how to narrow down a research paper topic

• USC Libraries
• Research Guides

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
• Choosing a Title
• Making an Outline
• Paragraph Development
• Research Process Video Series
• Executive Summary
• The C.A.R.S. Model
• Background Information
• The Research Problem/Question
• Theoretical Framework
• Citation Tracking
• Content Alert Services
• 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.

• << Previous: Reading Research Effectively
• Next: Broadening a Topic Idea >>
• Last Updated: Mar 21, 2024 9:59 AM
• URL: https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide

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: Feb 16, 2024 10:08 AM
• URL: https://kingsu.libguides.com/research

Step-by-Step Guide & Research Rescue: Finding and Narrowing Your Topic

• Basic Research Strategy
• Finding and Narrowing Your Topic
• Finding Articles
• Finding Books and Print Resources
• Evaluating Credibility
• Accessing and Storing Your Sources
• Subject & Alphabetical Lists of Step by Step Guides
• Citing Your Sources

THIS GUIDE WILL BE UPDATED August 2020. If you are currently using the guide, find the information valuable, or would like to continue having access to it, please send your feedback to [email protected].

Picking a Topic

Before you begin searching for articles, it helps to have a topic in mind. Start broad and brainstorm. Ask yourself:

• What am I interested in?
• What have I heard in the news?
• What’s something that affects me personally?

It is important to pick a topic that is relevant to you personally, not just one that you think you will be able to find a lot of information on. There is information out there on every topic (the trick is finding the right key words, and we'll address that in Finding Articles ), so don't worry about being able to find articles. Remember, you're going to be spending quite a bit of time with this topic, so pick one that you're going to enjoy writing about.

Gather Background Information

Now that you've picked a topic, it's time to evaluate what you need to know about it in order to gather research. Ask yourself:

• What are the main concepts of this topic?
• What are the issues surrounding this topic?
• What are some key terms that are being used to describe the topic?

Keep these questions in mind as you search for basic information on your topic. Visit the sites below to get started:

• Gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context and  Gale Virtual Reference Library  house a wealth of knowledge, spanning hundreds of online encyclopedias, almanacs, and other reference sources that present basic knowledge from many angles.
• Google and Wikipedia are other good sources to find basic information, as long as you make sure to validate the information and links.

Finding/Creating a Claim

For most papers and projects, it is not enough to present lists of facts and figures. Instead, you will need to present an opinion or argument that is backed by academic literature and research. Essentially, you need to make a claim that can be argued for and against. 

One method to consider is formulating a consequence-based question, such as "What are the consequences of X on Y?" Some example questions are listed below:

• What are the consequences of player vs. owner disputes on the NBA fan base?
• What are the consequences of teaching young musicians only the Suzuki method on their ability to sight read?
• What are the consequences of the Affordable Care Act on our economy? on our personal health?
• What are the consequences of reality television shows like American Idol on our modern interpretation of the American Dream?

Where to find information:

• Opposing Viewpoints in Context (Gale) is a great source for finding pro and con arguments on hundreds of social issues. 
• CQ Researcher  is a good source for topics in the news this week (and included an archive of past topics).
• News sources can also provide great information on the basics of a topic and what the current issues are.

Use these sources and others to decide what stance you are going to take on your topic. Remember when picking an topic that it needs to be something people disagree about. If your opinion is something that your intended audience is naturally going to agree with unanimously, you may want to reconsider the direction you take the paper. The best papers present something new, whether it is a new argument, a new way of looking at a certain situation, new methods to address an issue, etc.  Whatever your topic might be, make it your own!

Narrowing Your Topic

Now it is time to put all of the background information you've gathered together to give you a solid foundation for your research. You may find the following table helpful in organizing your data. Keep in mind that this is NOT your thesis statement, just a tool to narrow your research. If you can fill out this table, you most likely have a narrow enough topic with enough direction for some great research.

1)  I am researching ______________________________________ ( topic )

2)  because I want to find out ______________________________( issue/question )

3)  in order to ________________________________ ( application - So What? - Project/Audience/Purpose driven)

Examples:    I am researching speech impairments in children (topic)    because I want to find out if an older sibling with a speech problem effects a younger sibling (issue/question)    in order to convince my principal the need for family therapy (application - audience ).

I am researching ethanol as an alternative fuel (topic) because I want to find out the pros and cons of its use and formulate my opinion (issue/question) in order to persuade my readers that my position is correct (application - audience ).

   I am researching ways to teach English as a second language (topic)    because I want to find out the most effective strategies available (issue/question)    in order to prepare me to be a better teacher (application - purpose ).

I am researching autism in children (topic) because I want to find out how best to socially interact with them (issue/question) in order to better accomplish my service learning experience. (application - project ).

   I am researching genetically modified foods (topic)    because I want to find out if they are nutritionally better than organic foods (issue/question)    in order to produce a brochure summarizing the issues for my Writing 150 class. (application - project).  

(Adapted from:  Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G. & Williams, J. M. (2008). The Craft of Research (3rd ed.) Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, p. 51-65.)

Live Library Chat

• << Previous: Basic Research Strategy
• Next: Finding Articles >>
• Last Updated: Feb 15, 2024 10:06 AM
• URL: https://guides.lib.byu.edu/stepbystep

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

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.

Share This Book

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
• Next: Topic Selection Strategies >>
• Last Updated: May 22, 2023 10:46 AM
• URL: https://library.tiffin.edu/selectingaresearchtopic

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

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.

Share This Book

• Forgot your Password?

First, please create an account

Choosing and narrowing a topic to write about (for research papers), introduction to choosing a research topic.

Introduction: Research is Never a Waste of Time, But Always Make Good Use of Your Time.

It is natural to stand at the beginning of a research project and feel overwhelmed by the amount of published research that exists in databases, literature reviews, and reference pages. At the same time, each new research project brings the hope of discovering something new. Overwhelming though a project may be, starting at the foothills of a new thread of research is a great privilege, and is best approached as an opportunity to learn rather than a drudgery. As a researcher/writer, you have the chance to dive more deeply into less frequently encountered pools of knowledge.

Depending on the topic or scope of your research, it is also natural to spend many days and weeks - and in some cases months and years - searching. No matter how great or small the scope of research is, the serious researcher needs to reserve adequate time to perform a thorough survey of published articles. For an undergraduate course project, finding five or six sources might seem like plenty of material to review, but graduate-level writing projects typically involve up to 20 sources minimum.

Please note that the main point here is not to say that it is only the number of research articles matters most, but rather that having a broad spectrum of papers to choose from helps you choose your topic for at least the following two reasons: 1) a larger pool of sources provides you with a broader perspective of the topics within your scope of research and 2) along the way you will find many topics within your field that you DO NOT want to write about! So, one particularly effective way of viewing research is not finding the absolute minimum sources to "get by", but rather to find a variety of sources that you can use...like an artist uses negative space to "carve" shapes out of a dark background...to guide you toward topics that are more directly relevant to your topic.

The good news is that as you research you may find that some of your sources that were published in the same decade or so will cite and reference each other.

One of the joys and privileges of research is being able to follow your curiosity; if you are truly curious about your topic, and authentically driven to find out as much as you can, then even the articles you don't find interesting will be useful for a future project, and no energy will be wasted.

Source: Neil Cunningham

Steps 1, 2, and 3: Choosing a Topic

Well, you've been researching for a while now, and you are now ready to settle down on a specific topic. You can do this easily by moving through the following steps. (For the purposes of this learning packet, let say that you are writing on the subject of decomposition .)

Choosing a Specific Topic in Three Steps

1. Choose any topic or topics in the universe. - "e.g., something about organic matter"

2. Be a little more specific about your topic . - "e.g., compost and soil"

3. Be a lot more specific about your topic - "e.g., soil nutrients released by organic matter decomposition"

4. Repeat these three steps three or more times to give yourself a few examples of topics to choose from . When you have a few examples, choose the topic that you feel meets your course requirements, the needs of your intended (or imagined) audience, and/or has the most relevant source material to support it. .

