a defined topic assignment

28 Writing Assignment Strategies

Learning objectives.

In this chapter, you will:

• Learn about different types of writing assignments
• Identify and evaluate the writing assignment strategies you currently use
• Identify new learning strategies you would like to try

Student Spotlight

This video will help you understand the importance of writing assignments. Why is writing down your thoughts helpful and what are some challenges that you face while writing? These questions will be answered by providing tips that can help you improve your writing skills.

Self-Reflection

Pre-Activity: As you begin thinking about your writing assignments, self-reflect. Ask yourself the following questions, and write down the answers so that you may look back on them later.

• Identification: What types of writing assignments do you currently have?
• Implementation: What strategies do you use to help you with these assignments?
• Effectiveness: How effective are these strategies? How do you know?

The Ins and Outs of Writing Assignments

A key part of acing your academics will be managing writing assignments. The types and amount of writing assignments you have may vary by discipline, and type of class (e.g., writing intensive classes versus non-writing intensive classes). Still, across assignments, disciplines, and classes you will find yourself using similar writing skills. Below you’ll learn more about these skills, why these skills matter, writing assignments, types of writing assignments, writing strategies, and the writing process.

Managing Writing Assignments

Key terms for writing assignments.

Although every writing assignment in every course is unique, there are specific writing approaches that involve concrete kinds of writing that apply across all disciplines. In order to meet the requirements of each assignment, students need to understand what exactly they are being asked to do. Working alone or with your peers, define the following words commonly found in writing assignments:

It ain’t whatcha write; it’s the way atcha write it. —Jack Kerouac, author

Why Do Writing Skills Matter?

Given the prevalence of social media posts, many students today are engaged with writing text like no other generation before, but college is a time to spend even more time and attention on writing skills. Research shows that deliberate practice with a close focus on improving one’s skills makes all the difference in how one performs. Developing the craft of writing and becoming an excellent communicator will save you a lot of time in your studies, advance your career, and promote better relationships and a higher quality of life off the job. Honing your writing is a good use of your time because it pays off academically, personally, and professionally.

Also, consider this: a recent survey of employers conducted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities found that 89 percent of employers say colleges and universities should place more emphasis on “the ability to effectively communicate orally and in writing” (Hart Research Associates, 2009, p.9). It was the single-most favored skill in this survey.

In addition, several of the other valued skills employers cited are also grounded in written communication:

• “Critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills” (81 percent);
• “The ability to analyze and solve complex problems” (75 percent);
• “The ability to locate, organize, and evaluate information from multiple sources” (68 percent).

Writing in College

If the average student completes about 40 classes for a 120-credit bachelors’ degree and produces about 2,500 words of formal writing per class, it equates to 100,000 words during their college career. That’s roughly equivalent to a 330-page book.

Sharpening your writing skills will make those 100,000 words much easier and more rewarding to write. All your professors care about good writing.

College writing assignments require students to apply their existing writing skills, such as paragraphing, supporting a thesis, using correct punctuation, to tackling intellectual challenges in new ways. Professors assign papers because they want students to think rigorously and deeply about important questions in their fields. To college instructors, writing is for working out complex ideas, not just explaining them. A paper that would earn a top score in high school might only get a C or D in a college class if it doesn’t show original and ambitious thinking.

Professors look at students as developing scholars and expect them to write as someone who has a genuine interest in tackling a complex question. They expect them to look deeply into the evidence, consider several alternative explanations, and work out an original, insightful argument that they care enough about to spend a significant amount of time and energy developing into an effective essay that meets the requirements of each unique assignment.

Types of Assignments

Writing assignments can be as varied as the instructors who assign them. Some are explicit about what exactly you’ll need to do, in what order, and how it will be graded while some assignments are very open-ended, leaving you to determine the best path forward. Most fall somewhere in the middle, containing details about some aspects but leaving other assumptions unstated.

Most writing in college will be a direct response to class materials, such as an assigned reading, a discussion in class, or an experiment in a lab. Generally speaking, these writing tasks can be divided into the three broad categories described below.

Summary Assignments

Being asked to summarize a source is a common requirement in many types of writing assignments. At first it can seem like a straightforward task to simply restate, in shorter form, what the source says, but a lot of advanced skills are required to effectively capture what someone else has attempted to communicate.

An acceptable summary does the following:

• reflects your accurate understanding of a source’s thesis or purpose
• differentiates between major and minor ideas in a source
• demonstrates your ability to identify key phrases to quote
• demonstrates your ability to effectively paraphrase most of the source’s ideas
• captures the tone, style, and distinguishing features of the original source
• remains free of your personal opinion about the source

That last point is often the most challenging: we are opinionated creatures by nature, and it can be very difficult to keep our opinions from creeping into a summary that should be completely neutral. Although college-level writing assignments that are only summary are rare, most require students to summarize some important information before they move on to other tasks such as analyzing, contrasting, or persuading.

Defined-Topic Assignments

Sometimes instructors will ask you to address a particular topic or a narrow set of topic options. Often, they will give out an assignment sheet explaining the purpose, required parameters (length, number and type of sources, referencing style), and criteria for evaluation. Even with all that information, however, it can sometimes be difficult to determine what aspects of the writing will be most important when it comes to grading.

Below are some tips that may help when you are unsure how to approach or need more clarification on a defined-topic writing assignment:

• Focus on what is expected. Look for verbs like compare, explain, justify, reflect, or the all-purpose analyze. Remember you’re not just producing a paper as an artifact; rather, you’re conveying, in written communication, some intellectual work you have done. What kind of thinking are you supposed to do to deepen your learning in that particular discipline?
• Put the assignment in context. Many professors think in terms of assignment sequences or units. For example, a social science professor may ask you to write about a controversial issue three times: first, arguing for one side of the debate; second, arguing for another; and finally, incorporating text produced in the first two assignments to help you think through a complex issue in a more comprehensive and nuanced manner. If the assignment isn’t part of a sequence, think about where it falls in the span of the course (early, midterm, or toward the end), and how it relates to readings and other assignments.
• Try a free-write. A free-write is when you just write, without stopping, for a set period of time about whatever comes to mind. Professional writers use free-writing to get started on a challenging writing task and to overcome writer’s block or procrastination. The idea is that if you just make yourself write, you can’t help but produce some kind of useful nugget. Thus, even if the first eight sentences of your free write are all variations on “I don’t understand this” or “I’d really rather be doing something else,” eventually you’ll write something that will help move you in the right direction.
• Ask for clarification. Even the most carefully crafted assignments may need some verbal clarification, especially if you’re new to a course or field. When reaching out to your instructor for clarification via email or during office hours, try to convey that you want to learn and you’re ready to work. When the assignment is being discussed in class, raise your hand and ask a question. Most likely you’re not the only student in class who could use some clarification.

Although the topic may be defined, you can’t just grind out four or five pages of discussion, explanation, or analysis; even when you’re being asked to “show how” or “illustrate,” you’re still being asked to make an argument. You must shape and focus your discussion or analysis so that it supports a claim or thesis and all of your discussion and explanations develop and support that claim.

Undefined-Topic Assignments

While defined-topic essays demonstrate your knowledge of the content, undefined-topic assignments are used to demonstrate skills such as your ability to perform academic research, to synthesize ideas, or to apply the various stages of the writing process.

Undefined-topic assignments you’ll potentially encounter may be only broadly identified (“water conservation” in an ecology course, for instance, or “the Dust Bowl” in a U.S. History course) or completely open (“compose an argumentative research essay on a subject of your choice”). The first hurdle with this type of task is to find a focus that interests you.

You’ll get the most value out of, and find it easier to work on, a topic that intrigues you personally in some way, so spend some time exploring potential topic ideas before settling on one. The same getting-started ideas for defined-topic assignments described above will help with these kinds of projects, too. You can also talk with your classmates, instructor, or a writing tutor to help brainstorm ideas and make sure you’re on track.

The Writing Process

No writer, not even a professional, composes a perfect draft in the first attempt. Every writer fumbles and has to work through a series of steps to arrive at a high-quality finished project.

You may have encountered these steps as assignments in classes: draft a thesis statement; complete an outline; turn in a rough draft; participate in a peer review; revise and edit; create a final copy. Most likely in higher education, these writing process steps won’t often be completed as part of class, but you should still follow them on your own.

It helps to recognize that the steps of the writing process aren’t rigid and prescribed. Instead, they are flexible, so you can adapt them to your own personal habits, preferences, and the topic at hand. You will probably find that your process changes, depending on the type of writing you’re doing and your comfort level with the subject matter.

Research Paper Writing Steps

• Come up with a topic or question. What do you want to answer with your paper?
• Do your research. Learn research strategies from Getting Started with Research: Basic Information. You can also get help at the LaGuardia Library website.
• Develop a thesis statement and outline. Come up with a “working” thesis, an argument that you might change but will help you direct your paper.
• Write a draft. Try setting a goal word count for each day and do your best to stick to it.
• Revise, edit, and proofread your paper. Read your paper out loud to yourself to catch any mistakes and see if it makes sense.

These steps are a helpful overview of what is involved in completing an essay. Keep in mind that it isn’t always a linear process, though. It’s okay to loop back to earlier steps again if needed. For instance, after completing a draft, you may realize that a significant aspect of the topic is missing, which sends you back to researching. Or the process of research may lead you to an unexpected subtopic, which shifts your focus and requires you to revise your thesis. Embrace the circular, recursive path that writing often takes because it helps you become a better thinker and communicator.

Revision and Proofreading

These last two stages of the writing process are often confused with each other, but they mean very different things and serve very different purposes.

Revision is literally “reseeing.” It asks a writer to step away from a piece of work for a significant amount of time and return later to see it with new eyes. Producing multiple drafts of an essay is important because it allows some space in between each one to let thoughts mature, connections to arise, and gaps in content or an argument to appear.

Although it’s important to leave time between drafts, it’s difficult to do given that most college students face tight timelines to get big writing projects done. One way to help that happen is to start right away, and some tricks can help you “resee” a piece of writing when you’re short on time. Reading a paper backward sentence by sentence and reading your work aloud both allow you to approach your paper from a fresh perspective. Whenever possible, though, build in at least a day or two to set a draft aside before returning to work on the final version.

Proofreading , on the other hand, is the very last step taken before turning in a project. This is the point where spelling, grammar, punctuation, and formatting all take center stage.

It’s okay not to memorize every grammar rule, but it’s also important to know where to turn for help. Utilizing the grammar-check feature of your word processor is a good start, but it won’t solve every issue (and may even cause a few itself). Your campus tutoring or writing center is a good place to turn for support and help. They will not proofread your paper, but they will offer strategies for how to spot and correct issues that are a pattern in your writing.

Finding a trusted person to help you edit is perfectly ethical, as long as that person offers you advice and doesn’t actually do any of the writing for you. Professional writers rely on outside readers for both the revision and editing process, and it’s a good practice for you to do so as well.

Using Sources

College courses offer few opportunities for writing that won’t require using outside resources. Creative writing, applied lab, or field research classes will value what you create entirely from your own mind or from the work completed for the class. For most college writing, however, you will need to consult at least one outside source.

There are several different documentation styles you might be asked to practice within your classes. Each instructor should make it clear which of the major style will be used in their courses:

• MLA (Modern Language Association) is generally used for courses in the Humanities.
• APA (American Psychological Association) is used for most courses in Education, Psychology, and the Sciences.
• Chicago is often used for courses in Business, History, and the Fine Arts.

Regardless of the style, the same principles are true any time a source is used: give credit to the source in the paper as well as in a bibliography (or Works Cited page or References page) at the end. Each of these associations publishes handbooks and guidelines on how to effectively use their citation style, and most learning centers can provide materials and support to accurately write papers and cite sources in the conventions of all three styles..

Writing Style Guides

• Style for Students
• Purdue Online Writing Lab
• Excelsior Online Writing Lab

A Closer Look

Think about your written abilities in the following areas, and when you use these skills. What are your strengths, what are your challenges? Document the following information for a two week period of time. Be sure to also think about your time management, and the outcome of the skill implementation.

After two weeks, review your responses. Which skills worked well for you? Are there any revisions you will make going forward? If so, what are these and why are you making these revisions?

Next steps: Write down one new thing you will change about the way you manage your writing assignments. Explain why you will make this change.

Additional Resources

• Time Management and Plagiarism: A key part of writing will be managing your time. According to the LaGuardia Library Plagiarism Prevention Guide, good time management is a great way to avoid plagiarism in your written assignments. Go to the LaGuardia Library Plagiarism Prevention Guide to learn more about this.
• Chapter Connections: As discussed, time management is a key part of managing your writing assignments. Go to the Time Management and Procrastination section of this textbook to learn more about how to enhance your time management skills!
• Communication: Writing is one way to communicate your thoughts and learning. LaGuardia Community College commits to developing student ability to communicate in written, oral, and digital formats. Go to the LaGuardia Community College Written, Oral, & Digital Communication Rubric to learn more.

You have the tools you need to ace your academics! As you move forward in your journey, monitor your practices to be sure you are implementing the practices that work best for you. As you go forward, adjust these practices, and be sure to connect to the campus resources for further support. You are on your way!

Key Takeaways

Acing Academics requires awareness of your current practices; monitoring of your current practices; reflection upon the effectiveness of your current practices; and revision of your practices based on information you collect about the effectiveness of your practices. If a strategy works particularly well for you based upon your self-monitoring of your strategy use, be sure to keep implementing this effective practice. If a strategy is not effective time and time again, consider if it is the right strategy for you and the outcome you are trying to achieve. Then, identify a new strategy that may be more effective. Use your college and community resources. You are on your way to acing your academics!

references, licenses, and attributions

Guptill, Amy (2016). Really? Writing? Again? In Writing in college: Competence to excellence . https://milnepublishing.geneseo.edu/writing-in-college-from-competence-to-excellence/chapter/really-writing-again/ . CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 except where otherwise noted.

Jones, E. J. (2010). Chris Knight’s writing . Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/elijuicyjones/4465714643/in/photostream/ CC BY-NC 2.0

LaGuardia Community College (n.d.) Written, oral & digital communication abilities . Retrieved August 10, 2022 from https://www.laguardia.edu/uploadedfiles/main_site/content/divisions/aa/assessment/docs/communication%20abilities%20rubric.pdf

Westchester Community College (n.d.). Managing writing assignments. In Westchester community college first-year seminar . Retrieved August 10, 2022 from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-wcc-collegesuccess2/chapter/writing-strategies/ . CC BY 4.0

First Year Seminar Copyright © 2022 by Kristina Graham; Rena Grossman; Emma Handte; Christine Marks; Ian McDermott; Ellen Quish; Preethi Radhakrishnan; and Allyson Sheffield is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

Choosing and Refining Topics

When we are given a choice of topics to write on, or are asked to come up with our own topic ideas, we must always make choices that appeal to our own interests, curiosity, and current knowledge. If you decide to write an essay on same sex marriage, for instance, it is obvious that you should make that decision because you are interested in the issue, know something about it already, and/or would like to know more about it. However, because we rarely write solely for our own satisfaction, we must consider matters other than our own interests as we choose topics.

