When instructors assign a research paper, it can sometimes be hard to select a narrow topic.
If your assignment is to focus on a broad topic, like EDUCATION, you may want to brainstorm ways that EDUCATION is classified. Some common topics regarding EDUCATION are:
Literacy
Education for ESL populations (students, communities, people, etc.)
value of preschool education
Higher Education
K-12 Education
International Education
Once you get a sense of what you want to focus on you can then begin researching on the specific topic.
Making a list of the possible key terms will not only help you narrow down your search but it will help you save time.
Concept Maps can be drawn by hand or typed on a word document. This one is hand drawn.
It is a hand drawn concept map with the topic of Human Trafficking. The illustrator describes this concept map as, " The topic, Human Trafficking, was placed in the middle. The sub-topics were placed around the main topic. The important information was placed around the subtopics to help remind me what to mention in my paper. My sub-topics were About, Child Trafficking, Human Rights and Types. I chose this way to conceptualize my ideas because it helps me expand my main topic better. This is because I can expand each topic and group my ideas. I can also see how to write my paper by what’s not specific to what is specific. The only challenge I faced was trying to realize what ideas go under which topic. It looks like it is a mess but the topic is a mess altogether."
Source: http://youthvoices.
