English II - Unit 4: Speaking and Listening Selecting and Limiting a Topic

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Follow these steps for choosing a topic.

1. Eliminate weak topics. 2. Eliminate controversial topics. 3. Eliminate boring topics. 4. Choose your topic.

Before you write or speak you must know what you are going to say about your topic. You will need to give it direction, to limit it, or to modify it in one way or another. Here are six steps to help you refine or limit your topic.

1. Read everything on the page very carefully. 2. Begin to look for connections, for pairs or groups of ideas that fit together. 3. Discard any items which do not seem to fit. 4. On a separate sheet of paper, begin putting together related pairs or groups. 5. Look for one focus, one idea or one approach which seems to stand out over the others. 6. Take an aspect of the topic which you can cover in two minutes (about 500 words).

Once you know your topic, your focus, and the areas you want to discuss, the task of shaping your ideas begins. The time for decisions has come. You must ask yourself several questions:

1.) Do you have a subject that follows a chronological (time) sequence? 2.) Do you have a subject that requires you to build your points from the least important to the most important to make your description effective? 3.) Do you want or need examples, stories, comparisons, or specific details to emphasize or illustrate what you are saying? If you do, where will they work best? 4.) Who is your audience? What order of presentation will be most effective with them?

Example:

I. Main Point A. Details B. Examples II. Main Point A. Details B. Examples III. Main Point A. Details B. Examples

The result of this questioning is a preliminary sketch, or outline, of your subject. Place your main points in order.

I. Main point II. Main point III. Main point

Listening.

Listen to yourself. Notice the subjects you discuss most often with your family and friends. Listen especially to your word choice and your tone of voice. When you speak to others about a particular subject, are you excited, angry, sad, determined, convinced, or unsure? Are the subjects about which you speak most often the same as the subjects about which you think most often? The best speech topics will probably be those about which you think and speak most often. Obviously they will be topics with which you are familiar.

Sorting.

Once the first step is completed, the second step, the sorting process, can begin. In the sorting process you will take a closer look at the topics you have discovered. Perhaps you have found that you get very excited about reading a good book, about helping a friend, or about taking a trip. Perhaps you have discovered that you become angry with people who are unkind, or with people who cheat, or with people who litter. Perhaps you are unhappy about too much homework, too many rules at home, or too little privacy. Whatever discoveries you have made, you must now decide which one best suits your present purpose.

Thinking.

Take a long look at what occupies your thoughts most often. Do you think about things that happen at home, at school, in church, in your city, or in the world? Do you think about life and what it holds for you now as a student, as a teenager, or in the future as an adult? Begin with whatever ideas, issues, or situations around you concern you most. Think seriously about your feelings in each case. Several ideas for topics may present themselves.