Choosing Your Own Topic

BETTER WRITING RIGHT NOW LESSON 2 Choosing Your Own Topic... 

Choosing Your Own Topic LESSON 2 -4 BETTER WRITING RIGHT NOW ... 

No matter what topic you choose or what subject matter you ultimately investigate, the process is the same. You need to take your time, gather good and reliable sources, record your information carefully, and write it in a lively, informative way. It is also important to enjoy what you are writing about and to have passion for your subject matter. As you begin to choose a subject, you can use some of the very broad topic areas suggested here or you can research others. Be persistent as you conduct your research and try to get as many different opinions from as many different sources as you can in order to come to your own conclusions. Just remember to let your writing and evidence speak for itself. If you do, your passion and dedication to your subject matter will be evident. 

Choosing the topic you can best support is one of the most challenging parts of Presenting Your Perspective on an Issue. However, once you commit to a topic, you will find that it is much easier to calm your brain and begin to think logically about your writing. Often, one of the claims will speak more to your own personal experiences and you will immediately begin to think of support for that idea. These simple steps should help you choose your claim ... 

How do you choose your breakfast foods Do you want convenience and so you choose a Pop-Tart kind of food Or do you want nutrition and therefore choose a cereal breakfast The writer skillfully answered her own questions, using the subconcepts laid out in her hierarchical chart Carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, and protein. Using topic cues from the box section of her 1-2-3 map as her guide, she introduces her objective, her thesis statement about the nutrition found in cereal, and invites the reader into her essay. 

From 1932 to 1936, Coulson worked toward his Ph.D. at Cambridge. At first he was supervised by the physicist Fowler. Coulson later remembered Fowler "who managed to communicate to me something of his own most evident excitement about it [quantum mechanics]" (Coulson 1955a, 2069). When Coulson was starting graduate work, he asked Fowler what topic to choose for his own research. He had expressed an interest in Mulliken s work on band spectra but was advised to keep away from them "Don t take that up," Fowler said, "unless you are prepared to spend all your life at it. It s a full time job, and if you want to be free to dabble in other topics as they arise, keep away from band spectra" (Coulson 1964, 3). Upon Fowler s sabbatical leave, he became the first student of Lennard-Jones. Relations between professor and... 

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