What Topic Should You Choose?

You started researching your topic broadly. You wanted to look at a general research question and in that find your argument for your persuasive essay. You want to write a paper you think is interesting. You can choose any topic you want to write a persuasive essay about. It is possible to relate any topic you  choose to the Harvard Sampler. Here is an example (Number 4).

If you are struggling to think of a good topic, here are some ideas to get you started.

1) What do you want to do in university? Choose a topic related to that. Do you want to be a diplomat? How about connecting it to the medical detectives topic: "Global health should be the primary concern of future global leaders." Or, if you want to be a PA for a news team, maybe you could connect it to the internet topic: "Social media expertise is a requirement for any successful journalist."

2) What are you studying in your other classes? Debate? Literature? Korean? If you're interested in history, maybe you could do an argument like, "The internet should be used to "normalize" world history and remove the biases of history produced by single countries. If you like biology you could discuss evolution in terms of anything that interests you. For example, "What is the evolution of education in Korea?" Or, "how has the Korean language evolved?" Maybe you could combine the evolution topic with the internet and the human mind: "We need to replace natural selection with artificial selection by creating technology that directly links our minds to the internet.

3) What are your hobbies? Do you really like manga? You could relate it to the human mind by arguing, "Reading manga is more intellectually stimulating than watching movies." What about bike riding? "The evolution of bike mechanics is the most profound evolution of technology in sports."

Again, remember that any topic is acceptable, and the most important criteria for your argument is that you think it is interesting. You can write an academic and intellectually stimulating paper on any topic, academic or not.