Finding A Topic: The Worksheet

Here’s the deal. Picking a topic is up to you, but if you pick a bad one, you will suffer. It is important that you pick something you are interested in because you will have to research and write about this extensively. However, you must pick something that will work for this assignment. You need at the very least EIGHT to 15 scholarly sources for this paper. If you can’t find any information, ditch it.
First: List three things you are interested in that you wouldn’t mind learning more about. Now go to the list in the post below and skim for ideas. Ask: What do people argue about? Where can you go to find out? If your answer is nothing, pick something else.
List some potential, if broad topics here:
1.
2.
3.

Second: Can you narrow the topic by geographic region, culture, time frame, event or aspect, discipline or subject, person or group, etc.? Ie: If you are interested in gay marriage, look at gay marriage initiatives in Colorado (Narrowing by geographic location).

Third: Go here: http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/processes/topic/index.cfm This site is one of the better I have found for general writing info.
Even if you are pretty sure what you what to write about, use this time to see what you can find about it.

Fourth: Look at Procon.org. Is your topic here. Browse their titles and click on a few links to see if you are interested in any of these topics.

Fifth: Go to CQ Researcher. Go to the Auraria library site at http://library.cudenver.edu/. Click Databases A-Z. Enter CQ Researcher. Browse.
Click “Browse By Topic” to find some ideas.

If you are still stuck, go to Sixth: Go to slate.com, nytimes.com, washingtonpost.com, denverpost.com and look around for opinion pieces that you find interesting. Use this to get an idea for subjects to pursue.

Last. Pitch your idea. I want a list of three to five topics in question form. You may not know exactly where you are going to go with this, but that’s okay. Next, list why you are interested in this topic. Indicate which you are most interested in writing about. Ie:

!. What is the effect of farm subsidies on small farmers, domestically and internationally? I am interested in this because I like cooking and gardening and have been intrigued by food production for some time. It seems like this is a big problem, but we tend to ignore it. I would like to look into this more because I want to look at the sustainability of our food system like Michael Pollan, Eric Scholloser and Barbara Kingsolver have done. I am most interested in this.

When you finish, print and start looking for information.