Once you feel terrifically solid about the topic you have chosen, you are ready to Narrow Down Your Topic . Always remember that you can go back to research at any time of your writing process.

Steps 3, 4, and 5: Narrowing Down Your Topic

During the first three steps, you chose a topic. For some, this topic may seem like it's ready to be written about, but the level of precision required in the context of academic writing requires writer-researcher to go through a few additional steps.

In other words, many articles have already been written that describe various aspects of organic matter decomposition, so we must narrow down our chosen topic so that we can focus our research efforts on a more precise question or thesis statement.

Narrowing a Topic in Three Steps, Starting from a Topic that Was Selected Using the Three-Step Choosing a Topic Process.

1) Make one or two more words more specific .

In this case, we replaced the words "soil nutrients" with nitrogen and replaced "organic matter" with food waste to make the topic we wish to write about as precise and as specific as possible.

• Example: " soil nutrients nitrogen released by organic matter the decomposition of food waste "

2) OK, we've added a few words to make the topic more specific. Now turn the topic into a complete sentence that actually makes a statement.

• Example: The forms of nitrogen released by the decomposition of food waste is poorly understood.

3) Make the sentence as precise and arguable as possible.

If you compare the following example with the previous step, you might notice how the context of decomposition moves from just a generalized process of decomposition to a particular process that involves household waste. In addition, this example makes a firm statement that can be argued and supported.

• Example: The amount and value of plant-available nitrogen released by decomposition of household food waste is not well understood because most home composters do not have the tools to measure soil nutrients.

In summary, the steps outlined in this learning packet encourage academic writers who want to increase the precision of the topics they write about to go through a process.

This learning packet has broken down the process of selecting a topic into two large steps - choosing a topic and narrowing it down.

To choose a general topic, follow the following steps:

     1) Choose a topic area. Example: beer

     2) Take you topic area and describe it more specifically. Example: beer and microorganisms

     3) Name a specific aspect of the specific topic. Example: the quality of beer and the quality of microorganisms needed    to brew it properly

To narrow down the focus of your topic, follow the following three steps:

     4) Write down additional specific about your topic. Example: brewing quality tasting beer and the health of the colonies of yeast used to brew small batches of beer  properly.

     5) Turn your topic into a sentence that is a statement. Example: The quality of small batches of beer is affected by the overall health of the yeast used during fermentation.

     6) Now add "fine" focus to your statement by making a statement that can (although it does not necessarily need to) refer back to your research. Example: A survey of microbrewers suggests that beer taste is equally affected by the health of yeast used during fermentation as it is by the quality of the grains used.  

Choosing and Narrowing a Topic

This audio file describes the process of choosing and narrowing a topic that is demonstrated in this learning packet. This audio file is a supplement to the text portion of this packet, and is meant to be listened to the powerpoint slide.

Choosing a Research Topic [Overview]

This narrated slide show provides a brief overview and an example of the topic-selecting process described in this learning packet.

Learning Objectives

Subject:  Pre-Writing Strategies   Topic:  Choosing a Research Topic, Narrowing a Research Topic   Objectives:   This learning packet should review:

• Selecting a topic for research
• Bridging research topics with actual research
• Generating ideas for research topics
• Overcoming writer's block

  Background Knowledge:  By this point, a student should have been exposed to basic research techniques and have a minimum of 3-5 sources to begin to write from.   New Terms:  A few terms that may be new are:

• Thesis statement
• Supportable topic
• Evidence-based writing
• Scholarly writing

  A few notes: For best results, the method described in this learning packet should be practiced several times in order to develop confidence and consistency.

• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Policy
• Terms of Use

© 2024 SOPHIA Learning, LLC. SOPHIA is a registered trademark of SOPHIA Learning, LLC.

Developing a Research Topic: Narrowing Your Topic

• Narrowing Your Topic
• Research & Writing Help

Narrowing your Topic

Often you have a topic you are interested in, but the topic is too broad for your project. Think about the length of your paper or presentation when deciding how narrow you should make your topic. Sometimes starting your research will help you narrow down your topic. Search for information on your topic, and scan through the results or read an overview of the topic to figure out what aspect of the topic most interests you. Or, ask yourself some of these questions to help narrow down your topic.

• The five W’s – who, what, when, where, & why.
• Can you focus your project on a specific aspect of the topic? What do you want to find out about this topic?
• Can you narrow your topic to a specific time period or a specific event?
• Can you narrow your topic to a specific geographic area?
• Is there a specific purpose you have for researching this topic?
• Compare/Contrast
• Cause/Effect
• Problem/Solution
• Opinion/Reason
• Virginia Tech: Strategies for Narrowing a Topic
• Writing @ CSU: Narrowing Topics
• BYU Library: Step-by-Step Guide & Research Rescue: Finding and Narrowing Your Topic

Circling the Lighthouse

Finding a topic for a research paper is like photographing a lighthouse. They're all interesting, and they have all been photographed or written about before.  Why do people keep coming back to them? Maybe it's because someone comes along and draws our attention to a new detail or story.

First, you need more detail. You need to study the lighthouse, or your topic, in order to examine it from every angle. By “circling” the lighthouse (your topic) you may find a new angle for your paper.

Good research is not just about compiling facts. It also asks and answers key questions about the topic at hand.

• << Previous: Home
• Next: Research & Writing Help >>
• Last Updated: Feb 22, 2024 2:20 PM
• URL: https://guides.auraria.edu/researchtopic

1100 Lawrence Street Denver, CO 80204 303-315-7700 Ask Us Directions

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.

Share This Book

We use cookies to give you the best experience possible. By continuing we’ll assume you’re on board with our cookie policy

• A Research Guide
• Research Paper Guide

How to Narrow Down a Research Topic?

• Why narrowing the research topic
• Step-by-step guide

Strategies for narrowing the research topic

Narrowing topic example, why narrowing the research topic boosts your study.

• Enhances your comprehension of the selected topic, aligning you with the specialized vocabulary and concepts employed by scholars in the field.
• Allows your investigation to be enriched with contextual insights.

Step-by-step guide for narrowing topic

Step 1: initial brainstorming and exploration., step 2: define the goals., step 3: narrowing focus., step 4: include a literature review., step 5: finalize a topic., methodology, relationship, combination.

• Writing a Research Paper
• Research Paper Title
• Research Paper Sources
• Research Paper Problem Statement
• Research Paper Thesis Statement
• Hypothesis for a Research Paper
• Research Question
• Research Paper Outline
• Research Paper Summary
• Research Paper Prospectus
• Research Paper Proposal
• Research Paper Format
• Research Paper Styles
• AMA Style Research Paper
• MLA Style Research Paper
• Chicago Style Research Paper
• APA Style Research Paper
• Research Paper Structure
• Research Paper Cover Page
• Research Paper Abstract
• Research Paper Introduction
• Research Paper Body Paragraph
• Research Paper Literature Review
• Research Paper Background
• Research Paper Methods Section
• Research Paper Results Section
• Research Paper Discussion Section
• Research Paper Conclusion
• Research Paper Appendix
• Research Paper Bibliography
• APA Reference Page
• Annotated Bibliography
• Bibliography vs Works Cited vs References Page
• Research Paper Types
• What is Qualitative Research

Receive paper in 3 Hours!

• Choose the number of pages.
• Select your deadline.
• Complete your order.

Number of Pages

550 words (double spaced)

Deadline: 10 days left

By clicking "Log In", you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We'll occasionally send you account related and promo emails.