A Definition of a Topic

A topic is the main organizing principle of a discussion, either verbal or written. Topics offer us an occasion for speaking or writing and a focus which governs what we say. They are the subject matter of our conversations, and the avenues by which we arrive at other subjects of conversations. Consider, for instance, a recent class discussion. Although your instructor determined what topic you discussed initially, some students probably asked questions that led to other topics. As the subjects of our discussions lead to related subjects, so do the topics we write about lead to related topics in our academic studies. However, unlike the verbal conversations we have, each individual piece of writing we produce usually focuses on a single topic. Most effective writers learn that when they present a well-defined, focused, and developed topic, they do a better job of holding their readers' attention and presenting appropriate information than if they had not attempted to place boundaries on the subject of their writing.

Arriving at Topics for Writing Assignments

In academic writing, topics are sometimes dictated by the task at hand. Consider, for example, that you must conduct a lab experiment before you can sit down to write a report. Or perhaps you have to run a statistical program to get your data. In these situations, your topic is determined for you: You will write about the results of the work you have completed. Likewise, your instructor may simply hand you a topic to explore or to research. In these situations, you are delivered from both the responsibility and the rewards of choosing your own topic, and your task is to try to develop an interest in what you have been given to write about.

More often, however, you will have a bit more leeway in choosing topics of your own. Sometimes you will be asked to find a topic of interest to you that is grounded in ideas developed in shared class readings and discussions. Other times, your assignment will be anchored even less, and you will be responsible for finding a topic all on your own. Many students find that the more freedom they are given to pursue their own interests, the more intimidated they are by this freedom, and the less certain they are of what really is interesting to them. But writing assignments with open topic options can be excellent opportunities either to explore and research issues that are already concerns for you (and which may even have been topics of earlier writing) or to examine new interests. A well chosen writing topic can lead to the types of research questions that fuel your academic interests for years to come. At the very least, though, topics can be seen as occasions for making your writing relevant and meaningful to your own personal and academic concerns.

How Purpose and Audience Affect the Choice of Topics

Before choosing and narrowing a topic to write about, consider why you are writing and who will read what you write. Your writing purpose and audience often dictate the types of topics that are available to you.

In the workplace, purpose and audience are often defined for you. For instance, you might have to write a memo to a co-worker explaining why a decision was made or compose a letter to a client arguing why the company cannot replace a product. In either case, your purpose and audience are obvious, and your topic is equally evident. As a student, you may have to work a little harder to determine which topics are appropriate for particular purposes and audiences.

Oftentimes, the wording of your assignment sheet will offer clues as to the reasons why you are writing and the audience you are expected to address. Sometimes, when assignment sheets are unclear or when you misunderstand what is expected of you, you will need either to ask your instructor about purpose and audience or to make your own educated guess. However you arrive at the purpose and the audience of your writing, it is important to take these elements into consideration, since they help you to choose and narrow your topic appropriately.

Interpreting the Assignment

Steve Reid, English Professor It's important to circle an assignment's key words and then ask the instructor to clarify what these words mean. Every teacher has a different vocabulary. My students always ask me what I'm looking for when I give an assignment. As a writer, you need to know what the words mean in your field and what they mean to your instructor.

Many times, an assignment sheet or verbal assignment given by an instructor will reveal exactly what you are being asked to do. The first step in reviewing an assignment sheet is to circle key words or verbs, such as "explain," "describe," or "evaluate." Then, once you've identified these words, make sure you understand what your instructor means by them. For example, suppose your instructor asks you to describe the events leading up to World War II. This could mean explain how the events prior to World War II helped bring about the beginning of the war, or list every possible cause you think led to the war, or describe and analyze the events. Inquiring before you start writing can help you determine your writing purpose and the expectations of your intended audience (usually your instructor).

How Purpose Affects Topics

Your purpose helps you to narrow a topic, since it demands particular approaches to a general subject. For example, if you're writing about how state policy affects foreign language study in grades K-12 in Oregon, you could have several different purposes. You may need to explain how the Oregon law came about; that is, what influenced it and who was responsible. Or perhaps you would need to explain the law's effects, how curriculum will be altered, etc. Another purpose might be to evaluate the law and to propose changes. Whatever purpose you decide to adopt will determine the questions which give direction to your topic, and (in the case of a research paper) will suggest the type of information you will need to gather in order to address those questions.

How Audience Affects Topics

Steve Reid, English Professor You have to be careful so your topic is not too narrow for your audience. You don't want readers to say, " Well, so what? I couldn't care less." One the most important roles a topic plays is impacting an audience. If your topic gets too narrow and too focused, it can become too academic or too pedantic. For example, every year at graduation, I watch people laugh when they hear the title of a thesis or dissertation. The students who wrote these documents were very narrowed and focused, but their audiences were very restricted.

Having a clear idea of the audience to whom you are writing will help you to determine an appropriate topic and how to present it. For example, if you're writing about how state policy affects foreign language study in grades K-12 in Oregon, you could have many different audiences. You could be writing for teachers, administrators at a specific school, students whose educational program will be affected by the law, or even the PTA. All of these audiences care about the topic since they are all affected by it. However, for each of them you may need to provide different information and address slightly different questions about this topic. Teachers would want to know why the policy was created and how it will affect what goes on in their classrooms. Parents will want to know what languages their children will be taught and why. Administrators will want to know how this will change the curriculum and what work will be required of them as a result. Knowing your audience requires you to adapt and limit your topic so that you are presenting information appropriate to a specific group of interested readers.

Choosing Workable Topics

Most writers in the workplace don't have to think about what's workable and what's not when they write. Writing topics make themselves obvious, being the necessary outcome of particular processes. For example, meetings inspire memos and minutes; research produces reports; interactions with customers result in letters. As a student writer, your task is often more difficult than this, since topics do not always "find you" this easily.

Finding and selecting topics are oftentimes arduous tasks for the writer. Sometimes you will find yourself facing the "blank page" or "empty screen" dilemma, lacking topic ideas entirely. Other times you will have difficulties making your ideas fit a particular assignment you have been given. This section on "Choosing a Workable Topic" addresses both of these problems, offering both general strategies for generating topic ideas and strategies for finding topics appropriate to particular types of writing assignments that students frequently encounter.

How to Find a Topic

Don Zimmerman, Journalism and Technical Communication Professor I look at topics from a problem solving perspective and scientific method. Topics emerge from writers working on the job when they're in the profession, following major trends, developments, issues, etc. From the scientific perspective, topics emerge based on solid literature reviews and developing an understanding of the paradigm. From these then come the specific problems/topics/subjects that professionals or scientists address. Writers generate topics from their professional expertise, their understanding of the issues in their respective disciplines, and their understanding the science that has gone before them.

While your first impulse may be to dash off to the library to dig through books and journals once you've received an assignment, you might also consider other information sources available to you.

Related Information: Making Use of Computer Sources

One valuable source of topic ideas is an Internet search. Many sites can provide you with current perspectives on a subject and can lead you to other relevant sites. You can also find and join newsgroups where your general subject or topic is discussed daily. This will allow you to ask questions of experts, as well as to read what issues are important.

Related Information: Making Use of Library Sources

It is always helpful, particularly in the case of writing assignments which demand research, to visit the library and talk to a reference librarian when generating topic ideas. This way, you not only get to discuss your topic ideas with another expert, but you will also have more resources pointed out to you. There is usually a wealth of journals, reference books, and online resources related to your topic area(s) that you may not even know exist.

Related Information: Talking to Others Around You

The people around you are often some of the best sources of information available to you. It is always valuable to talk informally about your assignment and any topic ideas you have with classmates, friends, family, tutors, professionals in the field, or any other interested and/or knowledgeable people. Remember, too, that a topic is not a surprise gift that must be kept from your instructor until you hand in your paper. Instructors are almost always happy to discuss potential topics with a student once he or she has an idea or two, and getting response to your work early in the writing process whenever possible is a good plan. Discussing your topic ideas in these ways may lead you to other ideas, and eventually to a well-defined topic.

Subjects and Topics

Most topic searches start with a subject. For example, you're interested in writing about languages, and even more specifically, foreign languages. This is a general subject. Within a general subject, you'll find millions of topics. Not only about every foreign language ever spoken, but also about hundreds of issues affecting foreign languages. But keep in mind that a subject search is always a good place to start.

Every time you use Yahoo or other Internet search engines, or even SAGE at the CSU library, you conduct a subject search. These search devices allow you to review many topics within a broad subject area. While it's beneficial to conduct subject searches, because you never know what valuable information you'll uncover, a subject always needs to be narrowed to a specific topic. This way, you can avoid writing a lengthy book and focus instead on the short research paper you've been assigned.

Starting With What You Know

Kate Kiefer, English Professor Most often the occasion dictates the topic for the writing done outside academe. But as a writer in school, you do sometimes have to generate topics. If you need help determining a topic, create an authority list of things you have some expertise in or a general list of areas you know something about and are interested in. Then, you can make this list more specific by considering how much you know and care about these ideas and what the target audience is probably interested in reading about.

In looking for writing topics, the logical first step is to consider issues or subjects which have concerned you in the past, either on the basis of life experience or prior writing/research. If you are a journal writer, look to your journal for ideas. If not, think about writing you have done for other writing assignments or for other classes. Though it is obviously not acceptable to recycle old essays you have written before, it is more than acceptable (even advisable) to return to and to extend topics you have written about in the past. Returning to the issues that concern you perennially is ultimately what good scholarship is all about.

Related Information: Choosing Topics You Want to Know More About

Even though your personal experience and prior knowledge are good places to start when looking for writing topics, it is important not to rule out those topics about which you know very little, and would like to know more. A writing assignment can be an excellent opportunity to explore a topic you have been wanting to know more about, even if you don't have a strong base knowledge to begin with. This type of topic would, of course, require more research and investigation initially, but it would also have the benefit of being compelling to you by virtue of its "newness."

Related Information: How to Pull Topics from Your Personal Experience

It is a good idea to think about how elements of your own life experience and environment could serve as topics for writing, even if you have never thought of them in that way. Think about the topics of recent conversations you have had, events in your life that are significant to you, problems in your workplace, family issues, matters having to do with college or campus life, or current events that evoke response from you. Taking a close look at the issues in your immediate environment is a good place to start in writing, even if those issues seem to you at first to be unworthy of your writing focus. Not all writing assignments have a personal dimension, but our interests and concerns are always, at their roots, personal.

General Strategies for Coming Up With Topics

Before attempting to choose or narrow a topic, you need to have some ideas to choose from. This can be a problem if you are suffering from the "blank page or screen" syndrome, and have not even any initial, general ideas for writing topics.

Brainstorming

As writers, some of our best ideas occur to us when we are thinking in a very informal, uninhibited way. Though we often think of brainstorming as a way for groups to come up with ideas, it is a strategy that individual writers can make use of as well. Simply put, brainstorming is the process of listing rough thoughts (in any form they occur to you: words, phrases, or complete sentences) that are connected (even remotely) to the writing assignment you have before you or the subject area you already have in mind. Brainstorming works best when you give yourself a set amount of time (perhaps five or ten minutes), writing down anything that comes to mind within that period of time, and resisting the temptation to criticize or polish your own ideas as they hit the page. There is time for examination and polishing when the five or ten minutes are over.

Freewriting

Freewriting is a technique much like brainstorming, only the ideas generated are written down in paragraph rather than list form. When you freewrite, you allow yourself a set amount of time (perhaps five or ten minutes), and you write down any and every idea that comes to mind as if you are writing a timed essay. However, your freewrite is unlikely to read like an organized essay. In fact, it shouldn't read that way. What is most important about freewriting is that you write continuously, not stopping to check your spelling, to find the right word, or even to think about how your ideas are fitting together. If you are unable to think of something to write, simply jot out, "I can't think of anything to write now," and go on. At the end of your five or ten minutes, reread what you have written, ignore everything that seems unimportant or ridiculous, and give attention to whatever ideas you think are worth pursuing. If you are able to avoid checking yourself while you are writing for that short time, you will probably be surprised at the number of ideas that you already have.

Clustering is a way of visually "mapping" your ideas on paper. It is a technique which works well for people who are able to best understand relationships between ideas by seeing the way they play themselves out spatially. (If you prefer reading maps to reading written directions, clustering may be the strategy for you.) Unlike formal outlining, which tends to be very linear, clustering allows you to explore the way ideas sprawl in different directions. When one thought leads to another, you can place that idea on the "map" in its appropriate place. And if you want to change its position later, and connect it with another idea, you can do so. (It is always a good idea to use a pencil rather than a pen for clustering, for this very reason.)

This is a good strategy not only for generating ideas, but also for determining how much you have to say about a topic (or topics), and how related or scattered your ideas are.

Related Information: Example of Brainstorming

Ideas on a Current Issue:

• multiculturalism
• training of teachers
• teaching strategies
• cultural difference in the classroom
• teaching multicultural texts
• language issues
• English only
• assimilation, checking cultural identity at the door
• home language/dialect as intentionally different from school language
• How many languages can we teach? (How multi-lingual must teachers be?)
• Is standard English really "standard"?
• success in school
• statistics on students who speak "non-English" languages or established dialects
• the difference between a dialect and a language
• Ebonics v. bi-lingual education

Related Information: Example of Freewriting

Problem: Development of Small Towns in the Rocky Mountain Region

When I grew up in Anyoldtown, New Mexico, it was a small town in the smallest sense: no movie theaters, no supermarkets, nothing. We had to go into town for the things we needed. Land sold for $2000 an acre. Now it sells for about $50,000 an acre. Anyoldtown was also primarily hispanic, and the families who lived there had very little. Now the people who live there are mostly white and almost exclusively professionals: doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, and an endless number of people who have money that seems to have come from nowhere. There are good things to be had there now: good restaurants, good coffee, and all the other things that come along with Yuppie invasion. But those things were had at quite a cost. People who used to live in Anyoldtown when I was a kid can no longer afford to pay property taxes. I can't think of anything else to write now. Oh, yes...these people made a killing off the sale of their land and properties, but they had to give up the places they had lived all their lives. However, by the time they sold, Anyoldtown was no longer the place where they had lived all their lives anyway.

Strategies for Finding Topics Appropriate to Particular Types of Assignments

Sometimes your ways of generating topics will depend on the type of writing assignment you have been given. Here are some ideas of strategies you can use in finding topics for some of the more common types of writing assignments:

Essays Based on Personal Experience

Essays responding to or interpreting texts.

• Essays in Which You Take a Position on an Issue (Argument)

Essays Requiring Research

Essays in which you evaluate, essays in which you propose solutions to problems.

The great challenge of using personal experience in essays is trying to remember the kinds of significant events, places, people, or objects that would prove to be interesting and appropriate topics for writing. Brainstorming, freewriting, or clustering ideas in particular ways can give you a starting point.

Here are a few ways that you might trigger your memory:

Interview people you've known for a long time.Family members, friends, and other significant people in your life can remember important details and events that you haven't thought about for years.

Try to remember events from a particular time in your life. Old yearbooks, journals, and newspapers and magazines can help to trigger some of these memories.

