• Try to select a topic about which you are genuinely curious. No matter what subject, person, or event you are interested in, it has a history. Every subject can be studied backward in time because every event was caused by events that preceded it. A history research project can be made out of almost anything. Perhaps in the neighborhood where you grew up there was a very old building and you had always wondered about when it was built and what it was used for. Finding out what the neighborhood was like when that building was new can be an exciting search.

• An ideal topic is not only one about which you are curious but one about which you already know something. Perhaps you read a book about Socrates and want to know more about why he was condemned to death; or perhaps you saw a movie about the Depression and want to know what it was like to live through it.

• Can serve as the core of your paper
• Fits the sources available to you
• Can be satisfactorily researched within the time available to complete the assignment

A topic such as the conquest of the Aztec Empire can produce both workable and unwieldy themes. The theme "The Correspondence of Cortés and King Ferdinand," may be feasible if it is confined to letters from Cortés about the conquest of the Aztecs. The trouble here is access to sources. Unless translations of this correspondence are available in your library (or can be gotten without too much difficulty), you do not have the research material to explore this theme. On the other hand, the theme "The Factors that Enabled the Spanish to Defeat the Aztecs" is workable since you should not have difficulty in finding enough material on this subject.

Formulating a theme that is narrow enough and yet not too narrow is tricky. It is often useful in narrowing a theme to compose questions about your topic. If your topic is Native Americans of the Western United States, ask yourself a question you would like to know the answer to. Maybe some aspect of Native American life, such as the thoughts of their medicine men or the conflict of a particular tribe with European settlers, has aroused your curiosity. You might ask yourself: "What did medicine men believe?" or "How did the Indians defend their lands?" These questions might yield themes such as "The Practice of Magic among the Cheyenne," or "Efforts of the Nez Perce to Protect their Native Lands in Oregon." For a topic about Canadian frontier communities in the nineteenth century, again, ask yourself what specific things you would like to know about them. Was the coming of the railroad of great importance to them? This might lead you to a theme: "The Canadian Pacific Railroad Comes to Winnipeg, Manitoba." (By the way, you may have noted that a theme can usually serve as a title for your paper.) Although composing questions is usually helpful in arriving at themes, be careful that the questions you ask are not too broad. ("Why did the Roman Empire fall?"). Questions can also be too narrow ("Who was the first person to sign the Declaration of Independence?") or too unimportant ("Why are ping pong tables green?").