Broadening and Narrowing Your Topic

Broadening Your Topic:

If you're not finding many resources on your topic, there are a few strategies that you can use.

Is your topic very recent? If so, there might not be a lot of academic articles or books out about it yet. Consider a topic that might not be quite as recent.
Consider broadening by looking at:
- similar issues that could be connected (perhaps by comparing or contrasting)
- looking at a bigger area
  - instead of a specific year, look at the decade or time period surround that year;
  - instead of a specific town, look at the state/province/country/continent;
  - instead of looking at 5 year olds, look at children or young adults or another population

Examples

Narrow topic:
The impact of the Grimm Brothers' Cinderella on kindergarten children

Broader topics:
The impact of fairy tales on children
The impact of the Grimm Brothers on fairy tales
The impact of different fairy tale interpretations on school-age children

Narrowing Your Topic:

If you're finding too many sources, you'll want to narrow your topic a bit. Try a strategy like,

Try narrowing by adding in:
- A specific time period
- A specific location
- A specific group of people involved (nationality, age, gender, etc)
- A specific theory to apply
Try using the W's (who, what, when, where, why) to help you narrow down your research ideas.

Examples

Broad Topic:

Why recycling is important

Narrower Topics:

The impact of recycling plastic in the United States
A comparison of plastic recycling methods in the United States and China
Building houses made from recycled materials in the United States

A Useful Activity for Broadening or Narrowing Your Topic:

Whether you want to broaden or narrow your topic, sometimes brainstrorming activities like a mind map can be useful. These can be as simple or elaborate as you want.

Examples:

Topic: Climate Change

Source: https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/examples/mind-map/climate-change-mind-map-template

Topic: Hacktivism, Cyberterrorism, and Cyber War

Source: https://keyboardkat.makes.org/thimble/MjYxNzUxMDQw/team-opportunity-mindmapping