Research Paper Topic Ideas
The first source of research paper topic ideas should always come from your academic faculty. Usually the head of your course will provide a list of research paper topics and you will be required to pick one which you are interested in.
Some universities do allow students to suggest research topic ideas but it will not be a completely free choice. The Head of Faculty will need to be convinced that your ideas are relevant to the course and there is a suitably qualified tutor to supervise. This can rule out many topic ideas.
When choosing your research paper topic ideas, go online. Finding information on research paper ideas from the internet is relatively easy given the search capabilities now available. The more information available the easier it may appear but this is not always the case.
Research papers, by definition, must be based on research you do yourself. Sometimes research paper topic ideas are rejected because the research has already been done and too much information is available. Ideally basic background information should be available but information on the specific research paper should be limited.
When topic ideas there are a number of considerations that must be taken into account.
WHICH COLLEGE YEAR IS THE PAPER FOR?
In the first 2 years of college education it is common for an instructor or professor of a large class to assign a very general topics as opposed to specific topics. He or she could be reading 200 papers on the Gold Rush in California otherwise.
As a result you have more freedom to choose sub-topics and fresh, different approaches are welcome. Search for a sub-topic you are interested in and look for a fresh approach. At this level your tutors are not looking for original research but at how you gather and present your evidence.
In the third and final years of a first degree, and certainly if you are doing a higher degree, the research paper topics will be much more specific and will involve a progressively higher degree of original research.
In every case always go for something that you care about otherwise just the process of researching the idea will be a miserable experience for you. Your tutors will also be less than thrilled as your lack of interest is likely to result in a boring paper. For a tutor there's nothing worse than having to read a large number of boring papers from disinterested students.
WHICH FORMAT WORKS BEST?
Think about the different formats or types of papers there are, and the different types that you have written. There are process papers, chronological studies, theories, surveys, discussion papers, papers that study the cause and effect(s) of an event or a behavior, papers that are arguments-including both the pro and con sides, and many more.
If the instructor has outlined the format required then use the required format. Don't try to be clever and pick a different format. If no format is specified then pick a format that suits your style. It's always easier to write in the format that you are comfortable with.
WHERE DO YOU LOOK?
Your starting point should always be the research paper topic idea given by your tutor. Within the restrictions set by your tutor specific ideas can be taken from any source. Current affairs and the real world often present a different perspective - particularly in humanities subjects.
Previous research papers are often available in the library. Take a look as they often give ideas on a different slant excluded in the completed thesis. A well written research thesis will explain the limitations of the research and looking beyond the limitations can provide fresh ideas.
Online look up the research paper topic ideas available and read the related web pages. Go to the online forums, there may be one one your topic, and see what is being discussed. This can be an excellent source of ideas for any form of written assessment.
Here are a few more sources to help you find your research topic ideas. Good luck, and have fun with what works for YOU!
CLASS SUBJECT RESOURCES
Magazine and Journal Databases
Digital Dissertations
Newspapers and Newslists
Blogs - There are blogs on almost every subject imaginable. Check the blog directories.
Online Encyclopedias
Online subject Archives
OTHER RESOURCES
Books - not just reference books. Look in the Table of Contents and the Indexes for more ideas
Popular Magazines
Directories including DMOZ, Google, and Yahoo, and other online sources.
Written By John Edmond
John worked for many tears in insurance and finance and recently completed a degree in Creative Writing. He now
writes on a number of topics including education. Go to In Education for more information.
Teach Your Kids Arithmetic - Fractions, Percents, and Decimals
Admittedly fractions are trouble for most students. In my previous article I talked about why this is so. Percents and decimals too present their share of problems to young students—adults as well. There is an interesting connection between these three mathematical entities and here it is: fractions, percents, and decimals are variations of one and the same thing.
When I pointed this relationship out during one of my lessons, one student looked at me in amazement and said that he never realized that. This boy had gone through school for twelve years—he was a senior in high school—and never saw that connection. When I would stress this relationship throughout my different classes, I would get similar reactions from many students: they just never saw that connection.
Now this is a problem with mathematics education in this country. Connections are not made between topics in this difficult discipline. For this reason, students are left scratching their heads wondering when in the world they will ever use something like a decimal, a fraction, or a percent, even though these basic things are literally encountered everyday. This failure to connect math to reality harks back to questions like "Why are manhole covers round?", which I presented in my article "Why Study Math - The Circle." For those educators reading this, they know that a common rebuttal of the math student is "When am I ever going to use this?" In fact, a common gripe I would hear is "This is totally useless stuff." In preparation for these questions, I worked diligently so that I could show students that there actually was a connection—a reason—why they were studying the particular lesson at hand.
For the topic at hand—fractions, percents, and decimals—students must be made aware that a fraction is a percent and that a percent is a decimal. Once students know that they are dealing with one and the same thing, and not three separate ones, they feel less overwhelmed from having to know all about percents, all about fractions, and all about decimals: when students now see 1/4, they know that this is a mathematical synonym for 25% or 0.25. As obvious as this may seem to those who understand it, this relationship eludes many students, and they end up ignorant about this fact, much like the senior of mine mentioned earlier. Moreover, once connections like this are made in this area, connections and links are made in other areas as well. Then mathematics is not so formidable as one would make it.
