First of all–I’m not sure what kind of paper you are writing about (informative, descriptive, persuasive?), so I’ll try to offer 5 general suggestions:

1. Pick a topic you’re going to have to spend many days (and evenings) reading and reading and reading about. Seriously. Students just think they’ll be able to write a research paper because they know all about “cars”, “Jennifer Lopez”, or “steroid use among professional athletes”. The truth is, students aren’t experts on these topics, so they need to go to the experts who write the articles to find out more and to cite these credible experts to back up the factual information. If it’s not something you can envision yourself reading about for hours, then pick something else.

2. Ask yourself this about your paper: “So what?” and “Who cares?” Is your topic something that anyone could “google” or open up a Wikipedia article and read? If so, then you’ve probably not found a very original thesis.

3. If it’s a persuasive paper, keep your personal and religious biases out of the argument (“Abortion is wrong!” “Prochoice is the right choice!”). Stick to the facts.

4. If it’s boring to you—guess what? It’s boring for your teacher and anyone else your paper may come in contact with, so that brings us back to #1 pick a topic that is interesting to you that you want to learn more about in depth.

5. Ask your teacher if you may include some graphics (in addition to the text—NOT to lengthen the paper–but to use as diagrams in case what you’re explaining needs some visual clarification–for example, you’re writing a paper on “himation” clothing styles of Ancient Greek Women–why not show an example as figure 1—and then remember to cite the picture source?).

Best wishes in selecting your topic.

Here are some very relevant sites to help you. (remove all spaces from links)

http:// owl.english.purdue.edu/ workshops/ hypertext/ResearchW/

http://www.ipl.org/ div/aplus/

http://www.ri.net/ schools/East_Greenwich/ research.html

Best wishes to you!

mywebpages.comcast.net

www.yuthguy.com/researchpaper

tiger.towson.edu

www.etsu.edu/writing

www.factmonster.com/homework