Many students find writing an essay a tough ask. It gets even tougher when your tutor asks you to
pick a topic for your essay based on what you have learned. Which topic is the best for an essay? How do you pick a topic that you can easily handle without getting trapped in writer’s block? This article will give you a few ideas on how to get started.
1. Passion for a topic will get you started
Writing an essay isn’t the easiest thing you will ever do while in college. Picking a topic to write an essay complicates it even more. However, if you can find something you are passionate about within the subject, you are halfway through writing a successful essay. See, someone is going to have to read your essay when you are done. The more they read it, the better your chances of scoring a better grade. If your essay is boring to the reader, then you won’t get top grades. It all stems from the passion you show when you are writing your essay. If you love the topic, then you will engage the reader and convince them of your understanding of the subject.
2. Better the topic you know than the massive idea you have no clue about
Picking a topic you know can save you a lot of time and get you on your way to writing a successful paper. If you choose a massive project, chances are you will not have much to write about. Or you will be too overwhelmed to even begin writing. Pick a topic that you already have a lot of information on. Even if you have to research such a topic, you already have a handle on what to look for. Depending on the length of the essay, sometimes you don’t need to do any research at all. You can hand in your essay within a short time if you choose this approach to pick a topic.
3. Don’t bite more than you can chew – narrow down the topic
Many students find themselves stuck trying to
pick a topic because sometimes the initial idea is too big. Unless you can comfortably and exhaustively explore a topic within a single paper, then you don’t need to pick that topic for your essay. Most college essays will not ask you to fill in more than 20 pages of written content. Even if 20 pages sounds like a lot of work, if you pick a gigantic topic, then the 20 pages will not be enough to exhaust the topic. It’s okay to initially have a massive idea for a topic, but keep refining it until you are sure it’s manageable.For instance, if your first idea is to explore the works of Shakespeare, you might want to scale it down a notch – unless you want to write a 1,000-page book. Maybe you could narrow it down to female characters in Shakespeare’s comedies. But then again those may be too many. How about just picking three characters. You could keep narrowing down the big idea until it’s down to chewable size (so to speak).
4. There is always an interesting angle to a topic, find it
This applies when your initial idea is too big to control and exhaustively explore. In that case, you need to find interesting ways to make the idea more manageable. For instance, instead of writing about slavery as a topic, find a way to narrow it down to a country, a state, or time period or even a component of slavery. You could choose to focus on how slavery affected women in a certain state in the late 1700s and how it manifested. That narrows down your focus to one part of the world, one group, and one type of slavery.But it’s never always easy to narrow down a topic without worrying that you won’t have enough to write about in your essay. You could try asking for help from
college papers writers who are experienced in the craft. Most of these writers work for college paper services and will always be ready to help.
5. Have you tried brainstorming?
Sometimes when you can’t decide what topic to go with for your essay, brainstorming ideas can help. Here are some ways to brainstorm;
- Write down a list of things you are interested in. Ensure the list contains what you know about the subject.
- Write down some words that remind you of what the topic is about
- Write down as many ideas that come to your head until you have a long list of ideas to pick from
Brainstorming can help you remember what you like the most about the subject you are writing about and help you pick a topic faster.
Conclusion
Now you have an idea of what you should do when you are asked to pick a topic for an essay. Sometimes it comes down to a few things that you can easily figure out if you are keen enough. These suggestions should get you started.-