Finding a Paper Topic and Creating a Thesis

In writing without an assigned subject, you must first define a focused, structured question to investigate, and then investigate it ­- roughly twice the work involved in writing with a preset topic.  

• Don't feel obligated to write on material that has been discussed in class. 
• Briefly go over your notes, reading, memory.
• Formulate a question.
• Evaluate your question.
• Answer your question.
• Make an outline before you start writing.

Don't feel obligated to write on material that has been discussed in class.  

An open topic is an invitation by the professor to investigate subjects or interpretations which may have been mentioned in class, but not examined in depth. If you base your paper entirely on lecture or class discussion, it is easy to forget your own ideas, which is what your professor expects. Therefore, before you even start to outline your paper, you should . . . 

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Briefly go over your notes, reading, memory.  

Was there anything that you read/heard about that you thought was interesting, but not thoroughly explained? Was there anything you read that reminded you of something you had studied in another class, or experienced personally? Did you see a connection between two things you read that the class/professor had not noticed? Anything that kept coming up over and over in different readings? At this stage, your concern should not be figuring out your thesis sentence, but rather, finding something that interests and intrigues you. Once you've found this, you should use it to . . . 

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Formulate a question.  

Take the issue that interested/confused you and rephrase it as a question. For example:  

"I'm reading about these medieval scientists, and they all seem to completely disagree with one another, but they all talk about how correct Aristotle was about all things scientific. It seems weird that they all disagree with each other, yet they all claim to agree with the same person."  

This could be turned into any of the following questions:  

"What was the relationship of Aristotle's theories to the way medieval science and scientific debate was carried out?"   

"How do medieval scientists A, B, and C use Aristotle and Aristotelian theory in their arguments, and how do their uses of him differ?"  

"Did these guys (A, B, and C) actually agree with Aristotle, or did they just say that they did because he was an accepted authority?" 

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Evaluate your question.  

Scope: Can you answer your question in the page limit assigned by the professor? The first question above might be a bit too broad. You might restrict it to "the scientific debate between A, B, and C about astronomy" rather than trying to cover all of medieval science and scientists in three pages. Don't try to cover too much material.

Argument: Make sure you can answer your question with a sentence that constitutes an opinion.   

Sources: Make sure you have (or know where to find) enough material to cite to back up your answer to your question.

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Answer your question.   

This answer is your thesis statement, and you are ready to start your paper. 

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Make an outline before you start writing.  

A good paper is one that is well-structured and coherent, with body paragraphs that strongly support your thesis statement. An outline will help to structure your paper so that you do not go astray and include excess or impertinent information.  

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