I have had the privilege of being a teacher for almost three decades, and involved in pedagogy for more than 3 decades. During those years I have taught the lower grades, high school, preparatory academy and most recently post high school students. For me, it was a constant battle keeping educational activities fun, interactive and rewarding for each learner. As my lessons focused on older learners, making the gradual leap from young to older, I noticed a common concern that each maturity level of kids became overwhelmed by: how to write a research paper.



Initially, I thought nothing of the answer I received when asking for nonfiction essays to be completed. At first, I simply defined the usual groaning as a student's dislike of my love for outside assignments. But, what I was dismissing and defining as being disgruntled, actually had much more depth; these pupils were sometimes downright overwhelmed when they heard of an assigned "research paper".

Worry about the something different, being buried in volumes of pages, and not having the necessary skills to brainstorm research paper ideas was frequent. college-age students envisioning a barrier to climb, because they didn't know how to write a research paper, rarely truly believed me that in life's big picture, completing a writing assignment, even one that was ten to thirty pages long, was barely a zit on the face of history, compared to much more significant, life impacting events they'd eventually face as mature adults. Those words fell on deaf ears most of the time.

Unable to look towards the bigger picture or the long overall result, their immediate reality was a looming turn-in date that could only be met by participating in an activity they weren't interested in, that conflicted with their social calendar or that made them uneasy facing the unknown: how to write a research paper, and do it right - not just to pass or fail, but score the grades that institutions of higher learning, hold in high importance.

When I first began teaching at the post high-school level I planned to give a full term assignment to write a research paper on a(n) subject of that particular student's most passionate pursuit.

Our department head warned me that this would cause me many headaches. He said that even at a college level, simply hearing that you have to write a research paper usually sent many students into a downward spiral.

Determined, I ignored his wise words and ventured into research paper territory. The first day of the semester I handed out the syllabus for the course. This included the title of the selected text, test dates and the expectation that everyone would write a research paper.

I explained that the reviews as well as the participation in classroom discussions would be a majority of the final score and the research paper would be the other 33%. I handed out calendars and deadlines for the paper. I wanted the subject they chose as well as a rough synopsis completed in the first fortnight and then various progress reports throughout the semester.

My outline and execution of my set schedule "forced" the paper to be done in small increments, rather than the typical giant one, when many students, kids or adults, sit down the night before and try to accomplish a mammoth amount worth of work in one marathon of study. Unnecessary worry and nervousness in my mind. And with the framework of how to effectively write a research paper tackled in small sections throughout the class, semester or year depending on curriculum and / or school, initial stress about even the most simple undertaking, research paper ideas, seemed less and less an issue of worry .

Whether narrowing down a long catalog of passages formatted neat and succinctly summarizing research paper ideas, writing each necessary component, keeping each research paper properly formatted for an educator who was known to be very picky about such particulars, or pacing themselves to guarantee term paper completion by the turn-in date, when deconstructed into smaller parts, how to write a research paper concerns slowly, but surely disappear. Stay tuned for the next article: Research Paper Ideas, the Easy Way.