How to Generate Great Dissertation Topic Ideas

When you are in your last year of school and your dissertation is looming in the back of your mind like a great dark storm cloud, it’s time to change things. Your attitude is a big part of making your life easier, and although it isn’t always easy to think more positively, once you’ve done it the first time, you can continue to change how you think about something over and over again. Start by visualizing your dissertation. Do your thoughts automatically go to things like “I have no idea what to do for a topic” or “I can’t do this; I’m not a good writer”? If so, it’s the perfect time to change those around. Instead, start thinking about how your dissertation is just one long essay. You’ve chosen topics for essays before over years of post-secondary education, and you’ve written dozens of them, despite not liking to write them very much. Just think of all the essays you’ve done in the past combined into one. Yes, it takes a lot more time, but you can do it if you put your mind to it.

How to Find a Topic Idea

This is the ideal place to start your journey into dissertation writing. When you are able to begin with a solid idea, your foundation for the entire project will be stronger for it and that will show in your finished work of how carefully you’ve planned and structured your writing to the fullest. Here are some ways to generate a lot of topic ideas to give you the most options for choosing the best one:

• Talk to your professor and/or your thesis advisor
• Ask your friends and peers what they’ve chosen for their topic
• Talk to professionals who are graduated and already working in the field that you want to work in
• Look online – there are dozens of sites you can find that have dissertation topic ideas, depending on your major
• Consult the library – both your school’s library and the public library will have books, videos, articles and journals on any subject you can think of; choose one at random and see if you can get an idea from that
• Look for examples of already completed dissertations, either online or from your professor, and see how previous students have handled this situation that you are in, because sometimes the best example is the actual work of somebody else, not necessarily talking to them