How do I narrow down a broad topic for a 10-page history term paper without making it too small?

The best way to narrow a broad subject like the French Revolution is to pivot from a general historical overview to a specific analytical question. A ten-page paper doesn't have room for a chronological narrative of the entire revolution, but it's plenty of space to argue a specific point. Instead of trying to cover the whole era, pick a "lens"—such as a specific social class, a particular political ideology, or a short, pivotal window of time—and ask how that element influenced a larger outcome. Since you're a Political Science major, you can lean into your strengths by focusing on the evolution of governance or legal frameworks. Rather than writing about the Revolution as a whole, you might examine the transition from the National Assembly to the Committee of Public Safety. This allows you to analyze the shift from constitutionalism to state-sponsored terror without needing to summarize every single event from 1789 to 1799. By focusing on the "why" and "how" of a specific political shift, you ensure the paper remains an argument rather than a report, which prevents you from running out of material. To avoid making the topic too small, ensure your chosen focus has enough scholarly debate. When you're browsing JSTOR, look for "historiography," which is essentially the history of how historians have disagreed over a topic. If you find two or three reputable scholars who disagree on why a specific person acted a certain way or why a specific law failed, you've found a goldmine. That disagreement provides the intellectual tension necessary to sustain a 2,500-word argument. Once you find a recurring debate in the literature, draft a working thesis that takes a side. If you focus on a single person, don't just write a biography; instead, argue how that person's specific philosophy drove a particular policy. This approach transforms a narrow subject into a deep analysis, satisfying the rubric's requirement for specificity while providing enough complexity to fill ten pages.