There are some topics that no one wants to touch, but everyone seems to argue about anyway: race, gender, immigration, tradition, religion, abortion, and so on. These are charged topics, and discussing them often comes with significant social risk. But at the heart of a charged topic always lies an important social problem which we as a society need to address, and our way of identifying and addressing social issues involves discussing them—in political arenas, in courts, in media, in schools, in academia, and (crucially) amongst ourselves in everyday life. My project aims to make these discussions easier, less painful, and more productive. I will be closely analyzing both good and bad conversations on charged topics in order to understand how and why the conversation goes a particular way. Then, after gaining an understanding of the factors, mechanisms, and patterns found in positive and negative conversations on these topics, I will try to identify ways to avoid the negative routes and pull the conversation towards more a positive and productive outcome. My hope is that I will be able to develop a conversation format that makes it easier to have good conversations about these difficult but important topics.