Your first step towards a successful research endeavor is to choose a good topic. A good topic should be:
Interesting to you and your audience: It should be a topic that you want to know more about and can hold your interest to the end of your research. It should also appeal to your audience.
Neither too broad nor too narrow: A topic that is too broad may not be manageable within your time frame. A topic that is too narrow may not be researchable with no or very few written documents available.
Well-defined & focused: Always try to state your topic as a question or sentence, which becomes the thesis statement. This will help you clarify your thoughts and remain focused.
If you are having trouble selecting your topic for a research assignment or paper, you can get topic ideas and overviews by browsing:
Review the subjects and titles in our Gale Ebooks collection of specialized encyclopedias to find topic ideas.
