Transcript Lesson 4 Essentials Video: Topic

WOMAN 1: In high school, they give you your topic always. In college, they let you choose your topic, which is even harder than having a teacher give you your topic.

MAN 1: So there's always a theme, but within that theme is a huge amount of freedom. And there's a huge amount of directions in which you can take it. And I've never actually had a class where it was just basically you had to write about one thing and one thing only. It was always about giving you a theme, or giving you a direction, and letting you go wherever you want with that direction.

MAN 2: Usually something personal usually brings things out in people. So if it was a topic personal, usually they get your best writing. Because you're really into it, and you're really involved, and you really want to do it.

MAN 3: I recommend finding something in your own life and then finding an element in class. Or you can relate the two and bring them together.

MAN 4: When I go into a paper, I'm thinking, "OK. I've got to decide how much I can really talk about." And usually, if I perform an outline or something, I usually start with twice or three times as much as I can really handle, if I want to do it right.

WOMAN 2: Even if it is something that's pretty mundane and pretty simple for a class that I may not be that interested in, I am always looking for the different perspective that my professor or someone might say, "That was really different. Out of all these papers, I didn't see this. This was different."

WOMAN 3: American system is teaching his student to know how to express what they want to say and what the audience wants to hear. Because sometimes it just doesn't work. If you don't want to write about something, you're not going to do a good job.

WOMAN 4: I like to look at the topic as a house. And there's different ways to get in. And I personally try to find the hardest way to get in: the most obscure, original idea to approach a topic. So you would think a lot of people would just walk in the front door of a house, but I like to think, "How can I approach this topic?" Like climbing through an attic window or a basement door.

WOMAN 5: Find a way to make the process that you're going through enriching for yourself. You're not just writing a paper to hand into the teacher. This should be something that's important. This should be something that is going to—if it doesn't change your life, it should change the way you think about things, or the way you think about a particular subject.