Research paper topics

Finding a research paper topic that will interest you, one that is worth your time to investigate and one for which you will have the necessary time and materials, is an extremely important step in writing the research paper. You need not be familiar with a subject before doing research on it, but you should have some interest in the general area it involves because you will be working with that subject for a long period of time.

When the general subject is not assigned by your instructor, you can usually find one by examining your own interests, your background, or the other courses you are studying. There are other considerations that will limit the possibilities from which you may choose.

Your choice of a suitable subject for investigation will often be determined by whether or not you are interested in reading or investigating-and consequently analyzing-the original material directly and therefore working with primary sources or whether you are interested in investigating what others have said about your subject and therefore working with secondary sources. The usual college assign merit involves the latter. Your choice will be determined further when you eliminate unsuitable subjects. Some subjects are not worth inves­tigating; they are too trivial, merely factual, or obviously routine. Others are often too new or current for conclusive study; a research paper must be factual, not conjectural, and must therefore be based on a variety of dependable sources. The availability of resource materials will vary somewhat with time and locale, so you must know your area and your library. And finally, some subjects have never been suitable for research: a biography summarized from secondary sources, the entire history of anything, or any subject that you will investigate with a closed mind.

Research paper writing is the disciplined process of investigating and seeking facts that will lead one to discover the truth about something. This truth, stated as one’s thesis, is a result of the facts one discovers, and it must be proved conclusively to the reader by the facts selected. The thesis may not be a statement of preconceived opinion or prejudice, nor may the paper be a stringing together of related quotations and a collection of footnotes.

The research paper, a formal presentation of these discovered facts, provides the evidence one needs to defend the opinion expressed as the thesis. Consequently, one must state how and where these facts were found. If they were discovered from what other people have said or written, the student must tell who said them and where they were said so that the reader could find them also; if they were discovered by direct observation, the student must describe this experience so that the reader could repeat it and observe the same phenomena or facts. The opinion, which is the thesis, the analysis of the material on which it is based, and the conclusions one draws from that material are the most important parts of the final paper. These are subjectively presented while the facts, which provide the supporting points, are objectively presented and carefully documented.

During the process of research, the student learns to select, evaluate, and analyze facts; to discipline habits of thought and work; and, most important, to think—to create a new angle of vision. In this sense only, the research paper is original; but it is important enough in itself to justify the work involved in its creation.

Because nothing else so clearly reveals the true quality and merit of the writer’s mind, the research paper becomes a valid criterion for judging the disciplined work habits and the intellectual maturity of the student.