Think about times of particular fulfillment or adversity. These "extremes" in your experience are often easily recalled and productively discussed. When have you had to make difficult choices, for instance? When have you undergone ethical struggles? When have you felt most successful?

Think about the groups you have encountered at various times in your life. When have you felt most like you belonged to or were excluded from groups of people: your family, cliques in school, clubs, "tracked" groups in elementary school, religious groups, or any other community/organization you have had contact with?

Think about the people or events that "changed your life." What are the forces that have most significantly influenced and shaped you? What are the circumstances surrounding academic, career, or relationship choices that you have made? What changes have you dealt with that have been most painful or most satisfying?

Try to remember any "firsts" in your experience.What was your first day of high school like? What was it like to travel far from home for the first time? What was your first hobby or interest as a child? What was the first book you checked out of the library? These "firsts," when you are able to remember them, can prove to have tremendous significance.

One word of caution on writing about personal experience: Keep in mind that any essay you write for a class will most likely be read by others, and will probably be evaluated on criteria other than your topic's importance to you. Never feel like you need to "confess," dredge up painful memories, or tell stories that are uncomfortable to you in academic writing. Save these topics for your own personal journal unless you are certain that you are able to distance yourself from them enough to handle the response that comes from instructors (and sometimes from peers).

Students are often asked to respond to or interpret essays, articles, books, stories, poems, and a variety of other texts. Sometimes your instructor will ask you to respond to one particular reading, other times you will have a choice of class readings, and still other times you will need to choose a reading on your own.

If you are given a choice of texts to respond to or to interpret, it is a good idea to choose one which is complex enough to hold your interest in the process of careful examination. It is not necessarily a problem if you do not completely understand a text on first reading it. What matters is that it challenges, intrigues, and/or evokes response from you in some way.

Related Information: Writing in the Margins of Texts

Many of us were told at some point in our schooling never to write in books. This makes sense in the case of books which don't belong to us (like library books or the dusty, tattered, thirty year-old copies of Hamlet distributed to us in high school). But in the case of books and photocopies which we have made our own, writing in the margins can be one of the most productive ways to begin the writing process.

As you read, it is a good idea to make a habit of annotating , or writing notes in the margins. Your notes could indicate places in the text which remind you of experiences you have had or of other texts you have read. They could point out questions that you have, points of agreement or disagreement, or moments of complete confusion. Annotations begin a dialogue between you and the text you have before you, documenting your first (and later) responses, and they are valuable when you attempt at a later time to write about that text in a particular way.

Essays in Which You Take a Position on an Issue

One of the most common writing assignments given is some variation on the Arguing Essay, in which students are asked to take a position on a controversial issue. There are two challenges involved in finding topics for argument. One challenge is identifying a topic that you are truly interested in and concerned about, enough so that whatever research is required will be engrossing (or at the very least, tolerable), and not a tedious, painful ordeal. In other words, you want to try to avoid arriving at the "So what?" point with your own topic. The other challenge is in making sure that your audience doesn't respond, "So what?" in reading your approach to your topic. You can avoid this by making sure that the questions you are asking and addressing are current and interesting.

Related Information: Examining Social Phenomena and Trends

In The St. Martin's Guide to Writing , Third Edition, Rise B. Axelrod and Charles R. Cooper discuss the importance of looking toward social phenomena and trends for sources of argument topics. A phenomenon , they explain, is "something notable about the human condition or the social order" (314). A few of the examples of phenomena that they list are difficulties with parking on college campuses, negative campaigning in politics, popular artistic or musical styles, and company loyalty. A trend , on the other hand, is "a significant change extending over many months or years" (314). Some trends they list are the decline of Communism, diminishing concern over world hunger, increased practice of home schooling, and increased legitimacy of pop art. Trying to think in terms of incidental, current social phenomena or long-term, gradual social trends is a good way of arriving at workable topics for essays requiring you to take a position.

Related Information: Making Sure Your Approach to Your Topic is Current and Interesting

In choosing a topic for an arguing essay, it is important to get a handle not only on what is currently being debated, but how it is being debated. In other words, it is necessary to learn what questions are currently being asked about certain topics and why. In order to avoid the "so what" dilemma, you want to approach your topic in a way that is not simplistic, tired, outdated, or redundant. For example, if you are looking at the relationship of children to television, you probably would want to avoid a topic like "the effects of t.v. violence on children" (which has been beaten to death over the years) in favor of a topic like "different toy marketing strategies for young male v.s. female viewers of Saturday morning cartoons" (a topic that seems at least a bit more original).

As a student writer, you are usually not asked to break absolutely new ground on a topic during your college career. However, you are expected to try to find ground that is less rather than more trampled when finding and approaching writing topics.

Trying to think in terms of incidental, current social phenomena or long-term, gradual social trends is a good way of arriving at workable topics for essays requiring you to take a position.

Related Information: Sources of Topics

Looking to Your Own Writing

When trying to rediscover the issues which have concerned you in the past, go back to journal entries (if you are a journal writer) or essays that you have written before. As you look through this formal and informal writing, consider whether or not these issues still concern you, and what (specifically) you now have to say about them. Are these matters which would concern readers other than yourself, or are they too specific to your own life to be interesting and controversial to a reading audience? Is there a way to give a "larger" significance to matters of personal concern? For example, if you wrote in your journal that you were unhappy with a particular professor's outdated teaching methods, could you turn that idea into a discussion of the downfalls of the tenure system? If you were frustrated with the way that your anthropology instructor dismissed your comment about the ways that "primitive" women are discussed, could you think of that problem in terms of larger gender issues? Sometimes your frustrations and mental conflicts are simply your own gripes, but more often than not they can be linked with current and widely debated issues.

Looking to Your Other Classes

When given an assignment which asks you to work with a controversial issue, always try to brainstorm points of controversy that you recall from current or past courses. What are people arguing about in the various disciplines? Sometimes these issues will seem irrelevant because they appear only to belong to those other disciplines, but there are oftentimes connections that can be made. For example, perhaps you have been asked in a communications class to write an essay on a language issue. You might remember that in a computer class on information systems, your class debated whether or not Internet news groups are really diverse or not. You might begin to think about the reasons why news groups are (or aren't) diverse, thinking about the way that language is used.

Reading Newspapers and Magazines

If you are not already an avid newspaper and magazine reader, become one for a week. Pore over the different sections: news, editorials, sports, and even cartoons. Look for items that connect with your own life experiences, and pay attention to those which evoke some strong response from you for one reason or another. Even if an issue that you discover in a newspaper or magazine doesn't prove to be a workable topic, it might lead you to other topic ideas.

Interviewing the People Around You

If you are at a loss to find an issue that lights a fire under you, determine what fires up your friends, family members, and classmates. Think back to heated conversations you have had at the dinner table, or conduct interviews in which you ask the people around you what issues impact their lives most directly. Because you share many experiences and contexts with these people, it is likely that at least some of the issues that concern them will also concern you.

Using the Internet

It is useful to browse the Internet for current, controversial issues. Spend some time surfing aimlessly, or wander through news groups to see what is being discussed. Using the Internet can be one of the best ways to determine what is immediately and significantly controversial.

Although some essays that students are asked to write are to be based solely on their own thoughts and experience, oftentimes (particularly in upper level courses) writing assignments require research. When scoping out possible research topics, it is important to remember to choose a topic which will sustain your interest throughout the research and writing process. The best research topics are those which are complex enough that they offer opportunities for various research questions. You want to avoid choosing a topic that could bore you easily, or that is easily researched but not very interesting to you.

As always, it is good to start searching for a topic within your personal interests and previous writing. You might want to choose a research topic that you have pursued before and do additional research, or you might want to select a topic about which you would like to know more. More than anything, writers must remember that research will often carry them in different directions than they intend to go, and that they must be flexible enough to acknowledge that their research questions and topics must sometimes be adjusted or abandoned. To read more on narrowing and adjusting a research topic, see the section in this guide on Research Considerations.

Related Information: Flexibility in Research

As you conduct your research, it is important to keep in mind that the questions you are asking about your topic (and oftentimes, the topic itself) will probably change slightly. Sometimes you are forced to acknowledge that there is too much or too little information available on the topic you have chosen. Other times, you might decide that the approach you were originally taking is not as interesting to you as others you have found. For instance, you might start with a topic like "foreign language studies in grades K-12 in Oregon," and in the process of your reading you might find that you are really more interested in "bilingual education in rural Texas." Still other times, you might find that the claim you were attempting to make about your topic is not arguable, or is just wrong.

Our research can carry us in directions that we don't always foresee, and part of being a good researcher is maintaining the flexibility necessary to explore those directions when they present themselves.

Related Information: How Research Narrows Topics

By necessity, most topics narrow themselves as you read more and more about them. Oftentimes writers come up with topics that they think will be sufficiently narrow and engaging--a topic like "multiculturalism and education," for instance--and discover through their initial reading that there are many different avenues they could take in examining the various aspects of this broad issue. Although such discoveries are often humbling and sometimes intimidating, they are also a necessary part of any effective research process. You can take some comfort in knowing that you do not always need to have your topic narrowed to its final form before you begin researching. The sources you read will help you to do the necessary narrowing and definition of your focus.

Related Information: Research Topics and Writing Assignments

When you are choosing a research topic, it is important to be realistic about the time and space limitations that your assignment dictates. If you are writing a graduate thesis or dissertation, for instance, you might be able to research a topic as vast and as time-honored as "the portrayal of women in the poetry of William Blake." But if your assignment asks you to produce a five-page essay by next Tuesday, you might want to focus on something a bit more accessible, like "the portrayal of women in Blake's `The Visions of the Daughters of Albion.'"

Related Information: Testing Research Topics

Early in your research and writing process, after you have found a somewhat narrow avenue into your topic, put the topic to the test to see if you really want to pursue it further in research. Rise B. Axelrod and Charles R. Cooper, in The St. Martin's Guide to Writing , Third Edition, suggest some questions writers might ask themselves when deciding whether or not a research topic is workable:

• Does this topic really interest me?
• Do I know enough about it now to plan and write my essay, or can I learn what I need to know in the time I have remaining?
• Is the topic manageable within my time and space limits?
• Do I have a good sense of how others view this issue and what readers I might address in my essay?
• Have I begun to understand the issue and to formulate my own view?

Students are often asked to write essays in which they evaluate something: a product, a piece of writing, a restaurant, an advertising campaign, or some other entity related to their areas of study. Sometimes when you are given this type of writing assignment, you are also given a very specific topic on which to write. Other times, you are asked to find a topic for evaluation on your own.

Related Information: Comparing and Contrasting

After brainstorming a list of possible topics for evaluation, you may find it difficult to determine whether or not you will be able to effectively evaluate those topics. One way of stimulating your mind's evaluative tendencies is to try comparison and contrast. For example, if you are thinking about evaluating a local Thai restaurant, and you are having trouble coming up with points on which to evaluate it, try comparing and contrasting it with another local Thai restaurant. When we begin to compare two items, ideas, places, or people, we invariably wind up evaluating.

Related Information: Generating an Authority List

If the choice of topics to evaluate is open to you, try brainstorming a list of skills, activities, places, or subjects that you consider yourself to be an authority about. A list like this is a good starting point for just about any essay, but it is particularly useful in evaluation. If you are an avid rock climber, for instance, it makes perfect sense for you to evaluate climbing equipment, since your experience will provide you with a basis for evaluation. It may still be necessary to do research, but you will have a head start even before you begin researching.

Related Information: Questions to Ask Yourself as You Evaluate

In testing possible topics for evaluation, you might ask yourself some very general questions about your initial thoughts. Rise B. Axelrod and Charles R. Cooper, in their St. Martin's Guide to Writing , Third Edition, suggest a few such questions:

• How certain am I of my judgment? Do I have any doubts? Why do I feel the way I do?
• Do I like (or dislike) everything about my subject, or only certain parts?
• Are there any similar things I should consider (other products or movies, for example)?
• Is there anything I will need to do right away in order to research this subject authoritatively?
• If I need to do any research, can I get the information I need?

As a writer, you will sometimes be asked to speculate on possible solutions to known problems. Although the process of problem solving is itself quite difficult, one of the greatest challenges about that process is the matter of finding a topic that lends itself to your purpose.

Related Information: Evaluating and Problem Solving

Problem solving is an extension of the evaluating process. If in the past you have written evaluative essays which identify certain problems, these essays might offer you some topic ideas and starting points. You might also look to personal writing you have done (like journal entries) or recent conversations you have had as ways of recalling the types of problems that you have identified in your general environment.

Related Information: Focusing on Solvable Problems

Obviously, not all problems are appropriate topics for short problem solving essays. For example, if your instructor assigns a ten-page problem solving essay dealing with a current problem of your choice, you might want to avoid a topic as vast as "racism." However, if you were to focus on a more context-specific version of this hulking problem, you might find a workable topic (say, for instance, minority enrollment on your campus). For assignments like these, it is important to choose problems that appear solvable (or at least approachable) in the time and space you have available to you.

Related Information: Identifying Problems Within Communities

One excellent source of topics for problem solving essays is your immediate environment. Think about the groups or communities to which you belong: your neighborhood, college, family, ethnic and cultural groups, religious and political groups, workplace, and recreational groups. Try to brainstorm a list of problems that you can readily identify in any of these communities, then consider both how solvable these problems are and how appropriate they are to your writing assignment.

Generating More Than One Topic Idea

In order to choose a topic, you need to have several available to choose from. It is best to avoid being committed to one topic at this first stage of the writing process, since not every topic will pan out. Writers are usually more successful when they have a selection of topics which they can put to the test to determine whether or not they are workable (given the writing assignment).

Narrowing Topics

The scope of a topic depends on how much time and space you have to write and how much detail you are trying to use. For example, describing all the causes of World War II in three pages is impossible. You would have to either narrow your topic some more or write hundreds of pages to adequately discuss every cause. Defining your topic before you start writing will save you time and help you to research and/or to develop your thinking in a clear, methodical way. It is important to examine the topics we choose to determine whether they are too broad (or, in some instances, too narrow) for the writing assignments we are given. Once you have decided that a topic is too broad to be appropriate to your assignment (which is most often the case), you will need to have ways to narrow it. You will also want to consider, when writing essays that require research, how your research resources and limitations affect your choice of topics.

Deciding When a Topic is Too Broad

Kate Kiefer, English Professor If a writer doesn't present details quickly enough, then the topic is usually too broad. If the reader can expect the paper to go in one direction, but it goes in another, the topic is usually too broad or not stated precisely enough. If I can ask six million questions about whether the writer will include this or that point, the topic is too broad. If I do a library search and turn up 200 listings (or an Internet search and discover 1,000 hits), the topic is too broad.

A topic is too broad to be workable when you find that you have too many different (but oftentimes remotely related) ideas about that topic. While you want to start the writing process with as many ideas as possible, you will want to narrow your focus at some point so that you aren't attempting to do too much in one essay.

Where essays requiring research are concerned, your topic is too broad if you are able to find thousands of sources when conducting a simple library or Internet search. For example, conducting a search on "foreign languages in Oregon" will provide you with policies, foreign language departments, and cultural issues (just to name a few). When this happens, you can try various narrowing strategies to determine what most interests you about your topic area and what relates to your own life most readily. For instance, if you plan to study abroad, focusing on the language you'll be speaking might be a way to narrow the scope of your original topic, "foreign languages in Oregon."

