Develop your topic & keywords
- Review your assignment instructions: What kind of assignment/essay is it? Do you need to take a stance? Make an argument? Provide facts or data?
- Will you need library sources? What kind?
- Use the Picking a Topic tutorial to help you narrow down your ideas and find keywords.
- Browse topics and get ideas. What would you like to write about?
- How are you going to find articles/facts/data to support your topic? What are the best keywords, and what are some synonyms you can use to find sources?
For example...
Let's say you are writing about the benefits of time management for student success.
After writing down your topic, highlight the main concepts:
Benefits of time management for student success
Then, think about other synonyms or phrases you can use for that term.
Time management
Scheduling
organization
using a calendar or organizer
Student success
academic acheivement
educational attainment