How to Find a Topic for a School Project

Three Parts:Getting Started Narrowing Down Your Choices Ensuring Originality Questions and Answers

Choosing a topic for a school project can be the hardest part of the whole task. It’s easy to spend hours feeling overwhelmed by all of the possibilities or, on the other hand, by the sense that you have no ideas to work with. With some planning and thinking ahead, however, you can come up with a strong topic that suits the assignment and your personal interests.

Part 1

Getting Started

 

Understand the assignment. As with any work your teacher assigns you, you want to know what is expected of you with regard to the project before you sit down to decide on a topic. Understanding the project is key for picking a topic that will meet the teacher’s requirements and keep you from getting frustrated as you work.

• If the teacher has provided an assignment sheet, read it over with a pen or highlighter in hand and mark important details pertaining to the types of topic you may choose, the length of the presentation (if any), materials, sources required, etc. Pay attention to the due date as well—you don’t want to spend days working on a project only to run out of time before you finish!
• Write down any questions or concerns with the project assignment and ask your teacher (or, if you’re on a tight deadline and the teacher is unavailable, ask a reliable classmate). Be as specific as possible with your questions. For example, instead of saying, “I don’t understand the presentation,” you can say, “I don’t understand how the presentation is supposed to be formatted.” The latter example is much more likely to get you a clear explanation of what you are supposed to do.
  
  
  
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  Determine what you hope to learn. If you do a project “just to get it done” or “because you have to,” you’re less likely to enjoy it and less likely do your best work. Instead, try looking at the project as an opportunity to increase your skills, knowledge, and ability.^[1]

  
  • Think about areas where you skills could use improvement and whether there things you’d like to or need to learn. How about areas where you’ve shown some weakness? It’s very common to shy away from working in areas that we don’t consider our strongest, but that can often be a mistake, as it keeps us from building ourselves up in those areas and widening our range of talents.
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  3

  Brainstorm ideas. Get out a piece of paper and a pen/pencil or open a blank document on your computer and set a timer for 5 minutes (don’t worry if 5 minutes isn’t long enough—you can always go longer if you need to). Then start the timer and write down every idea that comes into your mind with regard to your project assignment—words, phrases, sentences, whatever.

  • Write it all down! There are no good or bad ideas in brainstorming.^[2] Every idea is an essential element of finding the right topic for your project. So don’t judge what you’re writing…just write!
  • You’re going for a wide array of ideas as you brainstorm, so don’t be too focused or specific just yet.^[3] Remember—write down everything that comes to mind. Even if it seems kind of “out there,” just get it out. You’ll be able to get rid of or rethink ideas later on. Right now the task is just getting stuff down on paper.
  • If you work better with other people, enlist the help of a friend or family member in your brainstorming session. Make sure you tell him/her what is required by the assignment sheet (or let them read it), then trade ideas back and forth. This process will naturally take longer than a five-minute solo brainstorming session, but it can yield great results.
  • If you’re the technological type, there are a variety of free online tools, such as Bubbl.us and Popplet, that help with brainstorming.^[4]
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    Tips

  • Projects done with a partner or in a group can be rewarding but also challenging. Because group work involves more than one set of opinions and ideas, the project will benefit from a wider range of creativity when choosing a topic. But it’s also easy to fall into conflict when members can’t agree on a topic or have very distinct interests. If you find yourself having trouble coming up with a topic as a group, you may need to spend some extra time finding areas of interest that overlap.
  • Consider talking with others in your class about their project topics. This might help you generate ideas of your own. Be careful though—you don’t want to use an idea that is too similar to or seems derivative of someone else’s.
  • Remember that your teacher is an important resource for assisting in project topic selection; you shouldn’t hesitate to run potential topic ideas past him or her once you have a few good ones in mind.
  • You may have to do another project in the future for a similar assignment, so hold on to your original list of topics—it may come in handy.
  • Understanding the topic is the key!
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