Deciding When a Topic Is Too Narrow

Steve Reid, English Professor You have to careful so your topic is not too narrow for your audience. You don't want readers to say, " Well, so what? I couldn't care less." One the most important roles a topic plays is impacting an audience. If you get so narrowed and focused, a topic can become too academic or pedantic. For example, every year at graduation I watch people laugh when they hear the title of a thesis or dissertation. The students who wrote these documents were very narrowed and focused, but their audiences were very restricted.

Though student writers most often face the challenge of limiting a topic that is too broad, they occasionally have to recognize that they have chosen a topic that is too narrow or that they have narrowed a workable topic too much. A topic is too narrow if you can't find any information about it. For example, suppose your foreign language subject to, "foreign language policy in South Dakota." Although you might have a strong interest in this topic, South Dakota may not have a specific policy about foreign languages. If you have chosen the topic, "teaching Chinese in elementary schools," and your research attempts have been fruitless, it may be that you are considering a topic that no one else has previously presented. In other words, no one has determined that Chinese should be a major language taught as commonly as Spanish or French. If this happens to be the case, keep your topic in mind, because it could very well be an excellent topic for a graduate thesis or dissertation. However, it is also likely to be a difficult topic to handle in a ten-page essay for an education class, due in two weeks.

If your topic is too narrow, try making it broader by asking yourself related questions.

• What foreign languages are taught in South Dakota schools?
• Or where is Chinese taught and why?

Once you've found a different direction in which to move with your topic, you can try narrowing it again.

General Strategies for Narrowing Topics

One of the first things writers do when they realize that they need to narrow the scope of their topic is to ask themselves the "w" questions so familiar to journalists: Who? What? Where? When? and Why? (and oftentimes, How?) These questions can help you locate your specific points of interest within your general topic area. For example, to narrow a topic like "foreign languages," you could begin with the "what" and "when" questions and decide you are interested in "foreign language studies in grades K-12." Asking the "where" question, you might arrive at "foreign language studies in grades K-12 in Oregon." And asking the "who" question might cause you to limit the topic again to "state policy regarding foreign language studies in grades K-12 in Oregon." Each time you add something specific to your topic, you place "restrictors" on it, thereby narrowing it. Then, when you conduct a library or Internet search, you can use these "restrictors" as key words.

Related Information: Looping

Looping is an extended version of freewriting in which you begin with an initial five-minute freewrite on a general topic, then select out of that bit of writing the sentence or idea that interests you the most. You then use that sentence or idea as the basis for your next five-minute round of freewriting. You continue this process of elaborating informally on specific ideas until you come to a point where your topic seems sufficiently narrow, researchable, and appropriate to your writing assignment.

Example of Looping If I am freewriting on the general (and overly broad) topic of "development of small towns in the Rocky Mountain region," I might start with the following initial ideas: Problem: Development of Small Towns in the Rocky Mountain Region When I grew up in Anyoldtown, New Mexico, it was a small town in the smallest sense: no movie theaters, no supermarkets, nothing. We had to go into town for the things we needed. Land sold for $2000 an acre. Now it sells for about $50,000 an acre. Anyoldtown was also primarily hispanic, and the families who lived there had very little. Now the people who live there are mostly white and almost exclusively professionals: doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, and an endless number of people who have money that seems to have come from nowhere. There are good things to be had there now: good restaurants, good coffee, and all the other things that come along with Yuppie invasion. But those things were had at quite a cost. People who used to live in Anyoldtown when I was a kid can no longer afford to pay property taxes. I can't think of anything else to write now. Oh, yes...these people made a killing off the sale of their land and properties, but they had to give up the places they had lived all their lives. However, by the time they sold, Anyoldtown was no longer the place where they had lived all their lives anyway. Rereading what I have written, I might decide that what interests me the most and seems most appropriate to the writing assignment I have been given is my idea about the property tax dilemma. With this in mind, I would write a second "loop" on this area of my thinking, perhaps even starting my freewriting with the exact sentence I used in the first "loop:" People who used to live in Anyoldtown when I was a kid can no longer afford to pay property taxes. This is unfair, because these people spent their entire lives in this town, and land was all they had. Theoretically, the Yuppie Invasion doesn't drive out the "townies" or "natives" of a small town, but in actuality, land values and property taxes (as well as cultural influences, of course) make it impossible (and oftentimes undesirable) for people to hold onto their own land. People have to sell, because if they don't, they can no longer afford to maintain the standard of living that their town has taken on (in more ways than one). This issue obviously has class implications, but I'm sure it also relates to cultural (ethnic) issues as well. This is where I would need to begin researching, if I wanted to see who was most negatively affected by rising property taxes and land values. In rereading this second loop, I might decide that my ideas toward the end of the paragraph interest me the most. I could write another loop expanding these specific ideas on race, class, and property taxes, or I might decide that I have (as my freewrite suggests) arrived at the point where I need to begin researching.

Related Information: Questioning

Alongside the basic "5 W's" ("who," "what," "when," "where," and "why") can be used more formal, directed questions provided by the classical rhetorical "topics." These questions function in four different ways, and can be categorized as follows:

Example of Questioning If my general topic is "Development of Small Towns in the Rocky Mountain Region," I might try to narrow my focus by applying questions with specific functions to this topic area, thereby discovering which approach interests me most. Here are some of the questions I might ask:

After writing the questions, I would write my responses, deciding which particular questions and responses interest me the most. Perhaps, for instance, I would find myself most interested in the effects of development on the "natives" of small towns, particularly the inevitability of increased property taxes. This process of questioning thus provides me with a specific, narrow, well-defined focus within the vast issue of development of small towns in the Rocky Mountain region.

Related Information: Topic Cross

The topic cross helps you to narrow your topic by using a visual strategy. Just as you would focus a camera or a microscope, you arrange key words and phrases about your topic in such a way that they eventually point to your specific area of interest.

Example of a Topic Cross The first step in the process of using the topic cross is brainstorming. Spend a few minutes listing words and phrases that come to mind when you think about your topic. Then decide which words and phrases are most interesting and arrange them in a hierarchy, moving from general (at the top of the list) to specific (at the bottom of the list). This hierarchy will become the vertical axis of your cross. Demonstration: If my topic is "development of small towns in the Rocky Mountain region," I might generate the following useful ideas in brainstorming (arranged from general to specific).

• The appeal of small towns
• Yuppie invasion
• Overcrowding in cities
• Cost of land
• Effects on town "natives."
• Economic effects on impoverished landowners.
• How John Doe in my home town was affected.
• The new espresso bar in town

I would write this list in an imagined middle column of a piece of blank paper or a computer screen, leaving plenty of space between each item. Then I would scan the list to determine where my real interest lies. Which topics in this list will be too broad to write about, given my writing assignment? Which will be too narrow? In this case, I might choose "economic effects on impoverished landowners" as a workable topic area. Once I had thus identified my area of interest, I would begin listing words and phrases about or relevant to that item, placing them on the horizontal axis of my topic cross. The list I would generate about "economic effects on impoverished landowners" might look like this:

• Increased cost of land
• Temptation to sell
• Rising property taxes
• Higher cost of living
• Zoning issues
• Pressure to maintain property value

Examining this list, I might decide that "rising property taxes" is a sufficiently narrow topic that is not too narrow to develop with my own ideas and research I might do. By using this strategy, I have arrived at a narrow, workable topic.

Research Considerations

If your writing assignment requires research, you will probably find that the research process itself will dictate how broad or narrow your topic should be. We have all had the experience of doing a library search on a word like "environment" and coming up with thousands of sources. Almost as common is the experience of searching a term like "cultural animation" and coming up with only one source that seems useful. The topics we choose are often directly related to our research processes and their results.

Moving from Topic to Thesis

It is important to remember that a narrow topic is not the same thing as a thesis statement. Unlike a topic, a thesis makes a claim of fact, provides a claim of value, or makes a recommendation about a topic under consideration. For example, your narrowed topic might be "the underemphasis on foreign language in U.S. secondary schools." A focused thesis statement making a claim about this topic might read, "U.S. secondary schools should require elementary students to take at least one course in a foreign language sometime during the 4th through 6th grades."

Transforming a workable topic into a possible thesis is really just a continuation of the narrowing process, with an emphasis on what you want to say about your topic. In this way, it is much like the "hypothesis" stage of the scientific method. You arrive at a thesis by attempting to make a statement about the topic you have chosen.

Developing a Working Thesis

A working thesis is a tentative statement that you make about your topic early in the writing process, for the purpose of directing your thinking early. This thesis is likely to change somewhat or to be abandoned altogether as you move through the writing process, so it is best not to become too enamored of it.

There are two components of a working thesis. The first is, quite simply, your topic; and the second is your tentative statement about your topic. For example, if my narrowed topic is

"Rising property taxes in small towns in the Rocky Mountain region..."

I might add the following statement about that topic:

"...cause longtime residents and landowners in those towns not to be able to keep their property."

As I begin whatever research is necessary to support this thesis, I might find that I can't make this much of a claim. Or I might find that there are complexities that I hadn't considered. As I uncover new information about my topic, I will want to alter my working thesis accordingly, until it is workable and supportable.

Arriving at a Possible Thesis for an Essay Requiring Research

A In The St. Martin's Handbook , Third Edition [italics], Andrea Lunsford and Robert Connors suggest a process for moving from a topic to a research "hypothesis," by way of examining the "issue" at hand and framing this issue as a "research question." The following is an example of how I might move from topic to hypothesis if my narrowed topic is "rising property taxes in small towns in the Rocky Mountain region."

• Topic: Rising property taxes in small towns in the Rocky Mountain region
• Issue: The effects of these rising taxes on long-time residents and landowners in the small towns
• Research Question: What are the effects of rising property taxes on long-time residents and landowners in small towns in the Rocky Mountain region?
• Hypothesis: Because these taxes are increasingly difficult to pay, small town "natives" find themselves unable to hold onto their property.

This hypothesis, like a working thesis, is simply an early speculation on what I might find when I begin to research. As I read more and more about my topic, I will probably find that I need to make changes to the hypothesis in order to make it a supportable thesis. As I uncover new information about my topic, I will want to alter my working thesis accordingly, until it is workable and supportable.

Arriving at a Possible Thesis for an Essay Requiring You to Take a Position

One of the greatest challenges in written argument is determining what it is that you would like to (and are able to) say about your topic.

Narrowing from Topic to Thesis in Argument

Before you begin drafting an argument paper, you need to decide (tentatively, at least) what it is that you will be arguing about the topic you have chosen. The following prompts should help you focus your argument from a topic to a position on that topic. What is your topic? (e.g.--Rising property taxes in small towns in the Rocky Mountain region) What are three controversies associated with this topic? (e.g.--Rising property taxes make the town affordable only to the wealthy. This changes the flavor the flavor of the town. It forces long-time land owners to sell their land.) What are three questions people might ask about these controversies? (e.g.--Are these rising property taxes, which are the results of development in small towns in the Rocky Mountain region, forcing long-time land owners out of their home towns? Are rising taxes and land values changing the whole cultural and economic foundation of the towns? Given the effects of rising property taxes on impoverished land owners in small towns, is development in this area a good idea?) Decide which of these questions you are most interesting in exploring. (e.g.--Given the effects of rising property taxes on impoverished land owners in small towns, is development in this area a good idea?) Now list several ways people might respond if you asked them your question. (e.g.--No, because impoverished land owners are unable to maintain the new standard of living. Yes, because development is always a good idea. Yes, because development is inevitable, and we can do nothing about it. Perhaps, but city planners and local government must find ways to protect the interests of impoverished land owners when they determine property taxes.) Finally, decide where you stand in this range of responses. Think of a thesis that expresses your view. Write out your thesis and revise it throughout your research process until it is specific and takes a single arguable position. (e.g.--Because impoverished land owners in small towns in the Rocky Mountain region are often badly hurt by the rising property taxes resulting from development, city planners and local government must find ways to protect the interests of these land owners when they determine property taxes.)

Working With Topics in Different Disciplines

Don Zimmerman, Journalism and Technical Communication Professor Writers' understanding of topics and their fields of study allow them to focus on a specific topic. Following a good problem solving process or scientific method can help you select a topic. Whereas on the job, topics emerge from day to day activities. When working, you don't need to look for topics to write about. Your respective field/job responsibilities allow you to find the problems.

The ways that topics are approached and the types of topics that are discussed vary from discipline to discipline. It is important to investigate the types of topics that are discussed (and the ways that they are discussed) in your own discipline. As a writer, it is necessary to determine what topics are talked about and why in your own discipline (or in the discipline for which you are writing). This can be done by way of talking to professionals in the discipline, looking at relevant journals, and conducting Internet and database searches (to name a few possibilities).

Related Information: Browsing Journals Important to Your Discipline

Almost every discipline has journals that are associated with it, and scholars in the discipline depend on these journals in order to remain informed about what topics are being discussed. For example, scholars in the field of psychology rely on psychological journals; doctors rely on medical journals; and English professors rely on literary journals. Because journals are at the center of each discipline's current discussions, it is a good idea to browse them when looking for current topics. If you are unsure of how to go about doing this, talk to a professor in your discipline, a reference librarian in your library, or a librarian in your library's Current Periodicals room. These people can usually provide you with a few titles of important journals relevant to your field. Once you have these titles, you can locate a few issues of each journal in the Current Periodicals room, sit down for an hour or two, and look through the articles to see what is being talked about and what interests you.

Related Information: Online Searches and Databases

One way of getting to the sources which will discuss topics current to your discipline is by searching the various computer databases and search engines related to that discipline. A database is simply an arrangement of information by way of similar subject matter. For example, if you were researching a topic for a Sociology essay on group behavior of Deadheads, you might go to the Social Sciences Index to find sources related to your topic. For information on how to find relevant and useful databases, talk to the reference librarian in your library, or ask an expert in your field which databases he or she uses regularly.

Related Information: Talking to Professionals in Your Discipline

One of the most efficient ways to learn what topics are currently being discussed in your discipline is to talk to the experts: instructors and other professionals working within that discipline. We often forget that these people can be valuable resources to us, and can point us toward books, journals, databases, and other sources of information that scholars in our various fields use often.

Citation Information

Lauel Nesbitt and Dawn Kowalski. (1994-2024). Choosing and Refining Topics . The WAC Clearinghouse. Colorado State University. Available at https://wac.colostate.edu/repository/writing/guides/.

Copyright Information

Copyright © 1994-2024 Colorado State University and/or this site's authors, developers, and contributors . Some material displayed on this site is used with permission.

• Writing in College

Introduction

Learning objectives.

• identify common types of writing tasks given in a college class
• describe the purpose of writing tasks, and what an instructor might expect to see from your work
• recognize strategies for success on particular types of writing tasks
• define writing anxiety

Consider this: a recent survey of employers conducted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities found that 89 percent of employers say that colleges and universities should place more emphasis on “the ability to effectively communicate orally and in writing.” [1] It was the single-most favored skill in this survey.

