A good project topic will make your research and project writing progress very quickly. If you are able to come up with interesting topics, you have already earned 10% of the overall grade. The first step in coming up with research topics is to look for research areas that you have interests in.

For example, as a computer science student, you might find database management systems fascinating. You can go ahead and draft database management system topics which you can present to your supervisor for approval. Here are other steps you can follow to develop outstanding research topics.

1. Look for topics that solve issues in your immediate environment.
2. Look through the research projects of previous students in your department.
3. Events that occurred or repeats itself in the country.
4. Come up with creative topics.
5. Make sure the topic is not too broad.

1. Look for topics that solve issues in your immediate environment
When you choose topics that solve problems in your community, you contribute to the development of the society and also get the opportunity to apply what you learned in school. In addition to solving problems, you can even decide to start a company with the solutions you came up with. Google, one of the biggest search engine started as a school project. The developers came up with an idea to design a search engine that would produce better results that are relevant to the query.

2. Look through the research projects of previous students in your department
Most times, researches carried out by previous students have suggestions for further research. Maybe the student did not conclude the research due to some constraints such as time, lack of finance or inadequate materials. You can decide to continue the research from where the original researcher stopped. Sources of information for previous students research projects include school libraries, departmental archives, and project material websites.

3. Events that occurred or repeats itself in the country
Issues like strike actions, fuel subsidy, Boko Haram terrorist, Fulani herdsmen attacks e.t.c are great research areas. Presenting research topics that bother on these issues to your supervisor is guaranteed to get approved. With these type of topics, you will get good grades because the research will be unique and you are at the same time providing solutions to national problems.

When conducting research on recent events, your source of information should include newspapers, interviews and press release.



4. Come up with creative topics
There are some topics that have been written about over and over again. Go for topics that have not been covered that much and try to pick an area that is creative and exciting to you and your friends.



5. Make sure the topic is not too broad
Your topic is probably broad if your supervisor finds it not interesting, the topic is confusing or you always forget your topic. To narrow your research topic,
add more context to it. You can add some geographical, biological or historical context to the topic. For example, consider a topic such as "The Economic Effect of Desert Encroachment on Cattles in Nigeria". Writing on such topic can be confusing as the research broadens.

You can add a geographic context to the topic by adding a specific region or state (Adamawa) where the desert encroachment affects cattle. Also, you can include historical context like the time (specific year(s), era, current or past) desert encroachment really started to affect the cattle. With the topic, you can also add biological context. Perhaps, there are specific sub-species of the cattle(Taurus cattle) you can write about.

When you combine all three context and incorporate them into the original topic, you will get a narrow topic like "Current Economic Effects of Desert Encroachment on Taurus Cattles in Adamawa State, Nigeria".