When having to write an essay, students often find themselves between a rock and a hard place, so to say. If their instructor gives them a topic to write a paper on, they feel unsatisfied, because the topic seems complicated or boring. However, when the instructor proposes students to choose the topic on their own, students can get even more frustrated. Why? Because they have to choose from a vast amount of possible topics, and even when they manage to choose one, it is not necessarily satisfying and easy to write about. Knowing how to choose a topic is crucial for all writing, and below is a brief guide explaining how to do it.

1. Select something that interests you. Your reader can tell if you are interested in your own topic - your enthusiasm will show through in your writing. If you don't have a choice about the topic, try to find an angle that could make it interesting to you. If your reader is bored stiff by your paper, you will not receive top marks or you won't get the scholarship. However, a paper that might be a little lacking in other ways (or one that was written the night before in an hour) can get bumped up to an A or get selected as the best just because of enthusiasm and passion in the academic essay writing .

2. Choose something you know about. Rather than trying to take on a massive project, pick something you already know about to write. It will make the writing process faster and easier because you already have a lot of the information in your head. That means less research on your part, less effort and it will be faster and easier to write the paper.

3. Narrow your topic down to a manageable size, if you have an idea what you want to write about. Whatever your topic is, ask yourself if you can really explore the topic and prove your point in the small amount of space you will have to fill. I know when you're looking at 5, 10 or 20 blank pages to fill, it seems like too much, but the majority of topics are far too big to do justice to in just a few pages. Your first idea will almost always be too big. Keep refining it until its manageable. For example, 'the plays of Shakespeare' is not a topic you want to take on unless you're writing a 1,000-page book. 'Comparisons of strong female characters in Shakespeare's comedies' could be a topic. You could still refine further by selecting perhaps 3 characters to contrast.

4. Find an interesting way to approach a topic. This will keep your writing controlled, give it structure and help you define your thesis.

5. Start researching. If you have a vague idea of what you want to write an essay about but you don't know where to go with it or you need to clarify it, get some books from the library and flip through them for ideas. Look for the topic in the news or online. Look for images of the topic online and see what you find. You might find the angle you are looking for.

6. Brain storm. Write a list of ideas you have or write a list of things that interest you. If your topic is what makes a great leader, start writing some words that remind you of a leader or write the names of leaders you admire and why you admire them. Write down some of the topics that are possible. Open a dictionary and flip through, writing down interesting words or ideas that pop out at you. Write down anything that pops into your head and keep scholarship essay writing until you have a good long list.

7. Look right in front of you. What do you spend most of your time doing or thinking about? A sports team? A hobby? A goal? A certain game? Often whatever it is that you do in your spare time could be merged into an essay topic. If you play civilization-building games, research the real history behind one of the civilizations. If you love a certain band, could you research something about their music, or one of the artists who inspired them? Often there are ways to use things you do every day and develop them into an essay or research paper. Just be creative and think out of the box.

8. Ask a teacher, adviser or look online. Stuck for a specific angle? Google the topic and see what other people have written about the topic. Ask a teacher, parent or a respected friend or mentor for some guidance or ideas on what to choose. They will feel flattered that you asked them and will probably give some great ideas.

9. Re-use a topic. Think about whether you have a topic you've written about before that you could re-use for this essay. You may even be able to use sections of what you wrote before or re-use the research. You may be able to just look at a related topic, a different aspect of the same idea. For instance, if you wrote a paper about the history of soccer before, you could write a new one about the popularity of soccer in a certain country, and one section of the essay could be the history of soccer (your old paper condensed). Be careful with this method though.

10. It's the last minute! What do I do? If you can't find anything that thrills you, just pick something and get started. Take your most basic idea and run with it. It will be over soon and you can stop worrying. Or if you have to turn in an essay and thesis statement in advance, just go with your best idea but keep searching for a better one. If you come across something better, most professors will let you change your topic. If you find a great idea, even if you've already written a little, don't hesitate to throw out a few notes and start over. If you are interested in the essay topic, the essay will almost write itself.