In Bruce Ballenger's The Curious Researcher he addresses those students who always say "I'm not interested enough in anything to write a paper about it." which is something I had grown up struggling with myself. It is pretty tough to get out of this mindset. Maybe it's laziness or it's just being too closed minded, either way this was not something that will let us as writers be able to flourish in our writings, even if they are just academic writings. We shouldn't view our essays just as academic writings that we're forced to write about by our teachers, we should always try to write an essay in the way of putting our voice into a certain topic or referring things in our paper to topics we are interested in especially if we have the freedom to do so. But first we have to be able to know and find out the topics that we enjoy writing about or pertains to us as individuals, so we create an Interest Inventory. Basically this is a brainstormed list of topics that we would like to or be able to write about. Here's mine:
PLACES- Serbia, China, Washington DC, California, Sweden, Germany, Russia, Ukraine
TRENDS- Apple, #Yolo, Twitter, Organic, Dieting Pills, My Best Friend Ana, Pink, Yoga Pants, Leggings for pants, Drugs and Alcohol, Social Media, Teen driving, Reality TV
TECHNOLOGIES- Mac Books, iPods, iPads, iPhones, IOS 7, Digital music, HD TV, Cable, Dish, Smart Phones, Phone rates, There's an app for that, Android, Pirated music, ThePirateBay,
PEOPLE- Obama, Putin, Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Watson, Audrey Hepburn, ZEDD, Armin van Buuren, Joyce Meyers, Lecrae, Carrie Underwood, Kellin Quinn, Telle Smith, Lisa Kong
CONTROVERSIES- Obama, Benghazi, School system, Gun control, Marijuana legalization, Christianity in schools, Prayer in schools, Federal Reserve
HISTORY- Chinese Revolution, NATO Bombing Serbia 1999, Triangle Shirt waist, British Royals, Aztec calendar, Jackson, Reagan, Constitution, Tea Party
JOBS- Fast food, CEO of corp, Pharmacists, Doctors, Nurses, Military, CIA, Actors, Game designers, Movie effect crews
That seems like a good place to stop. I'm pretty satisfied with that list, I don't know about you. So we've brainstormed topics and random words in different general categories. We are a step closer to finding our topic of interest. Now you review the list of the topics that seem like the best to write about. They should already be interesting to you... you just brainstormed them, but if not you can eliminate those uninteresting topics first. Then pick a topic you think would be best, I'll pick My Best Friend Ana because I know a lot about this subject and I could do some solid research on this topic, I think. If not, I can always just switch to another topic, it's no sweat. My Best Friend Ana is a trend among mostly young female teens online who support anorexia and help each other in telling each other different diets they can take. They call Ana their best friend because usually these girls are depressed and "Ana" ~being skinny~ is the only thing they have going for them. There are many known studies for anorexia and the affects of it and also other blogs of girls going through this type of diet all over the internet.~There's the primary sources right there!~ Through studying this, maybe we could even help someone out in encouraging them to eat better?
Now we create questions for ourselves to try and answer in our essays and in our research. Here are my questions for my topic:
What is the percentage of teens in the US with anorexia?
What is the life expectancy for a teen suffering from anorexia?
Can this be a disorder that is developed without intentionally starving yourself?
Are there any positives for these teens to be posting on blogs about their "Best Friend Ana"?
What happens in rehab centers for this type of condition?
Can it be possible that the obesity rate of American can be causing teens to want to be anorexic?
Is the media encouraging this through their models? Is this what they want and what they're looking for? Why?
How many companies only hire models at a certain weight, height, and measurement of waste? Should they be looked down upon for this?
Is it society's fault for this trend in teens?
And BOOM, a great topic to research and something that interests you at least a bit and if not so much at first, while you research some of the questions you come up with you might run into another topic that might interest you even more. It happens more than you know, I generally never end up writing my essays on the topics that I pick in the first place just because I always come across something even more interesting to me. So get interesting and let the ideas, words, and research flow. Something that could be a super drag could actually be pretty fun if you let your curiosity take over. Thanks for reading!
-Christina Williams
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