Getting Started with a Paper - Coming Up with an Idea

You have an assignment to write a paper on a current topic. How do you come up with an idea? The easy thing to say is to pick something that interests you, but that's not altogether helpful. You could pick your favorite topic in the world and still have problems producing a paper.

A major problem that inexperienced student writers have is that they pick topics that are too broad. It may not seem logical, but a narrow topic can make for a better paper. The trick is finding a balance between "narrow" and broad enough to generate an adequate number of search results for you to work with.Check out our page, Find a Topic, for more details.

Subscription resources that can help you focus your ideas include:

• CQ Researcher's Issue Tracker - Starts with a broad topic (like "Poverty and Homelessness") and lets you drill to more specific considerations (like "Child Poverty" or "Hunger in America")
• Point of View's Browse by Category - Also starts with broad topics ("Censorship") that include more specific aspects ("Banning Books," "Music Censorship," "Political Cartoons and Islam")

Try a visual search tool for another option. EBSCO databases (like Academic Search Premier and Business Source Premier) include a visual search option. You'll find it just below the search box. It lets you start with a broad topic, and as you drill through the lists to more and more specific topics, you'll see how many articles are available for your use.

AllPlus, a free search engine, offers another kind of visual search, scattering results onto an interactive Topic graph so that you can see how concepts relate to one another.