To narrow a topic that is too broad for a particular assignment, ask yourself the following 5 W questions.
Broad topic: eating disorders
- Who? What population am I interested in? (Consider age, gender, race, or ethnicity.)
- What? What types of eating disorders am I interested in? (Anorexia, bulimia, binge-eating?)
- When? What timeframe am I interested in? (Consider current, historical, particular stage of life.)
- Where? What location am I interested in? (Consider countries, states, cities, and regions.)
- Why? What do I need to evaluate? (Consider causes, treatments, outcomes.)
Once you've answered these questions, combine different combinations of the areas you're interested in to create an interesting, manageable research topic.
Narrower topics:
- causes and treatment of anorexia in teenage males in the United States
- changes in treatment of bulimia from the 1950's to the present
- prevalence of binge-eating among children of divorce