LibGuides: EN2100 Speech Guide: Brainstorm Topics

Brainstorm Topics

Choosing a Good Topic Resources
This document has links to help you find a topic, research your topic, and focus your topic

Choosing a Topic
This tutuorial will explain how to select a topic and narrow it down, if needed.

You'll need to do some background research first to develop a good speech topic.

Some good places to find background information:

Encyclopedias and reference books
Credible websites
Library databases

These Library databases and ProCon.org help you find topics for speeches, credible information on those topics, and citations to other credible resources. When you're ready, move on to refining your topic.

Points of View Reference Source
This database contains many core topics, each with an overview (objective background / description), point (argument), and counterpoint (opposing argument).
Gale EBooks
Gale EBooks is a database of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.

Britannica's ProCon.org
Britannica provides pros and cons on debatable issues, with well-researched information on those issues.

Refining Your Topic
Learn strategies for selecting and refining your topic by narrowing or broadening it, and how to control the number of results by adding or removing search terms.

Refine Now that you've done some background research, it's time to narrow your topic. Remember: the shorter your speech, the narrower your topic needs to be. Here are some suggestions for narrowing and defining your topic:

Is there a specific subset of the topic you can focus on?
Is there a cause and effect relationship you can explore?
Is there an unanswered question on the subject?
Can you focus on a specific time period or group of people?

Describe and develop your topic in some detail. Try filling in the blanks in the following sentence, as much as you can:

I want to speak on ____(what/who)____

and ____(what/who)____

in ____(where)____

during ____(when)____

because ____(why)____.