In addition, several of the other valued skills are grounded in written communication:

• “Critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills” (81 percent)
• “The ability to analyze and solve complex problems” (75 percent)
• “The ability to locate, organize, and evaluate information from multiple sources” (68 percent).

This emphasis on communication probably reflects the changing reality of work in the professions. Employers also reported that employees will have to “take on more responsibilities,” “use a broader set of skills,” “work harder to coordinate with other departments,” face “more complex” challenges, and mobilize “higher levels of learning and knowledge.” [2]

If you want  to be a professional who interacts frequently with others, you have to be someone who can anticipate and solve complex problems and coordinate your work with others, [3] all of which depend on effective communication.

The pay-off from improving your writing comes much sooner than graduation. Suppose you complete about 40 classes for a 120-credit bachelors’ degree, and—averaging across writing-intensive and non-writing-intensive courses—you produce about 2,500 words of formal writing per class. Even with that low estimate, you’ll write 100,000 words during your college career. That’s roughly equivalent to a 330-page book.

Spending a few hours sharpening your writing skills will make those 100,000 words much easier and more rewarding to write. All of your professors care about good writing.

What to Do With Essay Assignments

Writing assignments can be as varied as the instructors who assign them. Some assignments are explicit about what exactly you’ll need to do, in what order, and how it will be graded. Some assignments are very open-ended, leaving you to determine the best path toward answering the project. Most fall somewhere in the middle, containing details about some aspects but leaving other assumptions unstated. It’s important to remember that your first resource for getting clarification about an assignment is your instructor—she or he will be very willing to talk out ideas with you, to be sure you’re prepared at each step to do well with the writing.

Most writing in college will be a direct response to class materials—an assigned reading, a discussion in class, an experiment in a lab. Generally speaking, these writing tasks can be divided into three broad categories.

Summary Assignments

Being asked to summarize a source is a common task in many types of writing. It can also seem like a straightforward task: simply restate, in shorter form, what the source says. A lot of advanced skills are hidden in this seemingly simple assignment, however.

An effective summary does the following:

• reflects your accurate understanding of a source’s thesis or purpose
• differentiates between major and minor ideas in a source
• demonstrates your ability to identify key phrases to quote
• demonstrates your ability to effectively paraphrase most of the source’s ideas
• captures the tone, style, and distinguishing features of a source
• does not reflect your personal opinion about the source

That last point is often the most challenging: we are opinionated creatures, by nature, and it can be very difficult to keep our opinions from creeping into a summary, which is meant to be completely neutral.

In college-level writing, assignments that are only summary are rare. That said, many types of writing tasks contain at least some element of summary, from a biology report that explains what happened during a chemical process, to an analysis essay that requires you to explain what several prominent positions about gun control are, as a component of comparing them against one another.

Defined-Topic Assignments

Many writing tasks will ask you to address a particular topic or a narrow set of topic options. Even with the topic identified, however, it can sometimes be difficult to determine what aspects of the writing will be most important when it comes to grading.

• Focus on the verbs . Look for verbs like compare, explain, justify, reflect , or the all-purpose analyze . You’re not just producing a paper as an artifact; you’re conveying, in written communication, some intellectual work you have done. So the question is, what kind of thinking are you supposed to do to deepen your learning?
• Put the assignment in context . Many professors think in terms of assignment sequences. For example, a social science professor may ask you to write about a controversial issue three times: first, arguing for one side of the debate; second, arguing for another; and finally, from a more comprehensive and nuanced perspective, incorporating text produced in the first two assignments. A sequence like that is designed to help you think through a complex issue. If the assignment isn’t part of a sequence, think about where it falls in the span of the course (early, midterm, or toward the end), and how it relates to readings and other assignments. For example, if you see that a paper comes at the end of a three-week unit on the role of the Internet in organizational behavior, then your professor likely wants you to synthesize that material in your own way.
• Try a free-write . A free-write is when you just write, without stopping, for a set period of time. That doesn’t sound very “free”; it actually sounds kind of coerced, right? The “free” part is what you write—it can be whatever comes to mind. Professional writers use free-writing to get started on a challenging (or distasteful) writing task or to overcome writer’s block or a powerful urge to procrastinate. The idea is that if you just make yourself write, you can’t help but produce some kind of useful nugget. Thus, even if the first eight sentences of your free write are all variations on “I don’t understand this” or “I’d really rather be doing something else,” eventually you’ll write something like “I guess the main point of this is…,” and—booyah!—you’re off and running.
• Ask for clarification . Even the most carefully crafted assignments may need some verbal clarification, especially if you’re new to a course or field. Try to convey to your instructor that you want to learn and you’re ready to work, and not just looking for advice on how to get an A.

Although the topic may be defined, you can’t just grind out four or five pages of discussion, explanation, or analysis. It may seem strange, but even when you’re asked to “show how” or “illustrate,” you’re still being asked to make an argument. You must shape and focus that discussion or analysis so that it supports a claim that you discovered and formulated and that all of your discussion and explanation develops and supports. 

Defined-topic writing assignments are used primarily to identify your familiarity with the subject matter.

Undefined-Topic Assignments

Another writing assignment you’ll potentially encounter is one in which the topic may be only broadly identified (“water conservation” in an ecology course, for instance, or “the Dust Bowl” in a U.S. History course), or even completely open (“compose an argumentative research essay on a subject of your choice”).

The first hurdle with this type of task is to find a focus that interests you. Don’t just pick something you feel will be “easy to write about”—that almost always turns out to be a false assumption. Instead, you’ll get the most value out of, and find it easier to work on, a topic that intrigues you personally in some way.

The same getting-started ideas described for defined-topic assignments will help with these kinds of projects, too.  You can also try talking with your instructor or a writing tutor (at your college’s writing center) to help brainstorm ideas and make sure you’re on track. You want to feel confident that you’ve got a clear idea of what it means to be successful in the writing and not waste time working in a direction that won’t be fruitful.

Strategies for Writing Success

The secret to strong writing, no matter what kind of assignment you’ve been given, is to apply your personalized version of the writing process to the task.  We’ll discuss the writing process in greater depth elsewhere in this course.

For now, here are some “quick-start” guides for how to approach writing with confidence.

Start with a Clear Identification of the Work

This automatically lets your readers know your intentions and that you’re covering the work of another author.

• Clearly identify (in the present tense) the background information needed for your summary: the type of work, title, author, and main point. Example: In the featured article “Five Kinds of Learning,” the author, Holland Oates, justifies his opinion on the hot topic of learning styles — and adds a few himself.

Summarize the Piece as a Whole

Omit nothing important and strive for overall coherence through appropriate transitions. Write using “summarizing language.” Your reader needs to be reminded that this is not your own work. Use phrases like the article claims, the author suggests, etc.

• Present the material in a neutral fashion. Your opinions, ideas, and interpretations should be left in your brain — don’t put them into your summary. Be conscious of choosing your words. Only include what was in the original work.
• Be concise. This is a summary — it should be much shorter than the original piece. If you’re working on an article, give yourself a target length of 1/4 the original article.

Conclude with a Final Statement

This is not a statement of your own point of view, however; it should reflect the significance of the book or article from the author’s standpoint.

• Without rewriting the article, summarize what the author wanted to get across. Be careful not to evaluate in the conclusion or insert any of your own assumptions or opinions.

Informative and Persuasive Essay Assignments

Write down topic ideas.  If you have been assigned a particular topic or focus, it still might be possible to narrow it down, or personalize it to your own interests.  

If you have been given an open-ended essay assignment,  the topic should be something that allows you to enjoy working with the writing process. Select a topic that you’ll want to think about, read about, and write about for several weeks, without getting bored. 

If you’re writing about a subject you’re not an expert on and want to make sure you are presenting the topic or information realistically, look up the information or seek out an expert to ask questions.

• Note : Be cautious about information you retrieve online, especially if you are writing a research paper or an article that relies on factual information. Internet sources can be unreliable. Published books, or works found in a journal, have to undergo a much more thorough vetting process before they reach publication, and are therefore safer to use as sources.
• Check out a library. Yes, believe it or not, there is still information to be found in a library that hasn’t made its way to the Web. For an even greater breadth of resources, try a college or university library.

Write a Rough Draft

It doesn’t matter how many spelling errors or weak adjectives you have in it. This copy is just jotting down those random uncategorized thoughts. Write down anything you think of that you want included in your writing, and worry about organizing everything where it belongs later.

If You’re Having Trouble, Try F reewriting

Set a timer and write continuously until that time is up. You won’t have time to worry about errors and mistakes if you’re rushing to get the words out.

Edit for Your Second Draft

Review the rough draft and begin to put what you’ve written in the order you’ll want it in. Clean up misspellings, grammatical errors and weak writing such as repetitive words. Flesh out the plot and start thinking of anything you want to cut out.

• Edit ruthlessly. If it doesn’t fit in with the overall thesis, if it’s unnecessary, or if you don’t like what you’ve written, cut it out.
• Check for coherency. Do all parts of the essay make sense together? If so, continue. If not, consider revising whatever doesn’t fit in.
• Check for necessity. Do all parts of the essay contribute? Does each section give necessary background, advance the argument, address counterarguments, or show potential resolutions?
• Check for anything missing. Do the topic sub-points flow smoothly into one another, or are there some logical gaps?

Keep Rewriting until You’re Ready for a Second Opinion

This is an important step, as other people will see what you actually wrote, and not just what you think you wrote.

• Get feedback from people whose opinion you respect and trust, and who either read a lot or write themselves.
• Ask them to be honest and thorough. Only honest feedback, even if it’s a wholesale criticism of your entire story, can make you a better writer.
• If they need some guidance, give them the same questions you’ve been asking yourself.
• This is particularly critical if any aspect of your essay revolves around a technical area in which you’re not an expert. Make sure at least one of your readers is an expert in that area.
• Join a writer’s group in your area or online to share your writing, read others’ writing, and provide mutual feedback.

Evaluate the Response You Received

You don’t have to like or agree with everything that’s said to you about your work. On the other hand, if you get the same comment from more than one person, you should probably take it very seriously. Strike a balance between keeping aspects that you want and making changes based on input you trust.

• Re-read the essay with your readers’ comments in the back of your head. Note any gaps, places that need to be cut, or areas needing revision.
• Re-write using the insights gained from your readers and from your own subsequent critical reading.

Writing Through Fear

Writing is an activity that can cause occasional anxiety for anyone, even professional writers. The following essay about writing anxiety, by Hillary Wentworth, from the Walden Writing Center, offers insight about how to handle issues surrounding writer’s block.

I suppose fall is the perfect time to discuss fear. The leaves are falling, the nights are getting longer, and the kids are preparing ghoulish costumes and tricks for Halloween.

This had never happened to me before. Sure, I have been disappointed in my writing, frustrated that I couldn’t get an idea perfectly on paper, but not completely fear-stricken. I Xed out of the Word document and watched Orange Is the New Black on Netflix because I couldn’t look at the essay anymore. My mind was too clouded for anything productive to happen.

The experience got me thinking about the role that fear plays in the writing process. Sometimes fear can be a great motivator. It might make us read many more articles than are truly necessary, just so we feel prepared enough to articulate a concept. It might make us stay up into the wee hours to proofread an assignment. But sometimes fear can lead to paralysis. Perhaps your anxiety doesn’t manifest itself as panic at the computer; it could be that you worry about the assignment many days—or even weeks—before it is due.

Here are some tips to help: 

• Interrogate your fear . Ask yourself why you are afraid. Is it because you fear failure, success, or judgment? Has it been a while since you’ve written academically, and so this new style of writing is mysterious to you?
• Write through it . We all know the best way to work through a problem is to confront it. So sit at your desk, look at the screen, and write. You might not even write your assignment at first. Type anything—a reflection on your day, why writing gives you anxiety, your favorite foods. Sitting there and typing will help you become more comfortable with the prospect of more.
• Give it a rest . This was my approach. After realizing that I was having an adverse reaction, I called it quits for the day, which ultimately helped reset my brain.
• Find comfort in ritual and reward . Getting comfortable with writing might involve establishing a ritual (a time of day, a place, a song, a warm-up activity, or even food or drink) to get yourself into the writing zone. If you accomplish a goal or write for a set amount of time, reward yourself.
• Remember that knowledge is power. Sometimes the only way to assuage our fear is to know more. Perhaps you want to learn about the writing process to make it less intimidating. Check out the Writing Center’s website for tips and tutorials that will increase your confidence. You can also always ask your instructor questions about the assignment.
• Break it down. If you feel overwhelmed about the amount of pages or the vastness of the assignment, break it up into small chunks. For example, write one little section of the paper at a time.
• Buddy up. Maybe you just need someone with whom to share your fears—and your writing. Ask a classmate to be a study buddy or join an eCampus group.

The writing centers at the  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill  and  University of Richmond , as well as the news site  Inside Higher Ed , also have helpful articles on writing anxiety.

• Hart Research Associates. Raising the Bar: Employers’ Views on College Learning in the Wake of the Economic Downturn . 20 Jan 2010, p. 9. ↵
• Ibid., p. 5. ↵
• Hart Research Associates. It Takes More Than a Major: Employer Priorities for College Learning and Student Success . 10 Apr 2013. ↵
• Outcome: Writing in College. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Self-Check. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Writing in College: From Competence to Excellence. Authored by : Amy Guptill. Provided by : SUNY Open Textbooks. Located at : http://textbooks.opensuny.org/writing-in-college-from-competence-to-excellence/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Image of man writing. Authored by : Matt Zhang. Located at : https://flic.kr/p/pAg6t9 . License : CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
• Writing Strategies. Provided by : Lumen Learning. Located at : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/lumencollegesuccess/chapter/writing-strategies/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Image of woman reading. Authored by : Aaron Osborne. Located at : https://flic.kr/p/dPLmVV . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Image of sketches of magnifying glass. Authored by : Matt Cornock. Located at : https://flic.kr/p/eBSLmg . License : CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial
• How to Write a Summary. Authored by : WikiHow. Located at : http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Summary . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• How to Write. Provided by : WikiHow. Located at : http://www.wikihow.com/Write . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Image of typing. Authored by : Kiran Foster. Located at : https://flic.kr/p/9M2WW4 . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Image of students at table. Authored by : Leo Hidalgo. Located at : https://flic.kr/p/pUhS1s . License : CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial
• Writing Through Fear. Authored by : Hillary Wentworth. Provided by : Walden Writing Center. Located at : http://waldenwritingcenter.blogspot.com/2013/10/writing-through-fear.html . License : CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
• Image of tree. Authored by : Broo_am (Andy B). Located at : https://flic.kr/p/dHcmy5 . License : CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
• Table of Contents

Instructor Resources (available upon sign-in)

• Overview of Instructor Resources
• Quiz Survey

Reading: Types of Reading Material

• Introduction to Reading
• Outcome: Types of Reading Material
• Characteristics of Texts, Part 1
• Characteristics of Texts, Part 2
• Characteristics of Texts, Part 3
• Characteristics of Texts, Conclusion
• Self Check: Types of Writing

Reading: Reading Strategies

• Outcome: Reading Strategies
• The Rhetorical Situation
• Academic Reading Strategies
• Self Check: Reading Strategies

