Good Ideas for Research Papers – They’re Everywhere

Research paper topics that you used in high school were probably just fine. Now that you are in college, however, those topics will not do. Your topics were relative simplistic compared to the expectations you now face. For example, you may have written a research paper on the causes of the Civil War. You probably used a couple of books and maybe some Internet resources of an article from a Civil War journal. You really did not have a thesis statement other than that you were going to discuss the causes that the authors you read identified and discussed.

Now that you are in college, your Civil War research paper will look quite different. You can no longer just regurgitate what others have listed as the causes. You must develop a thesis based upon some much deeper research. Perhaps your thesis will be that the overriding cause of the Civil War was the issue of the power of the federal government to “trump” states’ rights. So when you look for topic ideas, your steps too will be different.

Finding Good Research Paper Ideas

Where to look? There are several sources that will give you ideas for topics that your professors will find suitable for a student in college.

1. Go through your lecture notes from class. What areas were covered that might be of interest to you? Make a list.
2. Take a look through chapters of your textbook that covered general areas that were of interest to you. Look for the sub-headings especially.
3. Get online and Google “good ideas for research papers…in your broad subject area, being certain to add the word “college” to your search. Read through the suggestions from a couple of sites and add any that pique your interest to your list.

Now that you have your list, narrow it to those in which you are most interested and do a bit of initial research to ensure that there are primary source materials and enough resources to satisfy the requirements for the paper.

Some Good Research Paper Topic Ideas

Below are some sample topic suggestions that will give you a better idea of those that are suitable for the college level.

Education: New Educational Platforms; New Methods for Improving Performance of At-Risk Kids; Best Practices for Use of Technology in the Classroom

Political Science: Impact of Citizens United Case on Elections; Current Voter Suppression Methods at the State Level; Major Fissures in the Republican Party

Business: Millennials Changing the Workplace; Servant Leadership Style

Criminal Justice/Law: Mandatory Prison Sentences for Non-Violent Offenders; Privatization of Prisons; Inequality before the Law

Biology: Genome Breakthroughs; Super-Bugs

Environmental Science: Greening Efforts in...(cities, homes, energy, etc.); Reversing animal extinctions

These are provided so that you can see that research paper topics in college will deal with more complex topics for which you will need to have personal responses and/or opinions that will be provided as thesis statements in your opening section. You are no long just a reporter of information. You are a critical thinker who must analyze and draw conclusions.