Writing Topics

Step one of the comps process is writing topics. For my degree, I had to write four topics in liturgy and two in systematics.

Topics are short paragraphs that present an issue and state an arguable thesis (my definition). The comps guidelines for Saint John’s says that these topics are not questions—they are topics—and that “a topic does not contain either questions or imperative verbs.” It says further that “a good comprehensive topic is synthetic. It requires that the student integrate a number of different sources from the reading list.”

Here are some things that helped me during this step.

1.
Gather all the papers you’ve written for grad school and divide them up into two piles: papers on topics that you liked writing about and did well on, and those that you didn’t enjoy or do well on. Take your “good” pile and read through each paper. As you read, list books from your reading list that might address, refute, or give additional insight to that paper.

2.
After you’ve read through all your good papers and made reading list notes, brainstorm general topics that interest you or that you feel you can speak on easily. Keep these very general topic headers, such as, “theology of time” or “grace.” Set this list aside.

3.
Now read through your “bad” papers. You might be surprised at what ideas might come to you as you read. You might have completely different insights than when you had written that paper. Make note of any new topics that might excite you now after reading this set of papers. Again, keep these topic headers general.

4.
Now you have a list of general topic headers. Take each topic and brainstorm different ways to discuss the topic. Don’t try to be systematic; just bullet point issues, questions, controversies, anything that excites you about this topic. Be creative. List ways this topic is addressed or affects other theological disciplines. A helpful exercise for me was to look at my entire reading list and just ask myself if each book said something about this particular topic that might be useful in a paper (indexes are a great help). If it did, I put a Post-It tag on that page and made a one-line note on my bullet points with a reference to the author and page number.

5.
Look through your general topic headers and their accompanying bullet points. Cross out the topic headers and lists that seem weak and those that you had to struggle with to list issues. Circle the topic headers and lists that really stand out for you and make you excited (if you’re going to do all this work, you may as well be excited about it!). Hang on to your crossed-out topics and any you didn’t circle. These might come in handy later.

6.
Now it’s time to flesh out each of your circled topics. Take each topic and just start writing on it. Make a general statement about the topic. Something that might help at this point is to find a quote from your one of your reading list books that speaks about the topic. Keep the quote short—one sentence. This quote might help you decide on a particular “take” or way to explore the topic. State particular issues or controversies about the topic, and give a brief example or two. Lastly, give an outline of the topic that includes an arguable thesis.

7.
Next, list books from your reading list that might be possible references for each topic. Present these as bulleted lists for each topic.

8.
Finally, read through each of your topic paragraphs. Though your comps boards can ask you about almost anything, you do have some control over the content of your papers and oral exam through these topics. So make sure that everything you mention in your topics are things you would be ready to write and talk about. Don’t try to be too broad in your topics (something I did which made writing 5-page essays on a broad topic difficult), but make sure that you are able to use several different reading list books as references for each topic.

Click here to see the topics I submitted.
Click here to see the questions I received from my comps board based on my topics.