Sign Up for your FREE account

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?
• What Is Expository Writing?
• How to Write a Solid Thesis Statement
• Focusing in Composition
• Topic In Composition and Speech
• How to Get Started on a Literature Review
• How To Write an Essay
• Revising a Paper
• Definition and Examples of Analysis in Composition
• How to Develop a Research Paper Timeline
• Composition Type: Problem-Solution Essays
• What Is a Senior Thesis?
• Tips for Writing an Art History Paper
• Write an Attention-Grabbing Opening Sentence for an Essay
• How to Find the Main Idea
• How to Write a Research Paper That Earns an A

• Services Paper editing services Paper proofreading Business papers Philosophy papers Write my paper Term papers for sale Term paper help Academic term papers Buy research papers College writing services Paper writing help Student papers Original term papers Research paper help Nursing papers for sale Psychology papers Economics papers Medical papers Blog

How To Narrow Down A Research Topic Guideline And Tips

Choosing a research topic is crucial in any academic or professional endeavor. However, the process of narrowing down a research topic can often be daunting, especially when faced with a multitude of options. To navigate this challenge effectively, it is essential to understand the strategies and techniques involved in narrowing down a research topic. This comprehensive guide will explore the intricacies of narrowing down a research topic, addressing key questions such as “How do you narrow down a research topic?” and “What is narrowed topic?” Whether you are a college or university student, a researcher, or a professional seeking guidance, this article will equip you with the necessary knowledge and tools to streamline your research process. The journey begins with starting with a general topic. We will delve into techniques on how to narrow a topic, providing you with practical insights to refine and focus your area of study. Throughout the article, we will showcase general topic and specific topic examples, demonstrating the transformative process of narrowing down a research topic. Additionally, we will explore the importance of selecting a specific topic for research, considering factors such as feasibility and researchability. You will discover the significance of a narrow topic in facilitating in-depth analysis and producing high-quality research outcomes. Furthermore, we will discuss the benefits of seeking research paper help from professional writers and experts, highlighting the availability of online resources that cater to educational needs, ideas, and top-quality assistance for students, colleges, and universities. We understand the importance of providing affordable options and cheap solutions without compromising on the quality of research. By the end of this article, you will have gained a comprehensive understanding of how to narrow down a research topic, allowing you to embark on your research journey with confidence and clarity. So, let’s dive in and discover the art of narrowing down a research topic together.

Table of Contents

Understanding the importance: why and how do you narrow down a topic, starting with a general topic, conducting preliminary research, refining your research questions, differentiating between a general and specific topic, selecting a specific topic, evaluating feasibility and researchability, additional tips and resources.

Narrowing down a research topic is a critical step that significantly impacts the success and quality of your research. It involves refining your focus, exploring specific areas of inquiry, and tailoring your study to yield meaningful results. This section will delve into the importance of narrowing a research topic and provide insights into the process. Why is it crucial to narrow down a research topic?

Honing in on a specific area allows you to delve deeper into the subject matter, enabling a more comprehensive and focused analysis. Rather than attempting to cover a broad range of ideas, narrowing down a topic allows you to allocate your time, resources, and efforts efficiently. This focused approach enhances the clarity and relevance of your research and increases your chances of contributing to the academic or professional domain.

But how do you narrow down a research topic effectively? The process begins with a general topic that aligns with your interests or the requirements of your academic discipline. From there, you can employ techniques such as brainstorming, mind mapping, and conducting preliminary research to explore different facets and potential subtopics within your chosen field. As you progress, you can refine your research questions, ensuring they are specific, clear, and aligned with your research objectives. This process involves evaluating the scope and feasibility of your topic, considering available resources, and assessing the potential for generating meaningful insights. By narrowing down your research topic, you transform a broad concept into a focused, researchable area that can be effectively explored and analyzed. To further illustrate the significance and process, let’s examine an example. Suppose your broad topic is “The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health.” By narrowing it down to a specific topic, such as “The Influence of Instagram Use on Body Image Perception Among College Students,” you establish a researchable framework that facilitates focused analysis and in-depth exploration. This example showcases the transition from a broad topic to a specific one, demonstrating how narrowing down a research topic enables precise investigation and targeted insights. Exploring more broad and specific topic examples will provide further clarity and inspiration in refining your research focus.

The first step in narrowing down a research topic is, to begin with a general topic that captures your interest or falls within the scope of your study. A general topic provides a broad foundation to explore and refine your research focus. It serves as a starting point for generating ideas, identifying key themes, and understanding the overall landscape of the subject matter. A general topic allows you to explore various angles and perspectives before narrowing it down to a more specific and researchable area. It is essential to choose a general topic that is broad enough to provide ample research opportunities and narrow enough to maintain focus and relevance to your research goals. Starting with a general topic lays the groundwork for effectively narrowing down your research topic.

Once you have identified a general topic, the next step is to dive into conducting preliminary research. This phase allows you to gather relevant information, explore existing literature, and better understand the subject area. Utilize various resources such as online databases, academic journals, books, and reputable websites to explore different facets of your chosen topic. By engaging in preliminary research, you can identify key terms, concepts, and emerging trends within the field. This process aids in narrowing down your research topic by providing a foundation of knowledge and helping you identify potential gaps or areas of interest to explore further.

Here are some ideas on how to refine you research topic successfully:

• Evaluate the scope and focus of your research topic.
• Consider the aspects or angles you want to explore in your general topic.
• Formulate clear and concise research questions that address your objectives.
• Ensure that your research questions are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).
• Identify the gaps in existing knowledge that your research aims to fill.
• Consider the available resources, such as data, time, and funding, to refine your research questions accordingly.
• Seek feedback from mentors, advisors, or experts in the field to validate and enhance your research questions.
• Align your research questions with the overall goals of your study and its significance in the academic or professional context.
• Refining your research questions will help you narrow down your focus and guide your investigation toward specific and achievable outcomes.
• Consider your research questions’ feasibility and potential impact to ensure they align with your resources and goals.

To effectively narrow down a research topic, it is crucial to understand the difference between a general topic and a specific topic. This step involves defining the concept of a narrowed-down topic and providing examples to illustrate the distinction.

• A general topic is a broad subject area encompassing various aspects and potential subtopics. For example, “Education” or “Climate Change” are general topics encompassing many areas to explore.
• On the other hand, a specific topic narrows down the focus to a particular angle, population, or context within the general topic. It specifies the research scope and provides a clear direction for investigation. Examples of specific topics derived from general topics include “The Impact of Technology Integration in Elementary Schools Classrooms” or “The Effects of Rising Sea Levels on Coastal Communities in Southeast Asia.”

Understanding the difference between a general and specific topic allows you to refine your research focus and select a researchable area that aligns with your goals and available resources. By narrowing down your topic to a specific focus, you can conduct a more in-depth analysis, generate meaningful insights, and contribute to the existing body of knowledge in a targeted and impactful manner.

This step will explore techniques for narrowing down a research topic and selecting a specific focus. By choosing a unique angle, population, or context, you can refine your research topic and make it more targeted and researchable. Here are some techniques to help you in the process:

• Identify a unique angle: Look for an underexplored or less-researched aspect within your general topic. This could involve examining a specific theory, methodology, or perspective that has not been extensively studied.
• Consider a specific population: Narrowing down your research topic by focusing on a particular demographic group can provide valuable insights. By studying a specific population, such as children, elderly individuals, or individuals from a particular cultural background, you can delve deeper into their unique experiences or challenges.
• Explore a specific context: Investigating a specific context within your general topic can add depth to your research. For example, if your general topic is “Climate Change,” you could narrow it down to “The Impact of Climate Change on Small Island Nations” to explore these regions’ specific challenges.

To illustrate the process, let’s consider some examples:

General topic: “Healthcare.” Specific topic: “The Impact of Telemedicine on Healthcare Access in Rural Areas.” General topic: “Environmental Conservation.” Specific topic: “The Role of Community Engagement in Urban Recycling Programs.”

Selecting a specific topic allows you to focus your research efforts, gather targeted data, and generate more nuanced insights. Remember to ensure that your specific topic is researchable within your available resources, aligns with your research goals, and contributes to the existing body of knowledge.

