The topic cross helps you to narrow your topic by using a visual strategy. Just as you would focus a camera or a microscope, you arrange key words and phrases about your topic in such a way that they eventually point to your specific area of interest.
Example of a Topic Cross
The first step in the process of using the topic cross is brainstorming. Spend a few minutes listing words and phrases that come to mind when you think about your topic. Then decide which words and phrases are most interesting and arrange them in a hierarchy, moving from general (at the top of the list) to specific (at the bottom of the list). This hierarchy will become the vertical axis of your cross.
Demonstration: If my topic is "development of small towns in the Rocky Mountain
region," I might generate the following useful ideas in brainstorming (arranged from general
to specific).
I would write this list in an imagined middle column of a piece of blank paper or a
computer screen, leaving plenty of space between each item. Then I would scan the
list to determine where my real interest lies. Which topics in this list will be too broad
to write about, given my writing assignment? Which will be too narrow? In this case,
I might choose "economic effects on impoverished landowners" as a workable topic area.
Once I had thus identified my area of interest, I would begin listing words and phrases
about or relevant to that item, placing them on the horizontal axis of my topic cross. The
list I would generate about "economic effects on impoverished landowners" might look
like this:
Examining this list, I might decide that "rising property taxes" is a sufficiently narrow topic that is not too narrow to develop with my own ideas and research I might do. By using this strategy, I have arrived at a narrow, workable topic.