figure 9.1 “Psychological Analysis: Attitudes, Beliefs, and Values” shows how brainstorming works in stages. A list of topics that interest the speaker are on the top row. The speaker can brainstorm subtopics for each idea to see which one may work the best. In this case, the speaker could decide to focus his or her informative speech on three common ways people come to own dogs: through breeders, pet stores, or shelters.

Figure 9.2 Brainstorming and Narrowing a Topic

Overall you can follow these tips as you select and narrow your topic:

• Brainstorm topics that you are familiar with, interest you, and/or are currently topics of discussion.
• Choose a topic appropriate for the assignment/occasion.
• Choose a topic that you can make relevant to your audience.
• Choose a topic that you have the resources to research (access to information, people to interview, etc.).

Specific Purpose

Once you have brainstormed, narrowed, and chosen your topic, you can begin to draft your specific purpose statement. Your specific purpose is a one-sentence statement that includes the objective you want to accomplish in your speech. You do not speak aloud your specific purpose during your speech; you use it to guide your researching, organizing, and writing. A good specific purpose statement is audience centered, agrees with the general purpose, addresses one main idea, and is realistic.

An audience-centered specific purpose statement usually contains an explicit reference to the audience—for example, “my audience” or “the audience.” Since a speaker may want to see if he or she effectively met his or her specific purpose, the objective should be written in such a way that it could be measured or assessed, and since a speaker actually wants to achieve his or her speech goal, the specific purpose should also be realistic. You won’t be able to teach the audience a foreign language or persuade an atheist to Christianity in a six- to nine-minute speech. The following is a good example of a good specific purpose statement for an informative speech: “By the end of my speech, the audience will be better informed about the effects the green movement has had on schools.” The statement is audience centered and matches with the general purpose by stating, “the audience will be better informed.” The speaker could also test this specific purpose by asking the audience to write down, at the end of the speech, three effects the green movement has had on schools.

Thesis Statement

Your thesis statement is a one-sentence summary of the central idea of your speech that you either explain or defend. You would explain the thesis statement for an informative speech, since these speeches are based on factual, objective material. You would defend your thesis statement for a persuasive speech, because these speeches are argumentative and your thesis should clearly indicate a stance on a particular issue. In order to make sure your thesis is argumentative and your stance clear, it is helpful to start your thesis with the words “I believe.” When starting to work on a persuasive speech, it can also be beneficial to write out a counterargument to your thesis to ensure that it is arguable.

The thesis statement is different from the specific purpose in two main ways. First, the thesis statement is content centered, while the specific purpose statement is audience centered. Second, the thesis statement is incorporated into the spoken portion of your speech, while the specific purpose serves as a guide for your research and writing and an objective that you can measure. A good thesis statement is declarative, agrees with the general and specific purposes, and focuses and narrows your topic. Although you will likely end up revising and refining your thesis as you research and write, it is good to draft a thesis statement soon after drafting a specific purpose to help guide your progress. As with the specific purpose statement, your thesis helps ensure that your research, organizing, and writing are focused so you don’t end up wasting time with irrelevant materials. Keep your specific purpose and thesis statement handy (drafting them at the top of your working outline is a good idea) so you can reference them often. The following examples show how a general purpose, specific purpose, and thesis statement match up with a topic area:

Topic: My Craziest Adventure

General purpose: To Entertain

Specific purpose: By the end of my speech, the audience will appreciate the lasting memories that result from an eighteen-year-old visiting New Orleans for the first time.

Thesis statement: New Orleans offers young tourists many opportunities for fun and excitement.

Topic: Renewable Energy

General purpose: To Inform

Specific purpose: By the end of my speech, the audience will be able to explain the basics of using biomass as fuel.

Thesis statement: Biomass is a renewable resource that releases gases that can be used for fuel.

Topic: Privacy Rights

General purpose: To Persuade

Specific purpose : By the end of my speech, my audience will believe that parents should not be able to use tracking devices to monitor their teenage child’s activities.

Thesis statement: I believe that it is a violation of a child’s privacy to be electronically monitored by his or her parents.

Key Takeaways

• Getting integrated: Public speaking training builds transferrable skills that are useful in your college classes, career, personal relationships, and civic life.
• Demographic, psychographic, and situational audience analysis help tailor your speech content to your audience.
• The general and specific purposes of your speech are based on the speaking occasion and include the objective you would like to accomplish by the end of your speech. Determining these early in the speech-making process will help focus your research and writing.
• Brainstorm to identify topics that fit within your interests, and then narrow your topic based on audience analysis and the guidelines provided.
• A thesis statement summarizes the central idea of your speech and will be explained or defended using supporting material. Referencing your thesis statement often will help ensure that your speech is coherent.
• Getting integrated: Why do some people dread public speaking or just want to avoid it? Identify some potential benefits of public speaking in academic, professional, personal, and civic contexts that might make people see public speaking in a different light.
• Conduct some preliminary audience analysis of your class and your classroom. What are some demographics that might be useful for you to consider? What might be some attitudes, beliefs, and values people have that might be relevant to your speech topics? What situational factors might you want to consider before giving your speech?
• Pay attention to the news (in the paper, on the Internet, television, or radio). Identify two informative and two persuasive speech topics that are based in current events.