Reading: Specialized Reading Strategies

• Outcome: Specialized Reading Strategies
• Online Reading Comprehension
• How to Read Effectively in Math
• How to Read Effectively in the Social Sciences
• How to Read Effectively in the Sciences
• 5 Step Approach for Reading Charts and Graphs
• Self Check: Specialized Reading Strategies

Reading: Vocabulary

• Outcome: Vocabulary
• Strategies to Improve Your Vocabulary
• Using Context Clues
• The Relationship Between Reading and Vocabulary
• Self Check: Vocabulary

Reading: Thesis

• Outcome: Thesis
• Locating and Evaluating Thesis Statements
• The Organizational Statement
• Self Check: Thesis

Reading: Supporting Claims

• Outcome: Supporting Claims
• Types of Support
• Supporting Claims
• Self Check: Supporting Claims

Reading: Logic and Structure

• Outcome: Logic and Structure
• Rhetorical Modes
• Inductive and Deductive Reasoning
• Diagramming and Evaluating Arguments
• Logical Fallacies
• Evaluating Appeals to Ethos, Logos, and Pathos
• Self Check: Logic and Structure

Reading: Summary Skills

• Outcome: Summary Skills
• How to Annotate
• Paraphrasing
• Quote Bombs
• Summary Writing
• Self Check: Summary Skills
• Conclusion to Reading

Writing Process: Topic Selection

• Introduction to Writing Process
• Outcome: Topic Selection
• Starting a Paper
• Choosing and Developing Topics
• Back to the Future of Topics
• Developing Your Topic
• Self Check: Topic Selection

Writing Process: Prewriting

• Outcome: Prewriting
• Prewriting Strategies for Diverse Learners
• Rhetorical Context
• Working Thesis Statements
• Self Check: Prewriting

Writing Process: Finding Evidence

• Outcome: Finding Evidence
• Using Personal Examples
• Performing Background Research
• Listening to Sources, Talking to Sources
• Self Check: Finding Evidence

Writing Process: Organizing

• Outcome: Organizing
• Moving Beyond the Five-Paragraph Theme
• Introduction to Argument
• The Three-Story Thesis
• Organically Structured Arguments
• Logic and Structure
• The Perfect Paragraph
• Introductions and Conclusions
• Self Check: Organizing

Writing Process: Drafting

• Outcome: Drafting
• From Outlining to Drafting
• Flash Drafts
• Self Check: Drafting

Writing Process: Revising

• Outcome: Revising
• Seeking Input from Others
• Responding to Input from Others
• The Art of Re-Seeing
• Higher Order Concerns
• Self Check: Revising

Writing Process: Proofreading

• Outcome: Proofreading
• Lower Order Concerns
• Proofreading Advice
• "Correctness" in Writing
• The Importance of Spelling
• Punctuation Concerns
• Self Check: Proofreading
• Conclusion to Writing Process

Research Process: Finding Sources

• Introduction to Research Process
• Outcome: Finding Sources
• The Research Process
• Finding Sources
• What are Scholarly Articles?
• Finding Scholarly Articles and Using Databases
• Database Searching
• Advanced Search Strategies
• Preliminary Research Strategies
• Reading and Using Scholarly Sources
• Self Check: Finding Sources

Research Process: Source Analysis

• Outcome: Source Analysis
• Evaluating Sources
• CRAAP Analysis
• Evaluating Websites
• Synthesizing Sources
• Self Check: Source Analysis

Research Process: Writing Ethically

• Outcome: Writing Ethically
• Academic Integrity
• Defining Plagiarism
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Using Sources in Your Writing
• Self Check: Writing Ethically

Research Process: MLA Documentation

• Introduction to MLA Documentation
• Outcome: MLA Documentation
• MLA Document Formatting
• MLA Works Cited
• Creating MLA Citations
• MLA In-Text Citations
• Self Check: MLA Documentation
• Conclusion to Research Process

Grammar: Nouns and Pronouns

• Introduction to Grammar
• Outcome: Nouns and Pronouns
• Pronoun Cases and Types
• Pronoun Antecedents
• Try It: Nouns and Pronouns
• Self Check: Nouns and Pronouns

Grammar: Verbs

• Outcome: Verbs
• Verb Tenses and Agreement
• Non-Finite Verbs
• Complex Verb Tenses
• Try It: Verbs
• Self Check: Verbs

Grammar: Other Parts of Speech

• Outcome: Other Parts of Speech
• Comparing Adjectives and Adverbs
• Adjectives and Adverbs
• Conjunctions
• Prepositions
• Try It: Other Parts of Speech
• Self Check: Other Parts of Speech

Grammar: Punctuation

• Outcome: Punctuation
• End Punctuation
• Hyphens and Dashes
• Apostrophes and Quotation Marks
• Brackets, Parentheses, and Ellipses
• Semicolons and Colons
• Try It: Punctuation
• Self Check: Punctuation

Grammar: Sentence Structure

• Outcome: Sentence Structure
• Parts of a Sentence
• Common Sentence Structures
• Run-on Sentences
• Sentence Fragments
• Parallel Structure
• Try It: Sentence Structure
• Self Check: Sentence Structure

Grammar: Voice

• Outcome: Voice
• Active and Passive Voice
• Using the Passive Voice
• Conclusion to Grammar
• Try It: Voice
• Self Check: Voice

Success Skills

• Introduction to Success Skills
• Habits for Success
• Critical Thinking
• Time Management
• Computer-Based Writing
• Conclusion to Success Skills

Understanding Assignments

What this handout is about.

The first step in any successful college writing venture is reading the assignment. While this sounds like a simple task, it can be a tough one. This handout will help you unravel your assignment and begin to craft an effective response. Much of the following advice will involve translating typical assignment terms and practices into meaningful clues to the type of writing your instructor expects. See our short video for more tips.

Basic beginnings

Regardless of the assignment, department, or instructor, adopting these two habits will serve you well :

• Read the assignment carefully as soon as you receive it. Do not put this task off—reading the assignment at the beginning will save you time, stress, and problems later. An assignment can look pretty straightforward at first, particularly if the instructor has provided lots of information. That does not mean it will not take time and effort to complete; you may even have to learn a new skill to complete the assignment.
• Ask the instructor about anything you do not understand. Do not hesitate to approach your instructor. Instructors would prefer to set you straight before you hand the paper in. That’s also when you will find their feedback most useful.

Assignment formats

Many assignments follow a basic format. Assignments often begin with an overview of the topic, include a central verb or verbs that describe the task, and offer some additional suggestions, questions, or prompts to get you started.

An Overview of Some Kind

The instructor might set the stage with some general discussion of the subject of the assignment, introduce the topic, or remind you of something pertinent that you have discussed in class. For example:

“Throughout history, gerbils have played a key role in politics,” or “In the last few weeks of class, we have focused on the evening wear of the housefly …”

The Task of the Assignment

Pay attention; this part tells you what to do when you write the paper. Look for the key verb or verbs in the sentence. Words like analyze, summarize, or compare direct you to think about your topic in a certain way. Also pay attention to words such as how, what, when, where, and why; these words guide your attention toward specific information. (See the section in this handout titled “Key Terms” for more information.)

“Analyze the effect that gerbils had on the Russian Revolution”, or “Suggest an interpretation of housefly undergarments that differs from Darwin’s.”

Additional Material to Think about

Here you will find some questions to use as springboards as you begin to think about the topic. Instructors usually include these questions as suggestions rather than requirements. Do not feel compelled to answer every question unless the instructor asks you to do so. Pay attention to the order of the questions. Sometimes they suggest the thinking process your instructor imagines you will need to follow to begin thinking about the topic.

“You may wish to consider the differing views held by Communist gerbils vs. Monarchist gerbils, or Can there be such a thing as ‘the housefly garment industry’ or is it just a home-based craft?”

These are the instructor’s comments about writing expectations:

“Be concise”, “Write effectively”, or “Argue furiously.”

Technical Details

These instructions usually indicate format rules or guidelines.

“Your paper must be typed in Palatino font on gray paper and must not exceed 600 pages. It is due on the anniversary of Mao Tse-tung’s death.”

The assignment’s parts may not appear in exactly this order, and each part may be very long or really short. Nonetheless, being aware of this standard pattern can help you understand what your instructor wants you to do.

Interpreting the assignment

Ask yourself a few basic questions as you read and jot down the answers on the assignment sheet:

Why did your instructor ask you to do this particular task?

Who is your audience.

• What kind of evidence do you need to support your ideas?

What kind of writing style is acceptable?

• What are the absolute rules of the paper?

Try to look at the question from the point of view of the instructor. Recognize that your instructor has a reason for giving you this assignment and for giving it to you at a particular point in the semester. In every assignment, the instructor has a challenge for you. This challenge could be anything from demonstrating an ability to think clearly to demonstrating an ability to use the library. See the assignment not as a vague suggestion of what to do but as an opportunity to show that you can handle the course material as directed. Paper assignments give you more than a topic to discuss—they ask you to do something with the topic. Keep reminding yourself of that. Be careful to avoid the other extreme as well: do not read more into the assignment than what is there.

Of course, your instructor has given you an assignment so that they will be able to assess your understanding of the course material and give you an appropriate grade. But there is more to it than that. Your instructor has tried to design a learning experience of some kind. Your instructor wants you to think about something in a particular way for a particular reason. If you read the course description at the beginning of your syllabus, review the assigned readings, and consider the assignment itself, you may begin to see the plan, purpose, or approach to the subject matter that your instructor has created for you. If you still aren’t sure of the assignment’s goals, try asking the instructor. For help with this, see our handout on getting feedback .

Given your instructor’s efforts, it helps to answer the question: What is my purpose in completing this assignment? Is it to gather research from a variety of outside sources and present a coherent picture? Is it to take material I have been learning in class and apply it to a new situation? Is it to prove a point one way or another? Key words from the assignment can help you figure this out. Look for key terms in the form of active verbs that tell you what to do.

Key Terms: Finding Those Active Verbs

Here are some common key words and definitions to help you think about assignment terms:

Information words Ask you to demonstrate what you know about the subject, such as who, what, when, where, how, and why.

• define —give the subject’s meaning (according to someone or something). Sometimes you have to give more than one view on the subject’s meaning
• describe —provide details about the subject by answering question words (such as who, what, when, where, how, and why); you might also give details related to the five senses (what you see, hear, feel, taste, and smell)
• explain —give reasons why or examples of how something happened
• illustrate —give descriptive examples of the subject and show how each is connected with the subject
• summarize —briefly list the important ideas you learned about the subject
• trace —outline how something has changed or developed from an earlier time to its current form
• research —gather material from outside sources about the subject, often with the implication or requirement that you will analyze what you have found

Relation words Ask you to demonstrate how things are connected.

• compare —show how two or more things are similar (and, sometimes, different)
• contrast —show how two or more things are dissimilar
• apply—use details that you’ve been given to demonstrate how an idea, theory, or concept works in a particular situation
• cause —show how one event or series of events made something else happen
• relate —show or describe the connections between things

Interpretation words Ask you to defend ideas of your own about the subject. Do not see these words as requesting opinion alone (unless the assignment specifically says so), but as requiring opinion that is supported by concrete evidence. Remember examples, principles, definitions, or concepts from class or research and use them in your interpretation.

• assess —summarize your opinion of the subject and measure it against something
• prove, justify —give reasons or examples to demonstrate how or why something is the truth
• evaluate, respond —state your opinion of the subject as good, bad, or some combination of the two, with examples and reasons
• support —give reasons or evidence for something you believe (be sure to state clearly what it is that you believe)
• synthesize —put two or more things together that have not been put together in class or in your readings before; do not just summarize one and then the other and say that they are similar or different—you must provide a reason for putting them together that runs all the way through the paper
• analyze —determine how individual parts create or relate to the whole, figure out how something works, what it might mean, or why it is important
• argue —take a side and defend it with evidence against the other side

More Clues to Your Purpose As you read the assignment, think about what the teacher does in class:

• What kinds of textbooks or coursepack did your instructor choose for the course—ones that provide background information, explain theories or perspectives, or argue a point of view?
• In lecture, does your instructor ask your opinion, try to prove their point of view, or use keywords that show up again in the assignment?
• What kinds of assignments are typical in this discipline? Social science classes often expect more research. Humanities classes thrive on interpretation and analysis.
• How do the assignments, readings, and lectures work together in the course? Instructors spend time designing courses, sometimes even arguing with their peers about the most effective course materials. Figuring out the overall design to the course will help you understand what each assignment is meant to achieve.

Now, what about your reader? Most undergraduates think of their audience as the instructor. True, your instructor is a good person to keep in mind as you write. But for the purposes of a good paper, think of your audience as someone like your roommate: smart enough to understand a clear, logical argument, but not someone who already knows exactly what is going on in your particular paper. Remember, even if the instructor knows everything there is to know about your paper topic, they still have to read your paper and assess your understanding. In other words, teach the material to your reader.

Aiming a paper at your audience happens in two ways: you make decisions about the tone and the level of information you want to convey.

• Tone means the “voice” of your paper. Should you be chatty, formal, or objective? Usually you will find some happy medium—you do not want to alienate your reader by sounding condescending or superior, but you do not want to, um, like, totally wig on the man, you know? Eschew ostentatious erudition: some students think the way to sound academic is to use big words. Be careful—you can sound ridiculous, especially if you use the wrong big words.
• The level of information you use depends on who you think your audience is. If you imagine your audience as your instructor and they already know everything you have to say, you may find yourself leaving out key information that can cause your argument to be unconvincing and illogical. But you do not have to explain every single word or issue. If you are telling your roommate what happened on your favorite science fiction TV show last night, you do not say, “First a dark-haired white man of average height, wearing a suit and carrying a flashlight, walked into the room. Then a purple alien with fifteen arms and at least three eyes turned around. Then the man smiled slightly. In the background, you could hear a clock ticking. The room was fairly dark and had at least two windows that I saw.” You also do not say, “This guy found some aliens. The end.” Find some balance of useful details that support your main point.

You’ll find a much more detailed discussion of these concepts in our handout on audience .

The Grim Truth

With a few exceptions (including some lab and ethnography reports), you are probably being asked to make an argument. You must convince your audience. It is easy to forget this aim when you are researching and writing; as you become involved in your subject matter, you may become enmeshed in the details and focus on learning or simply telling the information you have found. You need to do more than just repeat what you have read. Your writing should have a point, and you should be able to say it in a sentence. Sometimes instructors call this sentence a “thesis” or a “claim.”

So, if your instructor tells you to write about some aspect of oral hygiene, you do not want to just list: “First, you brush your teeth with a soft brush and some peanut butter. Then, you floss with unwaxed, bologna-flavored string. Finally, gargle with bourbon.” Instead, you could say, “Of all the oral cleaning methods, sandblasting removes the most plaque. Therefore it should be recommended by the American Dental Association.” Or, “From an aesthetic perspective, moldy teeth can be quite charming. However, their joys are short-lived.”