After selecting a specific research topic, evaluating its feasibility and researchability is essential. This step involves considering various factors to ensure your chosen topic is practical and can be successfully executed. Here are some key considerations:

• Resource availability: Assess the availability of data, research materials, and resources required to conduct your study. Consider whether you can access relevant sources, equipment, funding, or ethical considerations.
• Timeframe: Evaluate the time constraints you have for completing your research. Ensure that your specific topic can be adequately explored within the given timeframe.
• Research scope: Determine your research scope and define your study’s boundaries. Clarify the specific aspects or variables you will investigate and ensure they are manageable within your research context.
• Ethical considerations: Reflect on any ethical considerations related to your research topic. Ensure you adhere to ethical guidelines and obtain necessary approvals or permissions.
• Feasibility assessment: Conduct a feasibility assessment to determine if your research topic is practical and achievable. Consider factors such as the availability of participants or samples, potential challenges, and any constraints that may affect the execution of your study.

By evaluating the feasibility and researchability of your specific topic, you can refine and adjust your research focus as needed. This step ensures that your research is realistic, aligns with your available resources, and has the potential to produce meaningful and valid results.

Some extra tips to help you narrow your topic better:

• Seek Guidance: Don’t hesitate to contact your professors, mentors, or research advisors for guidance and feedback. They can provide valuable insights, help you refine your research topic, and offer suggestions based on their expertise.
• Utilize Online Resources: Take advantage of platforms and databases that offer research paper help online and access to scholarly resources. Academic libraries, reputable websites, and online journals can provide information and research materials.
• Consider Professional Writers and Experts: If you need further assistance or expertise in narrowing down your research topic, consider engaging professional writers or subject matter experts. They can offer valuable insights, provide guidance, and help you develop a well-defined and researchable topic.
• Brainstorm and Generate Ideas: Engage in brainstorming sessions to generate ideas and potential research topics. Use mind mapping or listing techniques to organize your thoughts and visually identify connections between concepts.
• Prioritize Quality Over Quantity: Remember that a well-narrowed and focused research topic is more valuable than a broad and shallow one. Prioritize quality over quantity, ensuring that your research topic allows for in-depth analysis and meaningful contributions to your field of study.
• Consider the Target Audience: Remember the target audience for your research. Consider the relevance and impact of your research topic on the intended readers or stakeholders.

Remember, narrowing down a research topic takes time and thoughtful consideration. Utilizing these tips and resources can effectively refine your topic, enhance the quality of your research, and contribute to the existing body of knowledge.

It’s not a simple task to narrow down a research topic, therefore you may need an assistance of professional writer. Just write a message “please, help me write my paper now” and get your complete assignment soon. 

Get Research Topic Assistance

Narrowing down a research topic is a crucial step that ensures your study’s depth, focus, and relevance. You can craft a researchable framework that generates valuable insights by following techniques such as starting with a general topic, conducting preliminary research, and refining your research questions. These steps, utilizing available resources and the guidance of professional writers and experts, will help you navigate the process confidently. Start narrowing down your research topic today for a good and broad topic exploration. By mastering the art of narrowing down a research topic, you enhance the quality and impact of your work, whether you are a college student, university researcher, or professional in your field. The process allows you to transform broad concepts into specific and manageable research areas, providing a solid foundation for your investigation. In the subsequent sections, we will explore these steps in more detail and provide practical examples of general and specific topics. This comprehensive guide empowers you to refine your research focus, generate innovative ideas, and contribute meaningfully to the existing body of knowledge. With a narrowed-down research topic, you can make valuable contributions in your academic or professional field. Utilize the knowledge gained from this guide, leverage available resources, and unlock new insights that shape the future of your discipline.

So, don’t be afraid to ask for help with your paper or assignment. Just leave a message, “Please, do my assignment for me now!” and do not let any college task be the reason why you feel stressed. If you need high qualitative help with your essay or research paper, contact our expert writers. We offer cheap and fast professional paper writing help for college students. Order your paper today and get time to relax!

What is the importance of narrowing down a research topic? Narrowing down a research topic is important because it helps focus and clarify your study. Refining a broad topic into a specific area of interest allows you to conduct a more in-depth analysis and explore the subject matter more effectively. How do I choose a specific research topic from a general area of interest? To choose a specific research topic, start by conducting preliminary research to understand the general area better. Identify key themes and gaps in knowledge, and then narrow down your focus by defining clear research objectives and refining your research question. Can I seek assistance in narrowing down my research topic? And what about getting someone to do my research paper? Absolutely! Seeking assistance from professional writers, subject matter experts, or professors can provide valuable guidance in narrowing down your research topic. They can offer insights, suggest relevant literature, and help refine your topic to ensure it aligns with your research goals. How do I ensure that my narrowed-down research topic is researchable? To ensure researchability, assess the availability of data, resources, and research methods for your narrowed-down topic. Evaluate feasibility within project constraints like time and resources. This assessment determines if the topic is practical and can be effectively investigated within the parameters.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Terms & Conditions Loyalty Program Privacy Policy Money-Back Policy

Copyright © 2013-2024 MyPaperDone.com

•   [email protected]

Getting Started with Research at Shapiro Library

Narrowing down or broadening your topic.

When you need to broaden or narrow down your topic, ask yourself:

Who am I researching?

• Consider age, gender, profession, ethnicity, humans vs. animals vs. corporations, etc.

What am I researching?

• Consider potential causes and effects, trends, statistics, problems, etc.

When? 

What time period am I interested in? 

• Consider when the topic became significant, century vs. specific dates, historical vs. current data, etc.

Where is my research topic taking place? 

• Consider country, state, city, urban vs. rural, environments like prisons vs. college towns, etc.

Why?  

Why does my research matter?

• Consider what makes it important to you, to your colleagues and peers, to your community, to the world, etc.

• << Previous: Sources of Inspiration for Topics
• Next: What is a Research Question? >>

Libraries | Research Guides

Summer bridge 2022: asking - and answering - questions (clipperton).

• Background Information

Narrow your Topic

Short video tutorials.

• Books & Articles
• Chicago Newspapers
• Chicago Government Information
• Cite Sources
• Types of Sources
• Distinguishing/Evaluating Types of Sources
• Tips for Reading and Notetaking
• Worksheets & Exercise
• Narrow your Topic / Focus your Question

Background encyclopedia sources, such as those in the first tab of this guide, as well as books, can be useful for gaining broad perspective on larger topics.  These sources also may include information on narrower sub-topics within the larger topic, which can help you to begin to find a direction to research.  

You can also think deeper about your topic by developing a "Topic + Question + Significance" sentence. This formula came from Kate Turabian's  Student's Guide to Writing College Papers . Turabian notes that you can use it plan and test your question, but do not incorporate this sentence directly into your paper (p. 13):

TOPIC: I am working on the topic of __________, QUESTION: because I want to find out __________, SIGNIFICANCE: so that I can help others understand __________.

Turabian, Kate L.  Student's Guide to Writing College Papers . 4th edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2010.

Remember : the shorter your final paper, the narrower your topic needs to be. Having trouble?  Here are a few other ways to think about this:

• Which specific subset of the topic you can focus on? Specific demographic groups, people, places, times
• Who What When Where Why How: Do any of these questions help you narrow down?
• Is there something about this topic that is not already addressed in scholarship?
• cause/effect
• compare/contrast
• current/historical
• group/individual
• opinion/reason
• problem/solution
• Four Steps to Narrow Your Research Topic (University of Guelph Libraries)
• Picking your Topic is Research (NCSU Libraries)
• Narrowing a Research Topic (St. Ignasius College Prep)
• << Previous: Background Information
• Next: Books & Articles >>
• Last Updated: Jan 4, 2024 11:08 AM
• URL: https://libguides.northwestern.edu/bridge-questions

Thesis Helpers

Find the best tips and advice to improve your writing. Or, have a top expert write your paper.

