Quote:
Originally Posted by Gwathagor
I do need to come up with a good, original topic that really matters, not only because it's a 400-level class, but also in order to keep me interested while I'm working on it.
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In that case (and this will depend upon how much time you have), think of several ideas you're interested in, then go out and research, see what you come up with. Then from what you've gathered see what questions are there.
It took me a while to break the habit of coming up with the topic first, and then doing the research/writing the paper. You can get stuck on trying to figure out a topic, and then once you find that 'perfect' topic, you head out to find the info, but realize there's nothing there, or what you have is all over the place.
I wrote a paper on the notion of privacy and what's ok to publicize, my prof said it was a great idea, bu there is so much on that topic, when I turned in my paper it was a mess. I had John Dewey, court cases, newspapers, everything, and I bombed it. I let my broad topic about "privacy" dictate my paper and it turned out to be a jumbled bunch of random stuff about privacy. And I never answered my question "what is acceptable to publicize?"
Think what interests you about LOTR, read parts you really like, look through threads, write down anything that sticks out, and let the questions come from that. Let the "evidence" form the questions and dictate the topic, instead of being stuck on a topic and finding there's nothing you can write about it or your paper has no focus because the topic has led you all over the place.