How to Choose a Topic

By Cynthia He, General Blogging

If you are like me, you might have some trouble finding a topic to write about. Of course, you would want to write about something you are interested in, but just that piece of information is not enough.

Maybe you are interested in all of Biology. Well, obviously, don't do a post on Biology,

taking on such a broad topic would 1) lower your self esteem because you need to explain LITERALLY EVERYTHING in Biology, and 2) write a post the size of a textbook.

Now, writing a post on the entirety of biology is an obvious mistake, but narrowing topics down to Cellular Biology or even Human Cellular Biology is a slightly smaller (but still large) mistake. Once again you must keep breaking the topic down into something you can actually write about (which will be discussed later). The post is supposed to be a short read, so don't take on a topic that can take weeks to cover in class!

On the other hand, if you believe your topic is too specific, ask yourself: Why does this happen? For example, If I were to talk about how blood clots open wounds, I would talk about what caused the blood to clot the wound, what causes the blood to stop clotting, and what happens after clotting- don't just answer the question of "how do blood clots open wounds?" You could write on and on about the details, as long as it fits within the 3-7 minute requirement.

How specific or broad you decide to go is up to you, but you must also remember: the reader must also understand what you are writing. Starting from a question can be difficult, as the scope can grow the more details you want to add. However, cutting details may reduce the amount the reader actually understands, so a compromise must be made.

To combat this, I recommend choosing one topic and building off (or more accurately, breaking down) from there. The scope may be large at first, but you can slowly narrow your options by choosing what you are interested in within that topic. For example, if I wanted to talk about Cell Biology, I would narrow it down to Plant Cell Biology, then to Transportation Systems of Plant Cells. In this way, you can reduce the size of the topics into small, digestible chunks. If you want to explain several topics that are related, you can create a series of Blogs that tackle each connected topic (Explaining several areas of Plant Cell Biology) and link them to each other. For this step, bubble maps and upside down pyramids (like the one depicted above) are the most useful visual for you to keep track of your ideas.

Sometimes you have to give background information on what you want to discuss in your Blog. Don't write it all on one post as it can intimidate readers. Rather, you should break down the blog into a series and link them in the post as reference. If not, (because you don't have an interest in the background information), you can find a separate link to a different resource (like crash course) that does the explaining for you. Linking both outside resources and previous blog posts is also an option.

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Side note:

Another reason you may want to link a website is when you need to include a definition. Sometimes, when explaining a topic you are familiar with, you may gloss over key terms or concepts. This is a common mistake, as a writer might assume the reader understands what they are talking about. If you want to avoid this, you can have someone who specializes in a different topic or does not understand what you are writing about read over your post before you post it. Anything they need explained can be linked like this, as long as it is just a simple term or phrase. Otherwise, you should link a previous post or outside resource.

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Before you begin, make sure to take note of the topics you want to cover so you can revisit them after writing a post (or maybe even during if you get tired of writing about a certain topic).

Anyway, have fun writing!