Tips and Warning Signs for Topics
In MMW, we write argumentative and analytical papers, not papers that simply describe
a phenomenon and sum up what is already known about a topic. To develop an excellent
topic for MMW 12, you need to think carefully about your language and reasoning. The
chart below shows some typical, but overly broad ways of thinking and writing, and gives
advice on how to focus your topic and write and think in specific language that will help
you write strong argumentative and analytical essays.
Warning Signs That Your Topic is Too
Broad and Overly General
How To Narrow Down and Focus Your
Topic
Vague or abstract language:
Use concrete nouns instead.
Abstract terms can mean almost anything, and
are often used in place of actually thinking.
Think of them as placeholder words—they are
red flags telling you that this is a place where
your writing and thinking can be more clear,
precise, and specific.
Provide specific dates, places, names, events,
institutions, phenomena: in short, describe in
great detail the proposed objects of your
analysis.
If you decide that you must use an abstract
term, define it and explain why you’re using
the term.
Here are some abstract words that are very
tempting to use in an MMW paper, but can
cause you trouble if you don’t narrow them
down:
Ask what’s at stake. What does it mean for
something to "rise"? If one is going to examine
the rise of, say, a certain religion or political
power, at what is one going to look? Is the
point to establish how something became
powerful? Popular? Widespread? Is the focus
going to be on how the thing influences
people, or on how it develops? Why do you
want to know? Where will you look for
answers, and how will you know a viable
answer when you see it?
“Culture,” or modified versions of this word,
like “Muslim culture”
“Society,” or modified versions like “patriarchal
society”
"Rise": As in "I want to examine the rise of X."
If you find yourself wanting to use words like
these and can’t think of alternatives, then the
topic most likely needs more work. It is
probably descriptive, rather than analytical or
argumentative. MMW papers require analysis
and argument, and a topic like this will put
you on track for a mediocre paper (and low
grade) at best.
Synecdoche /Personifying a state or institution:
Provide more information. You need to specify
what, when, where, and who: what happened,
when and where did it happen, who (provide
names) was involved.
Referring to a country, empire, or institution
(e.g., “the Byzantine Church”) as if it were a
person. Such references are problematic. To
say that "early Christians" wanted something is
to say nothing at all; there have been a lot of
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people in this category, living at different times
and in different places, and they haven’t all
wanted the same thing. Ditto with claiming
that, for example, "the Roman empire" was or
did something. Empires are, by definition,
large, heterogeneous, and long-lasting
confederations that are difficult to characterize.
Establish who intended what. To claim, for
example, that the Japanese government
established Confucianism as a political ideology
implies deliberate policy formation. If so, what
were those policies and how/when/by whom
were they put into effect?
The same holds true with regard to use of the
word “government,” especially when the
government is vaguely defined and used as an
actor, as in “Why did the Japanese government
establish Confucianism as one of their most
important political ideologies?”
Overly inclusive or poorly defined categories:
Define the category more narrowly and
specifically by considering categories such as
where, when, gender, race, and social class.
References to large, vague categories: "Chinese
women," "Roman prostitutes," "Buddhists," and
so forth.
Category confusion/merging:
Arab/Muslim is a big one, as is Arabia/Islam.
Vague references to sources:
Provide the names of the scholars.
References to “scholars” that do not include
the names of actual scholars
Determine the genres of all your sources and
describe them by the appropriate terms.
Calling sources genres that they aren’t, e.g.
calling a poem a “story” or calling something a
“journal article” when it is too short to be a
full article
For 12, use only sources in the course
materials: course reader, course text, lecture
notes, supplementary readings the professor
provides or info the TA provides. If the course
materials include sources outside the
timeframe of the course, you may use them,
but use them in ways that make historical and
logical sense.
References to sources on topics that are almost
certainly outside the correct historical period.
