Develop Topic

After analyzing your assignment begin to brainstorm a topic.

There are many ways to brainstorm.

Take notes, talk it out, go for a walk, make a chart or use post-its.

The important thing is to be able to review and revisit your ideas.

Your topic will continue to change, so be open to new ideas.

Pay attention to what interests you most. Look for connections between ideas.

A good topic is interesting to you, makes new connections and is just the right scope.

A topic is a broad idea

like sustainable agriculture

while a research question is a question with no simple answer.

A good research question will be arguable, clear, and concise, yet complex.

What part of sustainable agriculture are you interested in?

To answer this, often you need do some research.

Your sources will discuss more narrow aspects of the topic.

And potentially raise some questions for you.

Perhaps you decide to focus on compost use for thermal energy.

Next, you need to frame this as a question.

Again, your research question should be open-ended, clear, complex, and focused.

After more thinking and research you decide to ask:

What are the technical, social, and economic barriers to the adoption of compost heat extraction on small American farms?

Now you have developed your topic into a research question.

Develop Topic