Convincing the reader of your argument is the goal of academic writing. It doesn’t have to say “argument” anywhere in the assignment for you to need one. Look at the assignment and think about what kind of argument you could make about it instead of just seeing it as a checklist of information you have to present. For help with understanding the role of argument in academic writing, see our handout on argument .

What kind of evidence do you need?

There are many kinds of evidence, and what type of evidence will work for your assignment can depend on several factors–the discipline, the parameters of the assignment, and your instructor’s preference. Should you use statistics? Historical examples? Do you need to conduct your own experiment? Can you rely on personal experience? See our handout on evidence for suggestions on how to use evidence appropriately.

Make sure you are clear about this part of the assignment, because your use of evidence will be crucial in writing a successful paper. You are not just learning how to argue; you are learning how to argue with specific types of materials and ideas. Ask your instructor what counts as acceptable evidence. You can also ask a librarian for help. No matter what kind of evidence you use, be sure to cite it correctly—see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial .

You cannot always tell from the assignment just what sort of writing style your instructor expects. The instructor may be really laid back in class but still expect you to sound formal in writing. Or the instructor may be fairly formal in class and ask you to write a reflection paper where you need to use “I” and speak from your own experience.

Try to avoid false associations of a particular field with a style (“art historians like wacky creativity,” or “political scientists are boring and just give facts”) and look instead to the types of readings you have been given in class. No one expects you to write like Plato—just use the readings as a guide for what is standard or preferable to your instructor. When in doubt, ask your instructor about the level of formality they expect.

No matter what field you are writing for or what facts you are including, if you do not write so that your reader can understand your main idea, you have wasted your time. So make clarity your main goal. For specific help with style, see our handout on style .

Technical details about the assignment

The technical information you are given in an assignment always seems like the easy part. This section can actually give you lots of little hints about approaching the task. Find out if elements such as page length and citation format (see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial ) are negotiable. Some professors do not have strong preferences as long as you are consistent and fully answer the assignment. Some professors are very specific and will deduct big points for deviations.

Usually, the page length tells you something important: The instructor thinks the size of the paper is appropriate to the assignment’s parameters. In plain English, your instructor is telling you how many pages it should take for you to answer the question as fully as you are expected to. So if an assignment is two pages long, you cannot pad your paper with examples or reword your main idea several times. Hit your one point early, defend it with the clearest example, and finish quickly. If an assignment is ten pages long, you can be more complex in your main points and examples—and if you can only produce five pages for that assignment, you need to see someone for help—as soon as possible.

Tricks that don’t work

Your instructors are not fooled when you:

• spend more time on the cover page than the essay —graphics, cool binders, and cute titles are no replacement for a well-written paper.
• use huge fonts, wide margins, or extra spacing to pad the page length —these tricks are immediately obvious to the eye. Most instructors use the same word processor you do. They know what’s possible. Such tactics are especially damning when the instructor has a stack of 60 papers to grade and yours is the only one that low-flying airplane pilots could read.
• use a paper from another class that covered “sort of similar” material . Again, the instructor has a particular task for you to fulfill in the assignment that usually relates to course material and lectures. Your other paper may not cover this material, and turning in the same paper for more than one course may constitute an Honor Code violation . Ask the instructor—it can’t hurt.
• get all wacky and “creative” before you answer the question . Showing that you are able to think beyond the boundaries of a simple assignment can be good, but you must do what the assignment calls for first. Again, check with your instructor. A humorous tone can be refreshing for someone grading a stack of papers, but it will not get you a good grade if you have not fulfilled the task.

Critical reading of assignments leads to skills in other types of reading and writing. If you get good at figuring out what the real goals of assignments are, you are going to be better at understanding the goals of all of your classes and fields of study.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Make a Gift

Writing Help (The Write Way): Define & Refine topic

• Citing Sources
• Define & Refine topic
• Grammar, Punctuation, Literary Terms
• Purpose, Tone & Bias & Proofreading
• Text Structure & Analysis
• Tips for writing an article review
• Word & Sentence Parts
• Writing Process
• Browse All Guides

Define & Refine topic - Steps 1 & 2

Step 1 : Try to do something that matters to you, that applies to the career you are pursuing.

Step 2 : Describe your topic in one sentence.

Hint : Narrow the topic with more terms, or broaden topic with synonyms.

I need a topic.

Hint: Many people start with a topic that is too BIG, and need to narrow down their topic.

DEFINE your topic in a sentence.

Best practices : Consider multiple keywords, synonyms, or points of view. Narrow your topic down to meet assignment’s stated goals.

Table of Contents of Research Process: Step by Step

• Research Process Tutorial: Step by Step (Home)
•   Understand assignment
•   Make a Plan
•   Define & Refine topic
•   Find Resources
•   Evaluate & Choose sources
•   Cite sources
• Assess gaps
•   Write & Edit
•   View Research Process in Grid Format
• Get More Research Help
• << Previous: Citing Sources
• Next: Grammar, Punctuation, Literary Terms >>
• Last Updated: Jun 12, 2024 9:29 AM
• URL: https://library.fvtc.edu/WritingHelp

About Us • Contact Us • FVTC Terms of Service • Sitemap FVTC Mission, Vision, Values & Purposes • FVTC Privacy Statement • FVTC Library Services Accessibility Statement DISCLAIMER: Any commercial mentions on our website are for instructional purposes only. Our guides are not a substitute for professional legal or medical advice. Fox Valley Technical College • Library Services • 1825 N. Bluemound Drive • Room G113 Appleton, WI 54912-2277 • United States • (920) 735-5653 © 2024 • Fox Valley Technical College • All Rights Reserved.

The https://library.fvtc.edu/ pages are hosted by SpringShare. Springshare Privacy Policy.

Pardon Our Interruption

As you were browsing something about your browser made us think you were a bot. There are a few reasons this might happen:

• You've disabled JavaScript in your web browser.
• You're a power user moving through this website with super-human speed.
• You've disabled cookies in your web browser.
• A third-party browser plugin, such as Ghostery or NoScript, is preventing JavaScript from running. Additional information is available in this support article .

To regain access, please make sure that cookies and JavaScript are enabled before reloading the page.

An official website of the United States government

Here’s how you know

Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock ( Lock A locked padlock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Open Search

  Mobile Menu

BLM In Belize: Employees Participate in International Assignment Taking Them From Districts of Utah to Caves of Central America

Located just beyond the shared Belizean and Guatemalan border, the BLM team consisting of Savanna Agardy and Kyle Voyles found themselves navigating through thick jungle and looking ahead to the prospect of six days of work mapping one of the largest cave systems in the world with the help of Friends for Conservation and Development (FCD), Department of Interior (DOI) and the International Technical Assistance Programs (ITAP) cave experts.

Spider Monkeys swinging overhead, beetles flying around at dusk, and the alarm clock of parrots singing at sunrise. It sounds nothing like the experience of a typical Utah resident but, instead, a tale from BLM cave explorers that begins with baths in the caves, fresh-flowing water, and nights ending in swaying hammocks.

After waking up to the distinct sounds of parrots and toucans and with the occasional late-night Howler Monkey call, the team got to work in what Agardy describes as “an experience of a lifetime”.

Packing up camp and moving into the unknown Agardy, Voyles and accompanying members from the Belizean Institute of Archaeology (the government agency that oversees all of Belize's archaeological heritage) successfully mapped a remote section of the Chiquibul Cave System (CCS) measuring an approximate mile. While this task seems daunting by itself, mapping wasn't the only assignment at hand: the team additionally identified 50 archaeological features and over a dozen artifacts from 200-900 AD, a time frame known as the Classic Maya Period. 

After learning all they could from the story that the CCS had to tell, it was time that the team turned their focus towards teaching, walking the FCD staff through cave rescue methods with help from Gretchen Baker (DOI-ITAP team member) and Kyle Rybacki, a former BLM employee.   

After a long flight bringing the team back to Utah, Agardy and Voyles continue to work on their findings, with some help from digital technology in designing maps and reporting archeological finds.

All this effort would be futile without help from the DOI-ITAP with the support of the U.S. Agency for International Development/Guatemala , which assists and encourages our teams' continued exploration efforts.

With skies covered by jungle canopies and caves of mysterious heritage still left to explore, visit https://www.doi.gov/itap/opportunities to find out how to get in on the action and experience the unmapped regions of the earth calling to be discovered and questioned.

Thomas Cogdell, BLM Utah Public Affairs Intern

Blog Topic:

Related stories.

• July 31, 2024 BLM Archaeology in Action
• July 16, 2024 Ripple Effect: Dillon Field Office Partners Help Riparian Areas Thrive
• July 17, 2024 BLM Monticello Field Office host first Junior Ranger Day Event
• June 28, 2024 BLM’s Fort Stanton Cave focus of talk at Smokey Bear Days
• June 25, 2024 BLM Utah West Desert District Donates Water Tender to North Tooele Fire District

Create beautiful dreamscapes with Microsoft Designer’s Image Creator

july 26, 2024

by Microsoft Create team

Dreamscapes are visual landscapes or scenes that have the surreal, otherworldly quality of a dream. They are enchanting spaces where the mind and imagination and reality merge, allowing exploration of alternative worlds beyond reality.

You can use dreamscape artwork for interior design inspiration, storytelling, video game design, or decoration. The soothing yet unexpected style is perfect for a whole range of design projects.

With Microsoft Designer’s Image Creator , it's easy to create beautiful, vivid dreamscapes as fast as you can imagine them. Here's how to write prompts that can summon up gorgeous dreamscapes straight out of a futuristic fairytale.

1. Define the style and key elements of your artwork

The key to creating your dreamscape is having a clear vision of your concept by defining the theme, setting, and main characters. Whether you're exploring fantastical worlds or immersing in surreal landscapes beyond reality, your choices determine the tone and atmosphere of the dreamscape, shaping the emotional experience of the viewer.

Include the words “dreamy,” “fantastical,” or “surreal” in your prompt to create an immersive, fantastical atmosphere.

Next, define the key elements of the dreamscape, including places, subjects, and atmosphere. Every detail helps create a unique and engaging experience for the viewer. Here are a few example elements you might consider:

Places: Vast plains, rolling hills, enchanted valleys, crystal-clear lakes, majestic cliffs, dreamy beaches, etc.

Elements: Shimmering spheres floating in the air, mystical arches, imposing rocks, ancient columns telling millennia-old stories, water mirrors reflecting the sky, mysterious stairs leading to unknown worlds, mirrors, etc.

Atmosphere: Dawn paints the sky with shades of pink and orange, the sunset envelops the world in a golden atmosphere, futuristic nature atmosphere, etc.

2. Find a balance between specificity and openness

Aim for a prompt that’s specific enough to guide Image Creator toward the desired goal, but open-ended enough to let the tool surprise you with creative details.

For example, if you’re creating a fairytale dreamscape, your prompt could be: “A surreal fairytale dreamscape with enchanted villas and colorful vegetation.”

Meanwhile, for a futuristic environment, your prompt might be: “A serene futuristic dreamscape with futuristic architecture and advanced technologies.”

These prompts include specific details to point Image Creator in the right direction, but they don't include so many details that they constrain or “confuse” the AI.

3. Include surreal elements

The beauty of dreamscapes lies in their ability to surpass the limits of reality and physical laws. Imagine a floating sphere, a pink or purple meadow, or a new kind of plant. Including these surreal objects in your prompt will help you create an extraordinary dreamscape that defies logic and gravity.

Here are some examples of surreal elements that can be added to a dreamscape to make it more extraordinary:

Portals: Images of portals or gateways leading to alternative worlds, arches and doors in open space, and openings in the wall can create a sense of mystery and adventure.

Impossible architecture: From fantastic towers to floating cities in the sky, architectural structures that defy the laws of physics are perfect for dreamscapes. The brutalist architecture style also looks fantastic in a dreamscape setting.

Distorted landscapes: Natural settings that undergo visual distortions create a sense of familiarity and surprise at the same time. Consider mountains in fanciful shapes, hills radiating pastel shades, or enchanted valleys full of unusual vegetation and flowers.

Floating objects: Objects that float freely in the air without apparent gravity are reliable ways to create a surreal look. Consider books suspended in the void, luminous floating spheres, or everyday objects like furniture.

4. Refine and edit your prompts

Once you generate a dreamscape, identify its strengths and weaknesses so you can refine your prompt. Remove words that don't seem essential or add elements if you're aiming for a certain atmosphere.

Even replacing your existing language with synonyms or substitutions can change the results!

• Instead of lake, try using body of water.
• Instead of colorful vegetation , try using surreal flowers in pastel colors.
• Instead of villa with arches , try using brutalist-style architecture.

Don't be discouraged if you don't achieve the result you had in mind at first. By refining your prompts and observing the results, you can get a sense of what works and start moving your generated images ever closer to the vision in your head.

5. Keep exploring!

Using prompts in Image Creator is a dynamic journey that requires constant learning. Explore all its nuances and test different prompt combinations to achieve unique results.

Never stop exploring and learning, because it's from this process of discovery that the most extraordinary works of art are born. Make the most of every resource, explore new horizons, and stay open to new possibilities to create unprecedented dreamscapes that bring your dreams to life!

Related topics

Tim Walz's military record: What to know about potential VP's National Guard service

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, choosing a progressive yet plain-spoken VP candidate from America’s heartland to help her win over rural, white voters.

“I’m pleased to share that I’ve made my decision: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz will join our campaign as my running mate,” Harris said via text to supporters. “Tim is a battle-tested leader who has an incredible track record of getting things done for Minnesota families. I know that he will bring that same principled leadership to our campaign, and to the office of the vice president.”

We look at Walz, a 60-year-old U.S. Army National Guard veteran, and his military career over the years.

More: Tim Walz is Kamala Harris' VP pick: Minnesota governor named running mate: Live updates

How long was Walz in the military?

Walz served in the military for 24 years, enlisting in the Nebraska National Guard at 17 in 1981 and then transferring to the Minnesota National Guard in 1996. He retired in 2005 to begin his successful run for the U.S. House, representing Minnesota as command sergeant major, among the highest ranks for enlisted soldiers. His battalion went on to deploy to Iraq shortly after Walz's retirement.

Walz specialized in heavy artillery and had proficiency ribbons in sharpshooting and hand grenades.

But during the 21 years that Walz spent working with large artillery pieces, he suffered hearing loss and tinnitus in both ears, Minnesota Public Radio reported. He was allowed to continue his service after undergoing surgery, which partially resolved his hearing loss.

Where did Walz serve, and what did he do in the National Guard?

During his service, Walz responded to natural disasters, including floods and tornadoes in Minnesota and Nebraska, and was deployed overseas for months at a time, according to MPR.

In 2003, he was sent to Italy, where he served with the European Security Force to support the war in Afghanistan. He was also stationed in Norway for joint training with other NATO militaries.

Walz told MPR that he reenlisted in the National Guard after the September 11 attacks but never saw active combat in his years in the military.

Stars and Stripes reported in 2020 that Walz credited his Army experience with helping him steer Minnesota through the COVID-19 pandemic as governor.

As governor of Minnesota, Walz is commander in chief of the 13,000-soldier Minnesota National Guard. “I’m certainly proud of my military service, but it’s one piece of me,” he told Minnesota Public Radio in 2018. “It doesn’t define me.”

