What is the difference between topic and subtopic in academic reading and in academic writing terms?

Answer 1

I would answer this with an example. I’m going to use a younger (simpler) example since I’m not sure of the age of the questioner. If the topic is Inventions, subtopics would be types of inventions, so the flying machine (Wright Brothers.) You can think of an outline: going from Roman numerals down to numbers, letters, and so forth. Topic is the overarching idea, and subtopics are more specific topics that branch off within the main topic.