Topics that are too broad. Try to avoid biting off more than you can chew. If a topic is too broad you will have difficulty completing the work in the alloted time. It is also quite likely that you will be unable to write a good report as your ideas will be too scattered. How do you know if a topic is broad? Take a look at the resources that are available to you. If you feel swamped by the number of magazine articles and books that you find chances are the topic you have selected is too broad.

For example, attempting to write a short paper about warfare would be rather difficult as the subject is way too broad. On the other hand, this subject could be narrowed down to a study of a particular war or of a particular era.

Topics that are too narrow. Try to avoid topics that are too narrow as you may have difficulty finding enough information to write about. If you are trying to find evidence to support your ideas it would be difficult to do so with only one or two sources.

The table below illustrates how topics can be broken down.

BROAD        >>>>	NARROW        >>>>	NARROWER
war	World War II	D-Day Invasion
African American History	civil rights movement	Martin Luther King Jr.
music	opera	Mozart's Don Giovanni
science	physics	Newtonian Mechanics
literature	American Literature	William Faulkner
warfare	weapons	swords

Overused Topics. Try to avoid writing about such topics as abortion and capital punishment. Even though these issues are of great importance they have been greatly overused. Unless you feel that you have something new to add to the debate try to avoid these large social issues. In any case, you are most likely all too familiar with the subject matter so you will have lost the opportunity to learn something new. Furthermore, overused topics are going to bore your audience and it is always important to keep your audience in mind as you write a paper.

Persuasive papers. If you are trying to argue a point in a paper try to avoid a topic that involves no argument. For example, everybody agrees that teen suicide and drug abuse is bad so there is no point in trying to persuade people of something they already accept.