A complete paper has a lot of important components. There are many considerations to create an all-honored paper, such as the right sources, strong supporting details, organization, etc. But perhaps the most important element is the essay topic.
Choosing the topic for an essay can quickly become very difficult. It’s often the first step when writing a paper, and since it is one of the hardest, you can be put off easily. We will share some important tips about the process essay topics choosing that you should go through.
- Be concise and precise. Picking a too broad topic won’t get you anywhere. Something like “history” or “genetics” will make your paper probably go in many different directions. Instead, to keep readers’ attention, narrow it down to “the importance of historical figures in today’s world” or “do genetics really affect your personality?” By being more precise, your essay will be more complete.
- Stay on topic. Once you choose a topic don’t deviate! Stay on point or you will bore your readers, which is the opposite of what you want to achieve. You’ll need to make sure your chosen topic has many points to be made about it.
- Start with a question. One of the best ways to help you decide on an overarching idea is to ask yourself a question about something that interests you in academia. The answer will help you form your topic as well as your thesis!
- Use a hook. You may have an awesome paper with awesome ideas inside, but you will lose your reader right from the start if you don’t have an interesting first few sentences.
- Have an idea of what you’ll write about. Before making your final decision on your topic, come up with an outline. It doesn’t have to be perfect and you can always add and take away later, but at least make a skeleton outline. Why? So that you will know if your topic can turn into an entire paper. You don’t want to choose something and then realize that you only have one or two quick things to say about it.
- Use your imagination. Many topics have been written about before. The best way to make your paper stand out from the rest is to put a twist on a well-known topic. Do this by using your creativity and imagination. Take a few minutes to brainstorm some ideas on how to make your paper unique.
If you follow the above tips, you will be sure to be on the road to creating a successful essay. The topic of a paper doesn’t always necessarily have to be interesting at first, but it’s up to you to make it so.
After you choose a topic, you still have a lot of work to do, but at least you will have completed the first step, which also happens to be one of the hardest.