Last updated on December 4th, 2022 at 08:54 am

What is a Research Topic?

A research topic is a subject or issue that a student/researcher is interested in when conducting research. A research topic is a subject that a research project sets out to explore or discuss in detail.

How to Choose a Good Research Topic

Choosing a research/project topic is one of the most difficult parts of the research process. Your choice of topic is the first step to writing an excellent project, dissertation, or thesis. When trying to get a project topic or topic for your thesis consider the following:

Interest: It’s important you choose an area or an idea that holds significant interest for you. This way even when you encounter challenges in the course of conducting and writing your dissertation, thesis, etc you will likely not be thrown off. Research Projects require some tenacity and it helps that you work on something you find interesting.

Relevance: How relevant is the idea you wish to work on? The chances are, the more relevant your project topic is the more likely you will put in the work to conclude it.

Availability of Research or Relevant Data: If you are to choose or develop a research topic you should make sure it’s on something that has verifiable or reliable data or at least some historical data to glean from. The more information available for your topic idea the better/easier for you.

Tips to Generating a Good Research Topic

Look for trending ideas – If you are studying for a health-related degree, for instance, the COVID-19 pandemic is a very topical and highly current issue that you can focus on to develop a research topic. Look around your field and note the current issues. Most times they give you enough background to base/develop a research idea/topic.

Read – reading a lot of materials in your field is a sure way to spring up suitable ideas in your academic field. Read quality books, magazines, and websites in your field and make notes of striking information. You will easily realize you have several ideas to develop your research topic.

Ask Questions – Talk to practitioners, and professionals in your field and discover issues, pain points, etc that can form the basis for innovative and problem-solving research ideas/topics.

Look at previous topics from other researchers in your field – Take advantage of your school library and especially your departmental library to find past projects in your field and area of interest. This should serve as a guide in helping you to frame your own topic, with an extra sense of assurance that you have reference materials if the topic is approved. However, avoid overused topics.
Also, There are different websites with suggested project topics in various fields. Of course you don’t have to plagiarize other people’s works, but depending on what your area of interest is, you can work your topic around the ideas you see there. You must be passionate about the topic you choose.