How to Choose a Topic for a Senior Thesis

Narrowing down a topic for your senior thesis doesn't have to be difficult. These steps provide a guide.

Difficulty:

Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Electronic Personal Organizers
• Floppy Disks
• Personal Organizers
• Computers
• Software For Doing Backups
• Word-processing Software
• Floppy disks

1. Thumb through your old class notes and textbooks for topics that grab you.

2. Make a list of these topics.

3. Eliminate topics based on such issues as level of interest (how excited do you get when you think about it?), practicality (too broad? too narrow?), and how significant a contribution it will make to your discipline.

4. Go through the remaining topics with as many people as you can, but at least with your department's academic advisors. They will help you eliminate more topics.

5. Consult with fellow students as well; they'll offer not only great ideas, but also sympathy.

6. Ask as many professors as possible what they know about work that's already been done on the topics that remain.

7. Find this work, and see how similar or different it is from your own ideas. If it's too similar, you've just eliminated another possibility.

8. Choose whichever of the remaining topics interests you the most.

9. Keep in mind that your topic is a work in progress, and allow yourself to be flexible. It's inevitable that some aspects of your topic will change as you progress in your research and writing.

Tips & Warnings

• Try to walk the line between an overly broad and an overly narrow topic. Broad topics can lead you astray and lack focus; narrow topics can be of limited interest and might not furnish enough material for an entire dissertation.

• Keep your topic ideas in a central location, preferably a computer file that you can easily back up.

• Consider setting yourself a deadline for finding a topic. Time is short for a senior thesis, and the sooner you get started the better.

• Be sure you've searched the literature thoroughly for related research. It would be awful to work for months and months only to find you've duplicated someone else's work.