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      STAGE 1

      Pre-Writing: Choosing and Narrowing a Topic, Analising Concepts

      Before you begin writing, you decide what you are going to write about. Then you plan what you are going to write. The process is called pre-writing.

      Selecting a topic is possibly the most difficult part of doing research. Is it too big? Is it too narrow? Will I be able to find enough on it? Start by choosing a topic that you like or are curious about. You're going to be working on it for quite a while, so try and find one that's interesting and that you can reasonably cover in the time and space available.

      The Reference shelves behind our Reference Desks are filled with books that can help you focus your topic. These books are good places to start your research when you know little about a topic, when you need an overview of a subject, or when you want a quick summary of basic ideas. They are also useful for discovering the names of important people, and can familiarize you with the vocabulary of the field. Encyclopedia articles are often followed by carefully selected bibliographies or lists of references to other works, useful items to have as you begin looking for additional information.

      Though you should work on something you are interested in, you need to keep it in mind who your readers are and what their interests might be. The topic should be interesting, significant, important and comprehensive to the readers. You need to consider what your readers already know about your topic, their academic levels, what their beliefs are, etc.

      Your research paper needs to be competing and answer all the questions you started with. You need to understand what other questions your readers may have, whether you have discussed all questions or hypotheses you have raised at the beginning of the paper.

      There are many research papers that are very ambitious. They try to explain a big topic and since there are limitations on the length of the paper, they cover a broad topic only superficially. That is, the paper does not thoroughly answer questions it raised, and the readers may be left unsatisfied.

      On the other hand, a good paper handles a small topic that is interesting, important and significant for both the writer/researcher and reader and covers it thoroughly. Then the readers will be convinced and satisfied.

      All papers, not only those for classes but also intended for publication in journals, have the limitations on their length. You keep your paper within these limitations.

      Your topic has to be small enough for the length of the paper. It is very important to choose limited topic so you can cover every aspect in depth rather than large topic that you can only deal with shallowly. Your paper has to be complete, that is, you have to be able to discuss all important points and show your conclusion, otherwise your reader will not be satisfied with your argument.

      Often, and for the best of motives, our problems in essay writing begin the very moment we are given the question. Anxious to get on with the work and not fall behind, we skip the interpretation stage and launch straight into our research. As a result, we read sources and take notes without a clear idea of what’s relevant, beyond some very general idea of the subject of the essay. Then finally, after hours of toil, tired and frustrated, and no clearer about what we’re doing, we’re left with a pile of irrelevant, unusable notes Yet, just an hour or two interpreting the question would not only have saved us this wasted time, but would have given us a clear idea of what the question is getting at and a better understanding of what the examiner is looking for in our work. And even more, it would have given us the opportunity to get our own ideas and insights involved at an early stage. Without this our work can seem routine and predictable: at best just the re-cycling of the ideas that dominate the subject.

      So,

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