Narrowing Down Research Topic: Ultimate Guide With Examples

For most students, narrowing down a research topic makes a huge difference between how they carried out the research while in high school and how they should conduct their research projects in college.

Choosing a suitable research topic requires that you work from outside in. Often, you’ll start with a broader topic and narrow it down to a level where you can establish what you’d like to find out rather than only what you’d like to “write about.”

Whether you’ve been given a general topic to investigate, given several problems to study, or you need to come up with your own topic to study, you should ensure that the research problem’s scope underpinning the study isn’t too broad.

A Step-by-Step Example on Narrowing a Research Topic

To narrow down a specific topic, follow these steps:

1. Choose a general topic area.

An example could be employee turnover.

2. Give specific description of the topic area.

Example: turnover in the nursing industry

3. Mention an aspect of the specific topic:

Example: factors that affect turnover among registered nurses

To narrow down a topic’s focus, follow these steps:

4. Note down extra specifics about the topic.

Example: Workplace stress and turnover among registered nurses.

5. Turn the topic into a sentence or statement.

Example: Workplace stress has a significant impact on turnover among registered nurses.

6. Fine-tune your topic’s focus using elements such as time, place, and relationship.

Example: Workplace stress causes increased turnover among registered nurses in Brooklyn.

What’s Too Broad?

College students get tired when an instructor tells them that the topic they chose is too broad. This problem is very common. How do you tell if your topic is too broad?

If you’ve summed up the topic in one or two words, such as education, school cheating, corporal punishment, smoking, or overweight teens, it’s obviously too broad.

If you visit the library and realize you are staring at a whole section of books that you can use as sources for your study topic, then the topic is too broad. A good topic should address a specific problem or question. You should spot four to five books (or even fewer) on a shelf that can effectively address a specific research problem.

If you can’t easily come up with a thesis statement for your research paper, then chances are your topic is too broad.

The Dangers Of Not Narrowing Down

If you don’t do that, you’ll find it challenging to handle the study problem on the time and space provided. You might face a couple of issues if you choose to write on a very broad PhD research topic. The issues include:

Finding tons of sources of information, which makes it difficult to choose what to omit or include, or what’s the most essential.

Finding generic information that makes it tricky to come up with a clear framework for addressing the research problem

Lack of adequate parameters to effectively define the research problem makes it challenging to identify and use correct methods required for its analysis.

You come across information that addresses a wide array of concepts that can’t be included in a single paper. Consequently, you easily get into unnecessary details.

When starting to write a research paper, there’s a common challenge – determining how to narrow down a research topic.

Even if the professor assigns you a specific topic of study, you’ll still be required to narrow it down to some degree. Besides, the professor will find it boring to mark fifty papers talking about the same thing.

That’s why you should narrow your study’s focus early in the writing process. That way, you won’t try to do too much in one research paper.

Tips For Narrowing A Research Topic

Select one lens and use it for viewing a research problem. The other alternative is to focus on just one angle. For example, instead of studying the different factors that cause cancer, study how smoking can cause lung cancer.

Figure out if the initial unit or variable of analysis can be partitioned into smaller components, so you analyze them with more precision. For example, a study on the use of tobacco among teenagers can be narrowed down to chewing tobacco instead of all forms of tobacco use or teenagers in general. A better approach would be to focus on male teenagers in a specific age range and region who chew tobacco.

Methodology

The methods used to gather data can reduce the scope of interpretive analysis required to address your research problem. For example, you can design a single case study to generate data that won’t require an extensive explanation as that of using multiple cases.

In general, analyzing a smaller geographical unit means a narrow topical focus. For example, instead of studying trade relations in Asia, focus on trade relations between China and Singapore as a case study to guide you in explaining problems in that region.

Relationship

Find out how two or more variables or perspectives relate to each other. When you design a study around the correlation of different variables, it helps you to reduce the scope of your analysis. Examples of variables to look out for are:

Cause and effect

Group and individual

Compare and contrast

Contemporary and historical

Problem and solution

Male and female

Opinion and reason

Study periods can be assigned timeframes. Generally, the shorter a study’s time period, the more narrow its focus becomes. For example, instead of studying trade relations between China and Singapore, focus on the trade relations between China and Singapore between 2010 and 2018.

Focus the study topic with regard to a particular class of people, phenomena, or places. For instance, a study of developing better housing near schools may focus on condominiums, universities, or building materials only.

Combination

You can choose at least two of the above tips to narrow down to a specific topic.

Narrowing Down A Research Topic Is Vital – Use Our Advice!

In sum, you can use the broad topic given by your instructor to narrow down, or you can come up with your own topic first and narrow it down (some teachers give this freedom). Either way, you should ensure your narrowed topic is specific and more of a sentence than just a couple of words.

Remember, you want to be able to write a good thesis statement from the topic and proceed to write a paper on it. You can ask for feedback from your friends or instructor to confirm the topic is good and worth writing about. As you can see, it’s easier to write on a specific topic than one that’s too broad.

Make PhD experience your own

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

• Spartanburg Community College Library
• SCC Research Guides
• Choosing a Research Topic
• 3. Narrow Your Topic / Thesis Statements

Narrow Your Topic

Once you have completed your background research, you will want to start narrowing down your topic a little further. You probably learned a ton of new information about your topic when you were doing your background research, but you cannot write about everything. You need to focus your ideas into one clear, concise research question.

The good news for you is that you already started subconsciously doing this before you began your background research, when you were brainstorming ideas in your concept map. Now that you have done your background research, you're ready to narrow down your topic further and develop a research question and a thesis statement.

What is the difference between a research question and a thesis statement?

The reason that we do research in the first place is to answer a question.

Your research question is the question that you answer while you complete your assignment. Think of your research question as your topic, but in question form.

Research Topic: Cost of college tuition.

Example: How does student loan debt affect students below the poverty line?

Your thesis statement is the answer to your research question. You will spend your whole paper working to prove your thesis statement.

Example: Student loan debt affects students below the poverty line by further hindering their ability to purchase a home, have a family, and pay off their debt.

What makes a good thesis statement?

As you narrow down your topic and develop your thesis, keep in mind, a thesis statement should:

• Clearly answer your research question. Your thesis statement is the answer to that question.
• Outline the position you will take in your paper. Your reader should know exactly what point you are making in your paper.
• Show how you will support your position. Your reader should know exactly how you will support your position.
• Have multiple sides to the issue. Your thesis should not be a common fact or something that can be answered with a "yes" or "no."
• Be flexible. It is common and normal if your thesis statement ends up changing during the research process. As you learn more, your position may change. 

The below video from Scribbr gives a great overview of how to write a strong thesis statement for an argument essay.

• << Previous: 2. Background Research
• Next: Contact Us >>
• What Makes a Good Research Topic?
• 1. Concept Mapping
• 2. Background Research

Questions? Ask a Librarian

• Last Updated: Jan 17, 2024 9:31 AM
• URL: https://libguides.sccsc.edu/chooseatopic

Giles Campus | 864.592.4764 | Toll Free 866.542.2779 | Contact Us

Copyright © 2024 Spartanburg Community College. All rights reserved.

Info for Library Staff | Guide Search

Return to SCC Website

• Seneca Libraries

Q. How do I narrow down my research topic?

• 14 Academic Integrity
• 17 Accessibility Services
• 10 APA 7th Edition
• 18 Articles
• 9 Assignments
• 23 Audio-Visual
• 1 Audiobooks
• 12 Blackboard/Learn
• 35 Borrower Services
• 20 Business Research
• 6 Campus Libraries
• 55 Citation
• 13 Classroom
• 24 Collections
• 4 Contact Information
• 70 Copyright
• 25 Course Readings
• 11 Database Access
• 22 eLearning
• 35 eResources
• 3 ESL Resources
• 9 eTextbooks
• 11 Faculty Welcome Back
• 5 Group Study Rooms
• 2 Intercampus Loan
• 4 Interlibrary Loans
• 14 Library Account
• 29 Library Databases
• 12 Library Instruction
• 30 Library Search
• 2 Loan Periods
• 13 Marketing Research
• 6 Nursing Research
• 23 Online/Streaming Videos
• 7 Persistent Links
• 5 Photocopiers
• 5 Plagiarism
• 4 Remote Access
• 16 Research Databases
• 86 Research Help
• 27 Search Strategies
• 32 Seneca Services
• 10 Subject Guides
• 20 Teaching
• 22 Technical Help
• 15 Textbooks
• 12 Tutorials

Answered By: Allison Ball Last Updated: Dec 11, 2023     Views: 86262

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 meaningful or relevant work 

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?

