A manageable topic is a topic that isn't too broad or too narrow. A topic that is too narrow will find very few, if any, results.
A topic that is too broad focuses on one important concept. This kind of search will will find thousands of results for you to look through. These are examples of broad topics:
leadership
cancer
health care
A topic that is too narrow usually has many concepts, or focuses on a specific geographic area or group. This type of search will find few, if any, results. These are examples of narrow topics:
A manageable topic generally focuses on two to three important concepts. This allows a search to bring back enough information without having to look through thousands of items.These are examples of manageable topics:
This is very broad. What about obesity? Causes? Effects? Relationship to other issues? Add concepts to build a topic that is a better research choice.
This is a fairly specific topic that includes concepts that are often researched. The topic may be fine for your paper, but you may need to remove some of the concepts when you search for articles. For example, many researchers will not limit their study to one gender, but they may include a gender breakdown in their results.
This exact topic is probably not of interest to researchers. While there are some researchers looking at maternal attachment and others who research Sarbanes Oxley, it's extremely unlikely that research has tied the two together.
The addition of a location to this topic may result in very few results. Depending on the type of research you are doing (discussion, paper, dissertation), you may want to remove the geographic limit. Both the scope and the purpose of your research project will affect whether this topic needs to be refined.