When you are thinking about a thesis topic it can become difficult to choose a certain area. This will be particularly important to you if you are new to producing your own piece of original research, and especially if you are looking to complete a paper on an undergraduate degree course. If you have a good understanding of what is required of you, what your paper will look like, and where to find suitable research materials to establish the grounding of your paper, then a topic for your paper shouldn't be all that difficult.



In your area of study, there will be a variety of topics from which you can choose to focus on. It really doesn't matter what topic you decide on, as long as you make it straightforward and manageable for yourself, and making something too difficult for you to complete wouldn't be a good start to the choice of topic at all. There are generally considered two trains of thought when coming to the point of how to choose your topic, and how this will form the direction of the paper. This is through a straightforward hypothesis, that is usually found in undergraduate research papers; leaving this part in question form is usually for the advanced researcher/writer, and is usually reserved for postgraduate research theses. The choice in topic that you choose to write on will also shape the content and format of your paper – essentially what it will look like to the reader.

When considering your topic, you should be looking for something that is both narrow in scope, but well defined. You don't want to restrict yourself and your research potential by focusing on something that is too restrictive; yet, you don't want a topic that encompasses everything in your chosen area – you aren't here to conquer the world.

When you are thinking of what you are going to be concentrating on, you should be wondering if you topic is going to be explanatory, narrative, or a compare and contrast a topic, as well as many more. It is never going to be straightforward when thinking and actually writing your thesis, but, having a clear understanding of what you are actually going to be writing about, or at least a guide/view, is of great importance.

As a student writer, you should also be aware of what is required of you in the different areas that you can choose. Your paper should be interesting to read and therefore be of equal interest to your lecturer/supervisor, colleagues, and other academics in your field of research. Therefore, you should avoid a broad range of ideas that can often be off topic and too vague to produce a concisely written paper.

At the planning stage of your paper, you should also be choosing an avenue that will be something unique and individual to you. You do not want to be researching and writing about something that has been written about over and over again, many times before. That doesn't mean to say that because there has been many authors writing on a certain topic that it would rule it out. On the contrary, you should embrace such a theme and keep in mind that you will need to refer to previously written pieces of research, by other academic authors, throughout the theoretical part of your paper. A main part of this process is making sure that you conduct an initial reading of a few topics that you are interested in, to review whether they are viable options, and if there is sufficient availability of previously researched material.

Overall, your thesis should be an attempt at addressing an existing or imminent problem within a given topic. Also, this problem may have had much research previously conducted on it, but has come up with non-defining analyses; therefore, your independent aspect, as long as it is different enough from other material, will have the ability to convey a new angle on such given information.