When developing a research question, think about: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. The more of these you incorporate the more specific your research question will be.

Need more information?

• Where do I start my research?

• Share on Facebook

Was this helpful? Yes 62 No 7

Comments (0)

Related topics.

• Research Help

PLEASE NOTE: This site was designed solely for informational purposes for the Seneca Polytechnic community. All other users are encouraged to check and confirm the information needed with their institution or public library. This site is prepared by library staff and is not reviewed by legal council.

precious tips for writing research papers

How to narrow down a research topic: step-by-step guide.

Whenever writing any piece of an academic research assignment, one of the essential elements a writer must put into consideration is the topic. A topic can make the research process simple or harder, depending on the student’s specialization. Again, a topic can be good enough but common in a manner that many students have already done it. That is why professors always advise students to take notes when deciding on the research topic; thus, the idea of narrowing a research topic becomes crucial.

Some students have adequate research skills but don’t know how to pick a topic. Choosing a simple topic can seem quite basic, and the professor will assume you didn’t put in enough effort during your research period, and this can attract low grades. On the other hand, settling on a complex topic means you must have adequate knowledge of the topic. Again, a complex topic can mean that you may run out of research ideas before you finish your paper, which means wasting time and attracting low grades. For a better understanding of what is a narrowed topic is, keep reading.

Narrow topic meaning: how to narrow down a research topic

Narrowing down a topic means having a broad topic with a lot of concepts, then breaking it down to a research question or a research topic. The reason for narrowing a research topic is to ease the research process. When you have a broad topic, it means you will get many sources to use as you research, and a lot of information might ruin the center of focus when writing your point. In the end, you will have diverse ideas that might be irrelevant to the requirements of your research specialization.

Note : A professor can give you a predefined topic, or you can get the freedom to pick your own question. No matter the criteria used to get a topic, always narrow down your research topic to ease the research.

So, a narrowed topic is a simplified question or research topic that focuses on a particular area or thing. This means when researching on a narrowed topic, you simply maintain the focus on the main point.

How to narrow a research topic: narrow topic examples

When you have a research topic, you will need to modify it further into a simplified statement or question. The reason for doing this is to save you time, as you will focus on a specific search area.

In this section, you will learn distinct ways how to narrow a topic by giving broad topics examples and a simplified version of the same.

Different ways of narrowing down a topic

1. narrowing down a research topic by location.

When your research topic is about a place or a location, ensure you be specific about the exact place to avoid mixed ideas while researching. In your question or statement, let the reader know if it is a rural place, an urban place, the name of the city, province, country, and such information.

For instance: What are the challenges college students from urban Pakistan encounter? This is a simplified version, instead of a statement like, what challenges do college students encounter?

2. Narrowing a topic by timeframe

In your statement or question, determine whether your study is related to past events or recent events. This is crucial as it will help you determine the information you will use.

For instance, how did graduate students overcome challenges when starting to work during the covid-19?

3. Narrowing a research topic by demographic characteristics

This one involves adjusting the topic by considering the gender, ethnic group, occupation, and age groups, among other considerations.

An example : What challenges do international college graduates encounter when starting to work?

4. Using causes to narrowing down a topic

In your topic, you can evaluate what causes an issue you want to research, then frame a simplified topic statement.

An example : Explain why employers prefer few college graduates during the employment process.

5. Using relevant issues to narrow down a topic

The key element here is to determine the key aspects of the topic. You can base the key elements on your opinion, then turn it into a research topic or question.

An example : What challenges do university graduates who can’t find a good job face? Instead of challenges students who cannot find a job face.

In any research work, especially for academic purposes, how you present your topic is significant to the whole research process. Ensure you focus on the key points as you narrow down your research topic.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

• Need a Topic?
• Form a Research Position
• Background Research
• Brainstorming Strategies This link opens in a new window

Narrow Down Your Topic: Example #1

Narrow down your topic: example #2, try narrowing down your topic....

• Choosing Keywords
• Find Articles
• Get Help This link opens in a new window

Forming a Research Question

Topic Development

Concept Map

Topics/Thesis

• #1 Blank Worksheet Complete the attached Topic Development / Pre-Search Worksheet.
• #2 Blank Worksheet (Long Version) Complete the attached Research Exploration Form.
• #2 Fracking Example (Long Version - with additional Social Justice questions)
• << Previous: Brainstorming Strategies
• Next: Choosing Keywords >>
• Last Updated: Mar 15, 2024 9:26 AM
• URL: https://libguides.lmu.edu/needatopic

• How It Works
• PhD thesis writing
• Master thesis writing
• Bachelor thesis writing
• Dissertation writing service
• Dissertation abstract writing
• Thesis proposal writing
• Thesis editing service
• Thesis proofreading service
• Thesis formatting service
• Coursework writing service
• Research paper writing service
• Architecture thesis writing
• Computer science thesis writing
• Engineering thesis writing
• History thesis writing
• MBA thesis writing
• Nursing dissertation writing
• Psychology dissertation writing
• Sociology thesis writing
• Statistics dissertation writing
• Buy dissertation online
• Write my dissertation
• Cheap thesis
• Cheap dissertation
• Custom dissertation
• Dissertation help
• Pay for thesis
• Pay for dissertation
• Senior thesis
• Write my thesis

How to Narrow Down a Research Topic Succesfully

Narrowing a research topic can be hectic, but it is important to do it upfront to ensure your research workflows well. However, this depends on the number of words, the research should have. Do you know how to narrow a research topic? We will provide an overview on narrowing down a topic.

Are you looking for online research paper help? We have the best professional writers that will turn your ideas into quality research papers. Our expert writers help students in college and university. Thereby, be assured of quality work that will gain you top grades at cheap prices.

How to Find a Research Topic?

This depends on your field of study, through this, you will be able to research a relevant topic that you can work on. Getting a research topic should be based on what you want to focus on. A narrow topic will help make it easier to do your research.

Enquire From The Professor – While searching for a research topic, request advice from your professor or supervisor to ensure you get the best topic for your course. In some cases, the supervisors can narrow down on the type of research that you can do. Thereby, making it easier for you to choose a topic. Check The Resources Available – It depends on the number of resources you have. It wouldn’t be right to do a topic that will require you to travel a long distance to go collect your data. Even though there are various ways you can collect data online, it is better when it is an accessible place to get information upfront. What is Your Interest or Hobby? – Your research topic should be based on your hobbies or interests. It shouldn’t just be a topic, but one that you feel most interested in. This will give you the zeal to research more and do your best to provide the best paper to your professor. Your interests will make sure that you are highly motivated to carry out your research in college or university. As time goes by, when you further your studies, you can still do broader research on the same. Previously Done Research – While choosing a topic, ensure there is evidence of previous research on it. It might be hectic if you decide to just do a topic that no one else has ever dealt with. Remember to stick to your field and not just do anything for the sake. There is a wide variety of narrowing a topic examples that you can use as a starting point. The topic needs to be researchable to prevent you from getting issues when carrying out your research. Ideas From Books – Getting a place to begin may be hectic at first. You can even get an idea from books you have been reading and strike an interest. Always choose a topic that sounds interesting. There are a wide variety of books that you can use to get ideas. However, try to get a narrow topic from the broad topics.