For example, a journal article titled
“Interpreting Gender in Islam: A Case Study of
Immigrant Muslim Women in Oslo, Norway” is
not going to provide information relevant to
Islam in the medieval period.
A question that is not clearly and explicitly
related to the introductory information that
precedes it:
Meet with your TA and talk about why you
have chosen this topic and are asking this
question.
Encyclopedia-style intro with a question and
thesis tacked on at the end implies that you
need to think and work a lot more.
Outline your argument.
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Find a telling detail, story, or event that
encapsulates all you find stimulating about the
topic. Write an analysis of it and state
explicitly how it connects to your question and
thesis.
A question that focuses on a "main factor":
If you choose to make an argument like this
despite our warnings, then you will need to
demonstrate the following:
That the phenomenon truly involved a
number of factors
That it is possible to assess the factors’
relative importance
That determining the “main factor” will
allow us to understand something
significant about the phenomenon (the
“so what?” of the project)
Asking about the main factor for a
phenomenon may look like an easy way to
manufacture an argument, but it is actually an
almost impossible argument to make well. The
question relies on the assumption that the
phenomenon in question had a main factor (as
opposed to a number of equally important
factors). It also takes for granted both that
that we should care about causes and that
causation is inherently arguable.
Most of the time, these topics are not
argumentative at all, but instead are just data
dumps of a lot of information, and therefore
do not meet the requirements of the
assignment. As with questions about a
phenomenon’s “rise,” these projects are often
descriptive rather than analytical or
argumentative.
Or you can reshape the question. Think about
what really matters about the topic. You can
sometimes make these questions more
workable by turning them into “how”
questions”: not “what was the main factor in
X’s success?” but “how did X succeed?”
Also, see Causal arguments.
Comparisons, or “compare/contrast” questions:
Typical comparison questions include:
How does X compare to Y?
How was X different from Y?
Which was better: X or Y?
Think about the significance of your project.
What difference does it make if X is better
than Y? What do we learn when we compare
X with Y?
There are two main problems with these types
of comparison questions: they are often based
on false dichotomies and personal preferences
and aversions; and they often generate
descriptions rather than arguments or analyses.
Make either/or questions more workable by
focusing on the underlying question. Instead
of asking “did Ming emperors rule effectively
or were the eunuchs in control?” ask “how
effectively did the Ming emperors rule?” or
“how much power did eunuchs wield during
the Ming dynasty?”
Either/or questions are a sub-genre of
comparison questions. These questions often
merge thesis and counterargument into a
question.
Causal arguments:
Beware yes-no, either-or claims. Make
nuanced, both-and claims that leave room for
further analysis, research, and thought.
Cause-and-effect questions take the following
forms:
What caused Y?
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How did X cause Y?
What was the main cause of Y?
How did X affect Y?
What was the (main) effect of X?
Think logically and thoroughly about the
claims you do make and word them carefully.
If you are going to claim that X caused Y, it is
necessary to:
Look for a temporal connection (X has to
have appeared before Y)
Articulate the mechanism by which X
could have caused Y
Rule out alternative causes for Y
Rule out the possibility that both X and Y
were caused by a third factor
Explain the significance of finding the
cause of Y
Cause-and-effect questions are inherently
arguable and we humans tend to like these
questions, but the actual mechanisms of causeand-effect are difficult to demonstrate, even for
contemporary phenomena. Looking for the
causes of developments that took place
hundreds or thousands of years ago is even
harder, both because the evidence is more
fragmentary and because it is more difficult to
assess the reliability of the available data.
To assert that X was the main cause of Y, it is
necessary both to take all of the steps listed
above and to:
Demonstrate that Y had multiple causes,
and that X was one of them
Demonstrate that it is possible to assess
the relative importance of various
causes
Explain why it matters that one cause was
more important than the others
As a result, many causal arguments fall into
logical traps and result in Level 4 questions—
questions that are unanswerable with research
and reason and whose answers are often based
on personal reactions, limited research, or
cultural biases.
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