Career Cruising, “Marketing Specialist,” Career Cruising: Explore Careers , accessed January 24, 2012, http://www.careercruising.com .

Greenwell, D., “You Might Not ‘Like’ Facebook So Much after Reading This…” The Times (London) , sec. T2, January 13, 2012, 4–5.

Siegel, D. L., Timothy J. Coffey, and Gregory Livingston, The Great Tween Buying Machine (Chicago, IL: Dearborn Trade, 2004).

Solomon, M. R., Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having, and Being , 7th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2006), 10–11.

Communication in the Real World Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Confidence Isn’t a Proxy for Competence, and Other Research-Backed Insights Employers Can Use to Narrow the Gender Gap

Featuring Katherine Coffman . By Esther Schrader on April 26, 2024 .

BiGS Actionable Intelligence:

BOSTON — When the leaders of the storied network of academic medical centers that make up Mass General Brigham created an innovation office to help medical professionals bring their breakthroughs to market, they had everyone across their enterprises in mind.

But 14 years later, they realized the majority of people getting a boost from their innovation office were men.

That’s when they called on Harvard Business School’s Katherine Coffman. The associate professor, an experimental economist, has earned a reputation for exploring new ways to close the gender gap. The research she undertook at Mass General Brigham led to an overhaul in how its innovation office sought and selected ventures to support.

Today, a greater percentage of them are woman-led and the innovator community initiative better supports women innovators, in skills ranging from learning how to network with external stakeholders to honing the processes to commercialize their work.

“We knew we had a problem, and it was something we were motivated to address,” Diana Schwartzstein, manager director for innovation at Mass General Brigham, told HBS’s The BiGS Fix . “Instead of just jumping in and assuming we knew how to do so, we partnered with a researcher who is really top in her field, who gave us a data-driven approach to help us figure out what the barriers were.”

A Strategy for Shrinking the Gender Gap: Listen to Women

Coffman’s work with the medical center is one example of how her research is helping dismantle barriers for women in the workplace. Most research into the gender gap has focused on what women must do to be heard. Coffman turns the tables on that thinking: Her research shows that instead of putting the onus on women to speak up, employers must listen more to women.

“The models have relied on a person coming into the office and saying, ‘I’m great. I have this great idea,’” Coffman said of workplace assumptions that women fail to assert themselves. Such assumptions, she said, are based on the mistaken premise that women have the same opportunities as their male peers to promote themselves in male-dominated spaces. In fact, they often don’t.

To address that built-in inequity, Coffman said, her data demonstrates that employers could benefit if they “turn that arrow in the other direction, and spend more time trying to find candidates, rather than having those people just identify themselves.”

Coffman’s conclusions draw on years of study. By meticulously designing environments that mimic the workplace in a controlled setting, she uses experimental economics models to move beyond the questions that traditionally have been posed about how gender differences influence behavior in professional environments. Informed as well by principles developed for psychology and sociology research, her work advances the field of workplace inquiry, connecting it with women’s actual experiences.

“The best ideas don't always come from those who are the most likely to speak up,” Coffman said. “And so, if you're a manager who's actually interested in best ideas, best candidates, then … the argument is that there is a distortion, where you might be missing out on some really good efficiency, on increasing productivity, increasing great ideas, because they're not being volunteered.”

It was as a graduate student working toward her doctorate in economics that Coffman said she first began to believe that the solutions offered to close the gender gap in the workplace needed to be rethought. Compiling surveys as part of her studies, she noticed that while men answered every question they were asked, women were “so much more likely than men to admit they didn’t know an answer.”

“It’s not that they were rushing, or they were less interested in the research. Sometimes they were very thoughtful,” Coffman said. “But they were more likely than men to say, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know.’ That was, for me, a lightbulb moment.”

The point, Coffman said, was not that the women were necessarily less self-confident than the men, but that they were believed to be, because they didn’t handle the situation in the same way as men. That realization, she said, has informed her research ever since.

Some Steps To Attract Talented Women

So, how can employers attract and support qualified women employees? Coffman’s work reveals a few relatively simple steps:

Seek out talented candidates for openings, rather than waiting for them to apply.

Make job descriptions more precise, and include clear, concise descriptions of what you are looking for.

Actively try to get information about all qualified candidates, not just about those who appear more qualified at first glance.

Award competence, not confidence, by soliciting the opinions of applicants and employees who may not put themselves forward immediately, but who may have a deeper base of knowledge than those who do come forward.

Anonymize applications where possible, at least in the initial stages of the hiring process, when it is not necessary to attach the gender of an applicant to the data or information you are evaluating them on.

Finally, how can women applicants and employees navigate their way through a still-inequitable workplace world? Here is some advice, mined from Coffman’s research:

Volunteer ideas and put yourself forward.

Seek advice from other people and arm yourself with a range of perspectives and information before entering a negotiation.

Be deliberate in decision-making, without overestimating the risks.

Seek allies who can help you amplify your status or your voice, even in a discriminatory situation.

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