Minutes a day n e w y o r k

L E S S O N   S U M M A R Y
This lesson explains how to narrow your topic so that it is sufficiently
focused. You’ll also learn how to develop a tentative thesis for your
essay.
5
4 3
www.IELTS4U.blogfa.com

---


R u l e s   o f  T h u m b   f o r   C h o o s i n g   a  To p i c
The writing process involves making many decisions. You begin by deciding what to write about. To ensure that
you make a good choice, follow these four rules. The topic you choose must:
1. be interesting to you and your audience
2. fulfill the writing assignment
3. be sufficiently focused
4. be able to be turned into a question
Capturing Interest
The first rule for choosing a topic is simple: Make certain it holds your interest. If it’s not interesting to you, why
would it be to your reader? Your lack of enthusiasm will be evident, and your writing is likely to be dull, dry, and
uninspired as a result. If you are interested in your topic, you can convey that feeling to your reader, no matter
what the subject. Your reader will be drawn in by your lively prose and passionate assertions.
But what if you aren’t really interested in any of the ideas you came up with while brainstorming? What if
the assignment is about a subject you find dull? The challenge in this situation is to find some approach to the topic
that does interest you. For example, your contemporary American politics teacher has asked you to write an essay
about a healthcare policy issue—something you’ve never thought or cared much about. Your first brainstorming
session resulted in a number of ideas, but nothing interesting enough to keep you writing for five pages. In that
case, it makes sense to brainstorm again, using another method.
Before you begin, make a short list of some of the things that do interest you. Even if they seem totally unre-
lated to the subject, you may be able to make a connection. For example, one student listed the following five areas
of interest:
• music
• driving
• snowboarding
• Tom Clancy novels
• the Internet
She then saw several possible connections with her topic, even before brainstorming again. She could write about
healthcare coverage for music therapy, healthcare policy resources on the Internet, or how accident statistics affect
healthcare policies.
Finding a Focus
Essay assignments often ask you to write about a very broad subject area. For example, your topic might be to write
about the Cold War or about a novel you read in class. You can approach such boundless assignments in
many ways.
To write a successful essay, you need to focus your topic. If, for example, you are given the topic of genetic
engineering, you must find a specific issue or idea within that broad topic. Otherwise, you will have enough material
–