Generating Topics For Your Thesis & Essays Using ChatGPT

The initial stage in preparing your thesis will most likely be to consider your thesis topic. For many people, this is one of the most difficult first steps.

Follow these steps to quickly generate topics for your thesis. 

1. If you are not sure how to register or log into ChatGPT, please go to our ‘Getting Started with ChatGPT’ guide. Now go to ChatGPT and paste in your prompt
   

Act as an academic researcher. I’m writing a research paper and I’m interested in topics related to [insert your course]. Could you suggest some trending areas or challenges in this field that could lead to a unique thesis topic? Please give me a list of 10 topic ideas related to that.

Here’s an example:

Act as an academic researcher. I’m writing a research paper and I’m interested in topics related to social science. Could you suggest some trending areas of challenges in this field that could lead to a unique thesis topic? Please give me a list of 10 topic ideas related to that. 

1. Examine the provided list and identify a topic of interest. If none exists, request additional topics from ChatGPT. Continue until you identify a subject of interest.
2. Next inform ChatGPT about your preferred topic from the list provided.

Example: I like the topic, Gender Inequality in STEM Careers

Then it will give you some sub-topics or research questions. If it doesn’t, ask for some

1. Choose your specific research question from the list. If you don’t like any of them, ask for more. Keep going until you find one you want to use.
2. Now you can tell ChatGPT which research question you’re going to use. Ask it for some keywords to use when searching library databases.

Example: My research question is going to be this: Investigating if early STEM education influences  gender representation in STEM careers.

Please list some keywords I can use when searching my university or public library databases.

1. You can use the keywords and phrases it gives you in Google Scholar, Google, and in library databases.
2. For more specific research, you can ask ChatGPT to give you some Boolean search strings to use in university or public library databases.

Example: Please list a  few Boolean search strings keywords for me to use when researching this topic in library databases