How to Narrow Down a Topic

Now that you have gotten a suitable general topic, we can work on how to narrow down the topic. You can either decide to use one or two of the methods. However, using a combination of the methods is most suitable.

Ask Yourself the Three W’s And H.

While choosing a topic you need to ask yourself, why, what, where, when, how, and who? This will help you know whether the topic of interest is good

One of many narrow topic examples includes: Examine food security impact on health in America. Who? People in America

What? Food security

When? Currently in the 21 st century

Where? America – which state specifically?

Why? The impact of food security on health

How? Food security impact.

Through that, you can see whether your general topic is relevant and how to break it down.

Ask Further Questions

On this, you need to consider whether the topic is going to be of importance a few years from now or is just going to be relevant at the moment. In this, ask yourself about the problems, the effect on the target group, how the target group benefits, and the group responsible for it.

Hence, in this, you will research how food security impacts the target people. What problems can be faced if it is not achieved? On this, get to know the motives and effect on the people the food is intended for.

Narrowing down a research topic helps you get a better overview of what you are researching. You can check other scholarly articles to know what people have previously researched and the gap left to fill.

Consider Using the SOCRAPR Model

Take your research topic and narrow it down using the SOCRAPR model . With this, consider these different aspects.

Similarities – How is food security now compared to earlier years? Opposites – How has food security changed over the years? Contrast – How is food security affecting the kind of health people have? Relationship – This is between the accessibility of food and its impact on health. Anthropomorphism – This is in terms of human values – how the lack or plenty of food affects human behaviors. Personification – Give descriptions of human qualities. Repetition – Will food security establishment be a recurring thing?

Compare and Contrast Other Research Papers

You need to compare and contrast previously done papers on the same. This will provide a greater overview of what to expect. While comparing, you will get some great ideas on what to expect and the kind of points that you can write.

You can choose a topic that deals with comparing or contrasting two elements. For example, how food security had an impact on health in the 20 th century as compared to the 21 st century.

Try to read any scholarly articles you can get on the same and gather all the information that seems relevant to your research.

Remember to familiarize yourself with the topic and know how a compare and contrast research topic is done. Think about the topic as two mini papers you are doing while comparing.

The Dangers of Not Narrowing Down A Research Topic

If you work with a general topic be assured that it will be hectic to do the research. However, if you narrow down the topic to minimal it will be easier to narrow down the topic.

Too Much Irrelevant Information. If you do not narrow down a research topic, you will have too much irrelevant information. This will make it hard to know the kind of information to include or omit. It is like going to a store with a wide variety of clothes that look fabulous. You will be caught in between and not know the best one to choose. Hence, narrowing down, makes it easier to choose the resources to use. Difficulty in Coming up With A Clear Framework. It can be hectic to come up with a clear framework to address a research problem. However, if you are working with a straight topic, you will be able to get a clear framework to do your research. A broad topic can make it hard to find the right method you can use for analysis. Lack of Specific Information That Fits. When the topic is too broad, you get too much irrelevant information or relevant information that will make it hard to decide what to put and what to leave out. Getting the specific information that fits can then take you a while.

Hence, broad topic examples can affect how well you will carry out your research. The topic should be educational for at most relevance. Yes, there might be enough information that doesn’t fit your study.

The Best Tips on How to Narrow Down a Research Topic

This is how you can narrow down a research topic through the aspects, methodology, time, place, and type. However, you can either use some of the tips or a combination of all. In the end, it depends on your preference.

Consider the Aspect

From what view would you want to research your topic?

For example in our food security topic, consider finding out, whether the impact on health is different in different age groups; the young and the old.

This will help make you focus on what’s relevant most. Get to know how the initial topic can be partitioned into smaller components for analysis. This will make it easier to focus on the specifics and get relevant information

Methodology to Use

What kind of research methodology are you planning to use in your research? This will help provide a better overview of the research that you should expect to do.

Is it going to be a qualitative or quantitative research paper? Narrow down to what kind of methods are most specific for that specific region. Collection of data is a major factor that you shouldn’t take for granted.

Narrowing it down to a specific area will help make the research much easier to do. However, if it is a global issue, you can consider choosing a larger area. Your scope of the study should cover all the relevant information to make your research paper a success.

For example, where specifically in America? How many states are you planning to study?

Relationship

Get to know your two major variables and see how they relate to each other. Designing a study around the correlation of different variables will put you in a better place.

For example food and health. Those are our major variables as we try to find out how best they relate. Other examples are: cause and effect, compare and contrast, currently or historically, male and female, and opinion and reason.

Thereby, this will make doing the research easier.

At what phase, century or time do you want your research to be based. Is it during the historical or current period? Studies need to be based on the current timeframes. For example, food security impact on health in Washington DC during the 21 st century . Having a specific timeframe makes it easy to perform the research. Remember that different periods have different circumstances and causes.

Don’t Know How To Narrow Your Research Topic?

Remember to narrow down a research topic, you need to first choose a general topic, giving a specific description of the topic, ask yourself questions on the topic, mention the specific aspects in the topic, narrow down the specifics of the topics, turn the topic into a sentence or statement, and get to know the specific place that you want to do the research. How to narrow a topic is easy if you follow all the relevant steps.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment * Error message

Name * Error message

Email * Error message

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

As Putin continues killing civilians, bombing kindergartens, and threatening WWIII, Ukraine fights for the world's peaceful future.

Ukraine Live Updates

Developing a Research Question

Choosing a topic, strategies for narrowing a topic, developing your research question.

• Research Help

You've chosen a research topic, and now you need to find resources about it. Before you get too far along, you will need to narrow down your topic 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.

How do I know if my topic is too broad?

Maybe you received feedback that your topic is too broad, or maybe you're having trouble finding relevant resources using your search keywords. Topics that are too broad are difficult to research. Your topic may be too broad if any of the following happens to you:

• You find too many information sources and it's difficult to determine what is important or relevant, making it hard to decide what to include or exclude.
• You find information that is too general, so it's difficult to develop a clear framework or argument for examining the topic.
• You do not have a clearly defined thesis statement that you can analyze.
• You find information that covers a wide variety of concepts or ideas that can't be integrated into one paper.
• Your outline or proposal seems like it is trailing off into unnecessary tangents.

Choosing a topic can be a difficult process when starting an assignment or writing a paper, and narrowing your topic is an important step in the research process. Here's one strategy for narrowing a broad topic:

Generate a list of more specific areas of interest (or subtopics) related to your overall topic.

For example:

If your topic is education , subtopics include:

• Online education
• Traditional education model
• Common Core
• STEM education

If your topic is crime , subtopics include:

• Juvenile crime
• Sentencing bias
• Criminal justice system
• Racial profiling
• Prison reform

If your topic is work , subtopics include:

• Employment and unemployment
• Wages, salaries and other earnings
• Job training and educational attainment
• Commuting to work
• Workplace organization, innovation, performance
• Job mobility and turnover

Think about Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How

Even if your professor assigns you a specific topic to study, you might still have to narrow it down a little. One way to reframe topics is by thinking about who, what, when, where, why, and how. Here are some common ways you can narrow down any research topic:

• disparities in online learning outcomes for low-income students
• racial differences in sentencing and bail-setting
• challenges faced by international college graduates entering the workforce
• webcam fatigue in online learning
• predictive algorithms in criminal sentencing
• workplace surveillance of employees
• remote learning in rural areas without high-speed internet
• rates of incarceration in the United States versus other parts of the world
• challenges related to working from home versus working in an office
• transition to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic
• the historical roots of the private prison industry
• challenges faced by college graduates entering the workforce during the 2008 recession
• Does requiring students to keep their cameras on during remote learning cause body image issues?
• How is mass incarceration linked to voter suppression?
• Why do employers hire fewer college graduates?

Tip: Use more than one of these types of frames/questions to make your topic even more specific.

