Are the topics you’ve considered the same issues everyone seems to select: abortion, violent video games, body image, legalizing marijuana, same sex marriage, global warming? These subjects are certainly meaningful, but they are too large to be good topics. In most papers, you simply don't have the space or time to address the complexities of these arguments.

Additionally, though much is written on these subjects, the dialogue has often reached a stalemate. This makes joining the conversation and adding a fresh perspective a nearly impossible task — which may lead your paper to recycle general observations others have made, and that is boring.

Imagine you’re hosting a dinner party and one of the guests keeps retelling jokes you’ve already heard. You’ll instinctively want to talk to a more interesting person.

To get a fresh topic and a fresh perspective, avoid choosing issues just because they sound academic or controversial. Your personal interests are far more compelling because, in fact, any topic can be academic. The key is in how you approach a subject. Don’t underestimate your everyday interests; even something as simple as the history of the cornflake can reveal a lot about culture and identity. When you’re discussing a topic you find intriguing, you’ll want to contribute to the conversation and guests (or readers) will want to listen.

You may speak Arabic or Japanese, but foreign languages are not the only languages available to you. Every community speaks a lingo that includes specific terms and values related to that community. For instance, a photographer uses terms such as: aperture, click-shops, and latent image, that you may not understand.

You know the lingo specific to jobs, interests, or places you have lived. The lingos you speak can lead you to interesting paper topics. For instance, from watching football you may know about salary caps, and you could write a paper on how salary caps are related to team performance. Try working through the following steps to see how you can use your own personal lingo to find interesting paper topics.

1. Take five minutes and list all the activities and lingos you are part of.
   For example: playing guitar, sailing, being a barista, living in Oregon Hill, buying vintage clothing, playing basketball, etc.
2. Choose one item from your list. Take ten minutes and write a short dialogue between two people using lingo from that community.

For example:
Gwen: Rachel got in the hot tub with Joey on last night’s episode of The Bachelor.
Miriam: They’ll hook up.
Gwen: She won’t hook up with him.
Miriam: She’s trashy, though. All the girls on that show are trashy.
Gwen: Phoebe’s not. There’s always one goody goody in the house.
Miriam: The innocent one, sure. Rachel is the evil temptress.

Once you have a dialogue, think of some questions you might ask of your topic, starting with the most general and then moving to the more specific.