A topic analysis will help you to clarify and understand what your assessment question is asking you to do.

You will generally be given three key pieces of information:

1. The key topic or concept words direct you in what to research.
2. The limits or qualifiers tell you the specific focus of the topic or concept.
3. The task or instruction terms tell how you are to deal with the content. Charles Sturt University has a list of explanations for common instruction words.

Your THL105  textual criticism ties together assessment items 1, 2 and 4. This enables  you to undertake preliminary analysis on the selected passage using primary sources for  Assessment 1.

Then  for assessment 2 you are required to  prepare the bibliography of at least 6-8 items which demonstrate awareness of a range of relevant resources, such as reference entries,  commentaries, journal articles,  and web-based sources. 

To pull all this together your assessment 4 exegesis paper will draw together aspects of the chosen text, including translation of the text, literary and social contexts and careful discussion of significant issues and questions that arise from the study of the chosen text.

Analysis of a narrative or poetic passage. Select from 

• 1 Sam 3 (narrative)
• Esther 2 (narrative)
• Psalm 90 (poetry)
• Amos 5 (poetry)

Write down the key concepts from your topic and have a go at brainstorming as many alternative keywords and phrases as possible.

Thinking about your topic in this way forces you to describe your topic in "other words", which will provide you with some useful keyword alternatives as well as help you to cement your understanding of the topic.

Dictionaries and encyclopaedias can help you to find additional keywords and get an overview of the concept.