Reuters and USA TODAY reporter Tom Vanden Brook contributed to this story.

Democrats battle Trump's efforts to define Harris

The race is on to define Kamala Harris. 

Harris’ campaign rallies are a clear change from those held by President Joe Biden, the man she is replacing at the top of the Democratic ticket. The soundtrack is Beyoncé’s “Freedom” and songs like the “Cupid Shuffle.” Megan Thee Stallion performs. They’re brat — or at least trying to be. The vice president likes to say she’s running a “people-powered campaign” and would oversee “a people-first presidency.”

While the atmospherics are meant to bring some energy back to the Democratic Party, she has also introduced herself to the country as a prosecutor out to press the case against former President Donald Trump. 

“I was elected a United States senator. I was elected attorney general of the state of California. And I was a courtroom prosecutor before then,” she said at her first campaign rally, in Wisconsin on July 23. “And in those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds — predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.”

But the Trump campaign is rushing to define Harris differently.

“Weak, failed, too liberal,” Trump senior adviser Brian Hughes said. “The agenda that brought a border invasion when she was border czar.” 

The Trump campaign’s overall messaging strategy that will play out in the coming weeks can largely be seen as multipronged: tying Harris to Biden administration policies, questioning her authenticity and race, focusing on the fact she was in charge of trying to fix the flow of migrants coming across the southern border, and what the Trump campaign will frame as a record in the Senate that is much more liberal than the records of her Democratic colleagues. 

Harris is an unprecedented presidential candidate, thrust into the top spot roughly 100 days before the election. She’s not the incumbent, and she didn’t have to go through a grueling primary process. Some voters are still learning the details of her biography: her background, policies she supported and how she’s different from Biden. 

And both sides are eager to make sure their image of Harris is the one that sticks with voters. 

“She knows this is going to be a very close race,” Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Harris’ campaign manager, said in an interview. “We are quickly getting our operations up and running. So we are all in constant communication, especially as we move into the next phase of the campaign.”

She added that the campaign is working to make sure it has the resources nationally and locally to keep the momentum going.

“The biggest priority is continuing to build out our infrastructure in the states and continuing to do the hard, methodical work that we know we need to win,” Chávez Rodríguez said.

Still, a source familiar with Harris’ thinking said, “There are only about 90 days left … so a lot of the work is just making sure the record is correct as the other side seeks to define her.” 

The Harris approach 

This week, two ads went up that underscored the war to define Harris. The Trump team debuted an ad blaming her for what it characterized as deadly failures at the southern border. Harris, meanwhile, launched a $50 million preconvention ad buy , with its first spot making the case that she had a stellar career as a “fearless” prosecutor who held murderers, abusers and financial fraudsters accountable. Future Forward, the main super PAC backing Harris, is advertising similar amounts and with similar themes. 

Leading Harris’ efforts will be Chávez Rodríguez, who stayed on as campaign manager, and Jen O’Malley Dillon, who also stayed on as chair of the campaign after Biden dropped out. 

Chávez Rodríguez and Harris have been close for nearly a decade, since Chávez Rodríguez first took a job as state director for Harris’ Senate office in 2016.

Back then, Harris saw Chávez Rodríguez’s job, which was based in California, as the “tip of the spear of some of the resistance against Trump and the policies that we knew he was going to enact,” Chávez Rodríguez told NBC News. She later ended up working on Harris’ presidential campaign in 2019 as her traveling chief of staff. 

Chávez Rodríguez said she got to “see every aspect” of Harris’ leadership and style in action, from her “dancing to music” to cooking Bolognese using herbs from her garden to making calls to grassroots organizations and Democratic leaders to showing that she “cared deeply about the work that she does and who she’s fighting for every day.” It is that “multidimensional” Harris whom the campaign will seek to lean in to.

“There is a kind of nurturing aspect of her,” Chávez Rodríguez said. “She is extremely caring and sort of motherly, if I may say so. She is constantly thinking about the well-being of others. I think that the joy kind of is a big piece of that, making sure we are able to have fun while we’re still doing the hard work that we need to do.”

Ashley Etienne, who formerly worked as Harris’ vice presidential communications director, said a two-pronged approach of both attacking Trump and laying out a plan for what Harris will do in office will be key to winning the election. She said the 1% to 2% of voters who are likely to decide the election “want more.” 

“They have Trump fatigue. She’s going to have to chart out a vision that has absolutely no relationship to Donald Trump,” Etienne said of voters and Harris. “She clearly has grown and developed and feels so much more comfortable and fortified in who she is. You can see that. I think the challenge is going to be can you articulate a vision that’s compelling and inspiring, that’s unifying and that makes people want to come out and vote for you. And I can tell you, that’s a hard thing to do.”

Etienne added that, with Election Day looming, time is certainly of the essence and that Harris needs to find a way to define herself before Republican messaging sticks.

The Trump approach

Meanwhile, as Harris tries to paint herself as a person with a positive vision for the country, the Trump campaign hopes to paint a picture of her that is just the opposite. Its ad released Tuesday called her “failed,” “weak” and “dangerously liberal.” 

“Joe Biden acted like a California liberal. Kamala Harris is one,” said Hughes, the senior Trump adviser.

The pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. also quickly went up with an anti-Harris TV ad focused on what it said was the “cover-up” surrounding Biden’s mental decline” and her role in the administration’s attempts to fight illegal immigration. 

The new ad has run thousands of times across key swing states, according to AdImpact, an ad-tracking firm. So have new ads from Trump’s campaign slamming Harris as Biden’s failed “border czar.”

Altogether, MAGA Inc. and another pro-Trump super PAC are set to answer Harris’ spending before her convention with more than $50 million of their own ads, according to AdImpact. Trump’s campaign has booked at least $15 million more itself, though the numbers are rapidly changing.  

The Trump campaign has been heavily leaning in to the border issue.

“ Under border czar Harris , illegal aliens are pouring in by the millions and millions and millions,” Trump said at a recent rally in North Carolina. 

In 2021, Biden tapped Harris to address the surge of Central American migrants, who came mostly from the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where violence and organized crime have driven millions to flee the region. “Border czar” wasn’t her title, but the term has been widely used by her critics.

Harris pushed back at a campaign rally Tuesday, saying it was Trump who failed to take action to secure the border. She said Trump “has been talking a big game on securing the border, but he does not walk the walk.”

Harris went on to once again define herself by leaning on her experience as a prosecutor. 

“I was the attorney general of a border state,” she said. “In that job, I walked underground tunnels between the United States and Mexico on that border with law enforcement officers. I went after transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers that came into our country illegally. I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won.”

'Our differences do not divide us'

There is also the issue of race and identity.

Within a day of Biden’s dropping his re-election bid, Trump’s allies were calling Harris a “DEI” candidate . DEI refers to workplace policies promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, but it has become a term the right uses to discredit political opponents who are people of color. 

Harris has for years embraced her racial identity — her mom was Indian, and her dad is Jamaican. She also attended a historically Black college, Howard University, in Washington, D.C., and joined Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first historically Black sorority founded in the nation, while she was in college.

On Wednesday, though, in an interview at the annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago, Trump sought to paint her as someone who is inauthentic and engages in race-baiting. 

“I’ve known her a long time indirectly, not directly, very much,” he said of Harris. “And she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”

The comment infuriated Harris’ allies and many of her supporters.

“It’s simply a lie and easily disproved. She went to Howard, for Christ’s sake,” a person close to Harris said. “Kamala Harris has always known who she is. And Donald Trump has always lived out who he is and continues to do so today.”

Harris herself responded during a speech in Houston. 

“It was the same old show. The divisiveness and the disrespect,” she said Wednesday night at an event for the historically Black sorority Sigma Gamma Rho. “The American people deserve better. The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth, a leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts. We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us. They are an essential source of our strength.”

The Harris campaign also quickly released a statement saying, “All Donald Trump needs to do is stop playing games and actually show up to the debate on September 10.” It was an extension of pushes Harris has been making in defining herself as someone willing to go toe to toe with Trump, who hasn’t yet committed to debating her. That image is also starting to stick, at least among her supporters; the crowd at her Atlanta rally this week chanted: “He’s scared. He’s scared. He’s scared.”

Leaning on allies

Still, there is a campaign to grow. The Harris campaign has launched a website advertising more than five dozen jobs. Two sources familiar with the campaign’s planning said it is looking to hire a chief strategist, as well as an ad maker. There are new people being brought on who have deep ties with Harris. And there are longtime allies, including Democratic lawmakers, working to garner all the help she can get from her party, which has quickly largely coalesced around her candidacy. 

For Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., the chair of Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, the way forward will be about maintaining the excitement pulsing through the Democratic Party and doing things like encouraging voters in California to reach out to voters in the critical battleground states.

It will also mean sharing how moved Chu was that Harris called her when Biden dropped out and endorsed her. 

“She is Black and Asian American. She could have taken us for granted. But no, she made sure that she touched base with us, and that was a signal that she valued us,” Chu said. “She doesn’t want to make it seem like it’s just a coronation that’s been bequeathed to her. She is going to work hard, like any presidential candidate would, to earn the trust and respect of the American people.”

She added that she hopes voters will come to see the consoling side of Harris that she saw in January 2023 after Harris went to Monterey Park, California, after a gunman opened fire at a dance hall, killing 10 people, before he died by suicide. 

“One of the survivors just was so numbed and traumatized that he could barely speak and think, because his friends had been killed and he’d seen them fall down and right in front of his eyes,” she said. “And he wasn’t able to cry until he saw Kamala Harris, because she was so empathetic and consoling.”

Meanwhile, Chávez Rodríguez said, Harris’ ability to bring “joy” and compassion to the job helped them weather tough times, a skill that is likely to be needed again.

“She brings a sense of levity,” she said, “even though we oftentimes are in really stressful situations and high-pressure times.”

Yamiche Alcindor is an NBC News Washington correspondent.

Success Skills

What to do with essay assignments.

Writing assignments can be as varied as the instructors who assign them. Some assignments are explicit about what exactly you’ll need to do, in what order, and how it will be graded. Some assignments are very open-ended, leaving you to determine the best path toward answering the project. Most fall somewhere in the middle, containing details about some aspects but leaving other assumptions unstated. It’s important to remember that your first resource for getting clarification about an assignment is your instructor—she or he will be very willing to talk out ideas with you, to be sure you’re prepared at each step to do well with the writing.

Most writing in college will be a direct response to class materials—an assigned reading, a discussion in class, an experiment in a lab. Generally speaking, these writing tasks can be divided into three broad categories.

Summary Assignments

Being asked to summarize a source is a common task in many types of writing. It can also seem like a straightforward task: simply restate, in shorter form, what the source says. A lot of advanced skills are hidden in this seemingly simple assignment, however.

An effective summary does the following:

• reflects your accurate understanding of a source’s thesis or purpose
• differentiates between major and minor ideas in a source
• demonstrates your ability to identify key phrases to quote
• demonstrates your ability to effectively paraphrase most of the source’s ideas
• captures the tone, style, and distinguishing features of a source
• does not reflect your personal opinion about the source

That last point is often the most challenging: we are opinionated creatures, by nature, and it can be very difficult to keep our opinions from creeping into a summary, which is meant to be completely neutral.

In college-level writing, assignments that are only summary are rare. That said, many types of writing tasks contain at least some element of summary, from a biology report that explains what happened during a chemical process, to an analysis essay that requires you to explain what several prominent positions about gun control are, as a component of comparing them against one another.

Defined-Topic Assignments

Many writing tasks will ask you to address a particular topic or a narrow set of topic options. Even with the topic identified, however, it can sometimes be difficult to determine what aspects of the writing will be most important when it comes to grading.

• Focus on the verbs . Look for verbs like compare, explain, justify, reflect , or the all-purpose analyze . You’re not just producing a paper as an artifact; you’re conveying, in written communication, some intellectual work you have done. So the question is, what kind of thinking are you supposed to do to deepen your learning?
• Put the assignment in context . Many professors think in terms of assignment sequences. For example, a social science professor may ask you to write about a controversial issue three times: first, arguing for one side of the debate; second, arguing for another; and finally, from a more comprehensive and nuanced perspective, incorporating text produced in the first two assignments. A sequence like that is designed to help you think through a complex issue. If the assignment isn’t part of a sequence, think about where it falls in the span of the course (early, midterm, or toward the end), and how it relates to readings and other assignments. For example, if you see that a paper comes at the end of a three-week unit on the role of the Internet in organizational behavior, then your professor likely wants you to synthesize that material in your own way.
• Try a free-write . A free-write is when you just write, without stopping, for a set period of time. That doesn’t sound very “free”; it actually sounds kind of coerced, right? The “free” part is what you write—it can be whatever comes to mind. Professional writers use free-writing to get started on a challenging (or distasteful) writing task or to overcome writer’s block or a powerful urge to procrastinate. The idea is that if you just make yourself write, you can’t help but produce some kind of useful nugget. Thus, even if the first eight sentences of your free write are all variations on “I don’t understand this” or “I’d really rather be doing something else,” eventually you’ll write something like “I guess the main point of this is…,” and—booyah!—you’re off and running.
• Ask for clarification . Even the most carefully crafted assignments may need some verbal clarification, especially if you’re new to a course or field. Try to convey to your instructor that you want to learn and you’re ready to work, and not just looking for advice on how to get an A.

Although the topic may be defined, you can’t just grind out four or five pages of discussion, explanation, or analysis. It may seem strange, but even when you’re asked to “show how” or “illustrate,” you’re still being asked to make an argument. You must shape and focus that discussion or analysis so that it supports a claim that you discovered and formulated and that all of your discussion and explanation develops and supports. 

Defined-topic writing assignments are used primarily to identify your familiarity with the subject matter.

Undefined-Topic Assignments

Another writing assignment you’ll potentially encounter is one in which the topic may be only broadly identified (“water conservation” in an ecology course, for instance, or “the Dust Bowl” in a U.S. History course), or even completely open (“compose an argumentative research essay on a subject of your choice”).

The first hurdle with this type of task is to find a focus that interests you. Don’t just pick something you feel will be “easy to write about”—that almost always turns out to be a false assumption. Instead, you’ll get the most value out of, and find it easier to work on, a topic that intrigues you personally in some way.

The same getting-started ideas described for defined-topic assignments will help with these kinds of projects, too.  You can also try talking with your instructor or a writing tutor (at your college’s writing center) to help brainstorm ideas and make sure you’re on track. You want to feel confident that you’ve got a clear idea of what it means to be successful in the writing and not waste time working in a direction that won’t be fruitful.

• Writing Strategies. Provided by : Lumen Learning. Located at : https://courses.candelalearning.com/lumencollegesuccess/chapter/writing-strategies/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Writing in College: From Competence to Excellence. Authored by : Amy Guptill. Provided by : SUNY Open Textbooks. Located at : http://textbooks.opensuny.org/writing-in-college-from-competence-to-excellence/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Image of woman reading. Authored by : Aaron Osborne. Located at : https://flic.kr/p/dPLmVV . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Image of sketches of magnifying glass. Authored by : Matt Cornock. Located at : https://flic.kr/p/eBSLmg . License : CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial