Answer:
First, you will want to understand the difference between a subject and a topic. A subject is broad and general, such as Education or Sports or Film -- too big to be the focus of your research paper. You need to look within the broad subject area to find your topic. A topic is more focused, more precise; it is a narrower subset of a subject. For example:
For the broad subject Education, your topic might be to investigate whether female students in all-girl schools perform better academically than their counterparts at co-ed schools.
For the broad subject Sports, you might explore the controversy surrounding the use of Native American images and symbols as sports mascots.
