Analysing the topic
Before you can begin to write your assignment or essay, or even begin to collect
the relevant information for it, you need to have a good sense of its breadth
and focus. Clarifying the purpose is an important first step, but you should have
a more detailed understanding of the task. To achieve that, you need to analyse
the assignment topic or question by identifying the broad content area and any
components or specific areas that require greater focus or attention.
- Let’s assume, for example, that you were asked to describe
Freud’s theory of personality development. The task word is describe,
which means to spell out the main aspects of an idea or topic or the sequence
in which a series of things happened. Then, the broad content area of the
piece of written work is personality development. Moreover, this particular
assignment then expects you to focus on Freud’s theory (of
personality development).
It is important to note, however, that the focus of a written assignment can
have greater specificity. Let’s consider another example.
- Suppose you are asked to write an essay and your topic is
the following,
In his theory of personality development, how did Freud assume the personality
differences between boys and girls come about?
In that case, the broad topic area is really Freud’s theory about personality
development. The more focused aspect of your writing task is to outline the parts
of the theory that explain boys’ personality development and the parts of
the theory that explain girls’ personality development. Having done that,
you should then focus even more explicitly on how the differences between the
two explain the personality differences between boys and girls.
If you reflect on those two examples, you will recognise the importance of
carefully analysing the assignment topic before you begin writing or researching.
You need to be very clear about the breadth of your writing task, but also
its limits or boundaries.
To highlight the degree to which these can differ, even given the same general
topic, let’s consider one final example.
- Imagine you are given the following essay question.
In the theory that Freud proposed to account for the personality development
of boys and girls, what role was the resolution of the Oedipus complex (for boys)
or the Electra complex (for girls) assumed to play?
Here, as you have probably already detected, your broad topic area is again
Freud’s theory of personality development. This assignment topic or question
has some limits or boundaries, however, that the previous one does not. Specifically,
the more focused components of the topic are the aspects of the theory that account
for boys’ personality development and for girls’ personality development.
However, this question requires you to be even more explicitly focused on an aspect
of those two components (namely, the resolution of the Oedipus complex and the
resolution of the Electra complex). Your essay should outline each of those and
then identify how they were specifically used by Freud to explain boys’ and
girls’ separate personality development.
An important challenge, therefore, is to determine how much attention you are
expected to pay to the various levels of the topic or question. In other words,
while your first task is to recognise these levels (that is, from the broad
topic area to its more focused aspects), the associated task is to decide their
relative importance.
- Take the last essay question, for example, for the broad level
(that is, Freud’s theory of personality development) you might briefly outline
his theory and its components. That is, you should give the reader a framework
within which to understand your discussion of the more focused aspects (that you
will present subsequently). For the more focused component (namely, boys’
and girls’ personality development), you need to elaborate more on the explanation
that Freud provided to account for the personality development of small boys and
then of small girls. Here also, you should do so in a way that provides sufficient
detail (but not too much detail) to enable the reader to comprehend the material
you provide at your next level and especially its significance within the overall
scheme (that is, the broad topic and the specific areas of content).
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