Guide for Writing in Geography
Coming up with a Topic
Any assignment, whether major or minor, is usually easier and more enjoyable if it is focused on a topic about which you are interested and excited. One of the questions to think about when coming up with a topic, then, is first and foremost: What interests you? What do you care about, in the context of the assignment or course? Taking this as a starting point will lead to fruitful possibilities for the topic of your assignment.
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Brainstorming also can help. Jot down informal notes without worrying about grammar or complete sentences. Make lists. Focus narrowly, or use association to come up with potential linkages between ideas.
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Diagrams, maps, sketches can help generate ideas and allow for making connections between ideas.
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Freewriting is another part of research and writing that is also a quick and informal way to develop an idea. In contrast to the lists or phrases that often make up brainstorming, freewriting is an opportunity to write and elaborate more fully – while still taking liberties with grammar or specific sentence structure. Giving yourself a time limit such as ten or fifteen minutes (or shorter or longer) can help to structure your freewriting. You can also focus freewriting on a challenge you are having with your work, or just leave it more open.
Here is just one example of freewriting:
Once you have written something, reread it and identify the main thoughts and any interesting points. Look for questions and ideas that might be worth pursuing.
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Talk with someone about your ideas. Instructors (professors and TAs) may be the best people to check in with about your developing topic, and many have office hours for this kind of conversation. However, don’t overlook other resources such as classmates in the same course, other students in your major, interested friends and family. Sometimes having a conversation about the assignment and how you’d like to approach it can be helpful in identifying areas of confusion, and in coming up with possibilities you haven’t considered.
Adapted from: Dartmouth College, Writing Program, “Coming up with your topic”, accessed March 5, 2010.
Getting started with research
Is the source scholarly?
Different types of sources
Journal articles, books, magazines
- Date of publication and currency: Is the information current enough for your purposes?
How do you know? - Publishers: A university press is likely to be scholarly. Professional organizations and the U.S. Government Printing Office can also be indicators of scholarly content.
- Who is the intended audience for the book?
Websites
- How did you find the website?
- Was it recommended by a faculty member or another reliable source?
- Was it a link from a known reputable site?
- Was it found via a search conducted through a search engine? Unlike library databases, the accuracy and/or quality of information located via a search engine will vary greatly. Not to mention, you may be inundated with millions of extraneous links.
- Identify the website’s domain.
- You can tell a lot from the URL, or Internet address, of a website – such as indications
of the site’s mission or purpose.
- .org : An advocacy website, such as a not for profit organization
- .com : A business or commercial site.
- .net : A site from a network organization or an Internet service provider.
- .edu : A site affiliated with a higher education institution.
- .gov : A federal government site.
- .mn.us : A state government site – may also include public schools and community colleges.
- .uk (United Kingdom) : A site originating in another country.
- ~ : The tilde usually indicates a personal page.
- Who is the author?
- Is the author’s name visible? Does the author have an affiliation with an organization or institution?
- Does the author list his or her credentials, and what are they?
- Is there a mailing address or telephone number included, as well as an email address?
- Accuracy and objectivity
- How accurate is the information presented? Are sources of factual information cited? Is there a bibliography included?
- Does the page take a particular point of view or bias?
- Does the page contain advertising? This may impact the content of the information included. Look carefully to determine the relationship between the advertising and the content.
- Currency – timeliness of information, maintenance
- When was the page created and last updated?
- Are the links current and functional?
Accessing and acquiring the information you need:
- access to digital information – blogs, websites, audio and video material – that can be found nowhere else
- access to digital information that can also be found in a non-digital form – e.g. newspapers and academic journals, electronic versions of printed books
- access to information about how to find materials only published in a non-digital format – e.g. microfilm, map, printed books not available online.
Refining your topic and developing a thesis
Suggestions for narrowing or expanding your topic
A topic you are considering may be so broad that it will be hard to successfully write about it based on the expectations for the assignment. Sometimes your topic will be too narrow, depending on the expectations of your instructor as outlined in the assignment. You may get feedback to either narrow or expand your topic – but how do you do this?
Narrowing your topic
Look for specific examples.
Consider focusing on particular and important aspects of the larger context.
So far, your topic for a class presentation is: “Biotic factors in urban forests”. This seems important from the course reading. However, “biotic” can be interpreted to mean any living thing in an ecosystem. That’s pretty broad! Would a specific example help? You have heard quite a bit about the Emerald Ash Borer in the Twin Cities metro area. These insects are moving westward from other regions of the upper Midwest and eating up ash trees – have there been management strategies that have helped minimize the loss of trees in other urban areas? What is the response in the Twin Cities? How will this affect different neighborhoods in the metro area? Are there two or three neighborhoods you might compare?
In this case, a specific example can provide a way to focus your topic so that you can develop a better set of questions to get your research underway. So, your refined topic might be: “Impacts of Emerald Ash Borer in Three Twin Cities Neighborhoods”. This will need even further work to develop a problem and thesis, but is much more manageable than your original topic!
Expanding your topic
How is your topic connected to other concepts, facts, or theoretical approaches?
Consider your topic from another vantage.
Consider the larger context.
Developing a thesis
In many assignments, you are asked to develop an argument. This can also be thought of as a claim or assertion about your topic, and is called the thesis of your paper. You will develop several key supporting points to your thesis based on your interpretation and explanation of the evidence you present, in order to defend your assertion about the topic.
Identifying a ‘problem’ within your topic
The thesis and the topic are not the same thing. Once you have identified your topic – usually a fairly broad area of interest (see section #4 above: Coming up with a Topic) – you need to think about how it might become an interesting ‘problem’ or question that you can explore and answer within the context and constraints of the assignment (e.g. a 3-5 page paper for a particular geography course). This process might be called ‘problematizing’ your topic.
For example:
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Topic: “Universities and their host cities” – way too big!
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Narrowing the topic: “How large American universities affect their host city” – still unwieldy!
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The topic understood as a problem: “What is the impact of the University of Minnesota on adjacent Minneapolis neighborhoods?”
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Even more specific: “How has housing in the Marcy-Holmes neighborhood of Minneapolis changed in recent years, and what role has the University of Minnesota played in bringing these changes about?”
This last and more specific set of questions points directly to a particular institution, identifies a neighborhood adjacent to the institution, and identifies a single significant feature (housing). If this were your project, you must now decide about a time frame, select which housing-related variables will be examined, and consider how to find the information needed.
There is no formula for when or how to do this – but it will help to begin focusing your interests within your topic early in the process. You may need to go back and forth between (1) researching the available information and existing work on your topic, and (2) refining how you define the problem within your topic that you will eventually develop into your thesis.
Developing a thesis and thesis statement
Don’t feel pressure to come up with your thesis immediately. It often takes an outline or draft before you develop your thesis. Your thesis can be thought of as an assertion or proposition with which the reader may agree or disagree – ideally one that is interesting to the reader!
The thesis is communicated by the thesis statement – a sentence that states your assertion and suggests your interpretation and analysis. Most often the thesis statement comes towards the end of the Introduction (see section #10 Structure and Organization). Thesis statements sometimes begin with “I will argue that…”.
Thesis statement or purpose statement?
The purpose statement is related, but different, from the thesis statement. Rather than stating the argument of the paper, the purpose statement provides a road map to the reader and outlines the purpose and scope of the project (e.g. “This paper examines…”). Your instructor may have specific instructions regarding purpose and thesis statements.
This section adapted from:
University of Minnesota, Master of Liberal Arts Program, Instructions for Final Project,
accessed April 21, 2014
