FINDING A TOPIC

1. FINDING A TOPIC Instructors usually allow students to find their own topics for a major writing assignment; thus, choose something of interest so you won’t get bored after a few days. At the same time, your chosen topic will need a scholarly perspective. To clarify what we mean, let’s take a look at how two students launched their projects. 1. Valerie Nesbitt saw a cartoon about a young woman saying to a man, “Sorry – I only have relationships over the Internet. I’m cyber-sexual.” Although laughing, Valerie knew she had discovered her topic – online romance. Upon investigation, she found her scholarly angle: Matching services and chat rooms are like the arranged marriages from years gone by.

2. FINDING A TOPIC • 2. Norman Berkowitz, while watching news reports of the Iraqi War of 2003, noticed dry and barren land, yet history had taught him that this land between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers was formerly a land of fruit and honey, perhaps even the Garden of Eden. What happened to it? His interest focused, thereafter, on the world’s water supply, and his scholarly focus centered on the ethics of distribution of water. • For further reference on ‘Finding A Topic’, please read your Writing Research Paper, page: 10 – 17.