Once you have narrowed your topic, you can work on developing a research question that you want to explore. Try brainstorming questions related to your subtopics to develop your research question.

Generate a list of questions that interest you

Questions related to education and its subtopics:

• What is the future of online education?
• Is the traditional education model the most effective?
• Does the Common Core result in better prepared students?
• What are the effects of focusing on STEM education?
• How can we better fund education in America?

Questions related to crime and its subtopics:

• Why are children being tried as adults?
• How should drug offenses be addressed within the criminal justice system?
• How is racial profiling affecting arrest demographics?
• Do for-profit prisons incentivize putting more people in prison?
• Is the purpose of prison to rehabilitate or punish people?
• What are some alternatives to incarceration and how do they affect crime rates?

Questions related to work and its subtopics:

• What are the earnings differences between groups (men and women, university graduates, high school graduates, immigrants, etc.) of workers?
• What are the effects of absenteeism in a specific industry?
• How does sexual harassment affect workplace relationships?
• How do family leave policies impact turnover and retention?

Once you have generated as many research questions as you can for narrowing the topic, choose the option that is most interesting to you and that you think will best fit the length and purpose of your assignment.

Focusing your Research Question

Your project’s focus will be the research question you choose to explore and the conclusions you reach. Begin the research and writing process using the following tips:

• Research your question: Now that you have a research question, you can begin exploring possible answers to it. Your research question allows you to begin researching in a clear direction. Use keywords from your question to search library databases or Google Scholar .
• Create a thesis statement: Once you have a clear understanding of your research question and have developed some answers or conclusions, you can create your thesis statement. Your paper or project will be an extension of your thesis statement where you explain and support your focused topic very specifically.
• Stay flexible: As you continue researching, you may find that you have new information, new answers, or conclusions about your topic. Remember that you can always modify your thesis. Most writers do not really finalize their thesis statement until the last draft of their paper, so think about the focus as a starting point. Your thesis is not set in stone -- it's a flexible concept that is subject to change, and adjusting it is part of the normal research process.
• Next: Research Help >>
• Last Updated: Nov 12, 2021 11:31 AM
• URL: https://libguides.york.cuny.edu/research

• Developing a Research Question

by acburton | Mar 22, 2024 | Resources for Students , Writing Resources

Selecting your research question and creating a clear goal and structure for your writing can be challenging – whether you are doing it for the first time or if you’ve done it many times before. It can be especially difficult when your research question starts to look and feel a little different somewhere between your first and final draft. Don’t panic! It’s normal for your research question to change a little (or even quite a bit) as you move through and engage with the writing process. Anticipating this can remind you to stay on track while you work and that it’ll be okay even if the literature takes you in a different direction.

What Makes an Effective Research Question?

The most effective research question will usually be a critical thinking question and should use “how” or “why” to ensure it can move beyond a yes/no or one-word type of answer. Consider how your research question can aim to reveal something new, fill in a gap, even if small, and contribute to the field in a meaningful way; How might the proposed project move knowledge forward about a particular place or process? This should be specific and achievable!

The CEWC’s Grad Writing Consultant Tariq says, “I definitely concentrated on those aspects of what I saw in the field where I believed there was an opportunity to move the discipline forward.”

General Tips

Do your research.

Utilize the librarians at your university and take the time to research your topic first. Try looking at very general sources to get an idea of what could be interesting to you before you move to more academic articles that support your rough idea of the topic. It is important that research is grounded in what you see or experience regarding the topic you have chosen and what is already known in the literature. Spend time researching articles, books, etc. that supports your thesis. Once you have a number of sources that you know support what you want to write about, formulate a research question that serves as the interrogative form of your thesis statement.

Grad Writing Consultant Deni advises, “Delineate your intervention in the literature (i.e., be strategic about the literature you discuss and clear about your contributions to it).”

Start Broadly…. then Narrow Your Topic Down to Something Manageable

When brainstorming your research question, let your mind veer toward connections or associations that you might have already considered or that seem to make sense and consider if new research terms, language or concepts come to mind that may be interesting or exciting for you as a researcher. Sometimes testing out a research question while doing some preliminary researching is also useful to see if the language you are using or the direction you are heading toward is fruitful when trying to search strategically in academic databases. Be prepared to focus on a specific area of a broad topic.

Writing Consultant Jessie recommends outlining: “I think some rough outlining with a research question in mind can be helpful for me. I’ll have a research question and maybe a working thesis that I feel may be my claim to the research question based on some preliminary materials, brainstorming, etc.” — Jessie, CEWC Writing Consultant

Try an Exercise

In the earliest phase of brainstorming, try an exercise suggested by CEWC Writing Specialist, Percival! While it is normally used in classroom or workshop settings, this exercise can easily be modified for someone working alone. The flow of the activity, if done within a group setting, is 1) someone starts with an idea, 2) three other people share their idea, and 3) the starting person picks two of these new ideas they like best and combines their original idea with those. The activity then begins again with the idea that was not chosen. The solo version of this exercise substitutes a ‘word bank,’ created using words, topics, or ideas similar to your broad, overarching theme. Pick two words or phrases from your word bank, combine it with your original idea or topic, and ‘start again’ with two different words. This serves as a replacement for different people’s suggestions. Ideas for your ‘word bank’ can range from vague prompts about mapping or webbing (e.g., where your topic falls within the discipline and others like it), to more specific concepts that come from tracing the history of an idea (its past, present, future) or mapping the idea’s related ideas, influences, etc. Care for a physics analogy? There is a particle (your topic) that you can describe, a wave that the particle traces, and a field that the particle is mapped on.

Get Feedback and Affirm Your Confidence!

Creating a few different versions of your research question (they may be the same topic/issue/theme or differ slightly) can be useful during this process. Sharing these with trusted friends, colleagues, mentors, (or tutors!) and having conversations about your questions and ideas with other people can help you decide which version you may feel most confident or interested in. Ask colleagues and mentors to share their research questions with you to get a lot of examples. Once you have done the work of developing an effective research question, do not forget to affirm your confidence! Based on your working thesis, think about how you might organize your chapters or paragraphs and what resources you have for supporting this structure and organization. This can help boost your confidence that the research question you have created is effective and fruitful.

Be Open to Change

Remember, your research question may change from your first to final draft. For questions along the way, make an appointment with the Writing Center. We are here to help you develop an effective and engaging research question and build the foundation for a solid research paper!

Example 1: In my field developing a research question involves navigating the relationship between 1) what one sees/experiences at their field site and 2) what is already known in the literature. During my preliminary research, I found that the financial value of land was often a matter of precisely these cultural factors. So, my research question ended up being: How do the social and material qualities of land entangle with processes of financialization in the city of Lahore. Regarding point #1, this question was absolutely informed by what I saw in the field. But regarding point #2, the question was also heavily shaped by the literature. – Tariq

Example 2: A research question should not be a yes/no question like “Is pollution bad?”; but an open-ended question where the answer has to be supported with reasons and explanation. The question also has to be narrowed down to a specific topic—using the same example as before—”Is pollution bad?” can be revised to “How does pollution affect people?” I would encourage students to be more specific then; e.g., what area of pollution do you want to talk about: water, air, plastic, climate change… what type of people or demographic can we focus on? …how does this affect marginalized communities, minorities, or specific areas in California? After researching and deciding on a focus, your question might sound something like: How does government policy affect water pollution and how does it affect the marginalized communities in the state of California? -Janella

Our Newest Resources!

• Transitioning to Long-form Writing
• Integrating Direct Quotations into Your Writing
• Nurturing a Growth Mindset to Overcome Writing Challenges and Develop Confidence in College Level Writing
• An Introduction to Paraphrasing, Summarizing, and Quoting

Additional Resources

• Graduate Writing Consultants
• Instructor Resources
• Student Resources
• Quick Guides and Handouts
• Self-Guided and Directed Learning Activities