The Bones, Fossils, and Dating Methods of Evolution
The Bones, Fossils, and Dating Methods of Evolution
from shopndrop.com
What methods are used by evolutionists to date an archeological find? And do these methods actually support evolution?
Radiocarbon dating is a commonly used method to determine the age of archaeological finds. The process, sometimes referred to as "radiocarbon reading," involves measuring carbon decay.
Radiocarbon dating is basically this: a radioactive isotope of carbon, C-14, is formed in the atmosphere by cosmic rays. As a result, all living organisms absorb an equilibrium concentration of radioactive carbon. When organisms die, C-14 decays and is not replaced. Since we know the concentration of radioactive carbon the organism had when it was alive, and we also know that it takes about 5,600 years for half of that C-14 to decay, and another 5,600 years for half of what's left to decay, and so on, by measuring the remaining concentration of radiocarbon we can tell how long ago an organism died.
One obvious flaw in this technique is that we don't really know the level of radiocarbon concentration acquired by an organism which lived before such recorded history. Scientists make a bold assumption that the atmospheric concentration of the radioactive material -- carbon or any other element -- being measured has not changed since the organism's death. In addition, scientists make the assumption that the element's rate of decay has not changed since that time. Are these valid assumptions?
After everything scientists have told us, how can they make such assumptions? On one hand, we're being told that the universe has undergone drastic changes since its formation. One moment before the big bang, the universe was nothing like one moment after the big bang. Gas clouds in space have condensed and turned into stars and planets. Moons have formed around some planets. Some planets have undergone evolutionary changes even after formation. Some stars have collapsed into neutron stars, others into black holes. Our universe has seen more changes in those past alleged ten billion years than the fitting room of a busy tailor.
Now, on the other hand, we're being told, in effect, "Sure everything changed, but not radioactive bombardment and its rate of decay -- they have remained at the same level for billions of years." It's almost as if nature knew that some day archaeologists would have to find fossils which appear to be billions of years old to stay in business.
How does one explain the notion that everything in the universe has undergone drastic changes for billions of years except earth's radioactive bombardment levels and rate of decay, which happen to be crucial and integral parts of any attempt to substantiate evolution? "Nature" owed Charles Darwin a favor?
PROVEN TO FLUCTUATE
The fact is, radiocarbon concentrations have been proven to fluctuate. One of the oldest known living things on earth today is Methuselah, a bristlecone pine tree in California estimated to be about 4,600 years old. Another bristlecone pine believed to be older than Methuselah was cut down for scientific research. Comparing radiocarbon readings with the natural time clock of the tree's year by year rings, showed the radiocarbon dating system to be inaccurate. This inaccuracy showed up in a time period which, by astronomical standards, was only yesterday. Simply extrapolating this known range of inaccuracy over billions of years will show radiocarbon reading to be far less reliable than what scientists would like to believe. Then, taking into consideration that radiocarbon inconsistencies have shown up in such a relatively short period of time, who's to say that the rate of today's radioactive bombardment is not totally out of whack with what it was billions, millions, or even thousands of years ago.
Consequently, a fossil which an archeologist finds to be billions of years old by radioactive dating may in fact be no more than several thousand years old. What's more, an organism could conceivably seem to be, by today's assumptions of yesteryear's radioactive bombardment levels and rate of decay, thousands or even millions of years old only days or months after its death.
ANOTHER DATING SYSTEM
There is another scientific dating system besides the radioactive method. This one analyzes the structural changes in a body's amino acids after death. The same human fossils were analyzed using this method and also using the radioactive method. The two dating systems showed discrepancies between 39,000 and 59,000 years. The proponents of each of the two dating methods argued that the other one was wrong. Obviously, one of these "scientific" methods must be wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt. And the other one? The other one doesn't exactly sound right beyond a reasonable doubt.
So, to find out how long ago an organism died, you might be better off using an old and far more reliable dating method -- a seance in which you conjure up an organism's spirit and simply request the precise date of demise. This may not sound terribly scientific, but you meet some very interesting (living) people at seances.
BRITTLE BONES AND FUZZY FOSSILS
Materials dated in support of evolution quite often turn out to be a bigger farce than the dating methods themselves. Bone and fossil records maintained by paleontologists contain so many gaps and discrepancies that they suggest a history of evolution in much the same way that a worm's cell suggests the early stages of a train window, suggesting that trains evolved from worms?
The only way bones and fossils could be taken seriously is if profuse quantities of intermediate species linking various species in an evolutionary chain were found. That is, not just many members of one intermediate species -- that would only indicate that a species existed which was similar to two other species. And not just isolated members of several intermediate species -- that would only indicate that some species occasionally produced deformed members. But many intermediate species and many of their members, showing an unmistakable transformation of one species into another. (And, as shown in the chapter of "Genetics" at EvolutionDead.com, you'd also have to find an enormous amount of diseased and deformed bones and/or fossils to show that random mutation was at work. Without this, there's nothing random evolution.)
As it stands, however, not only are there no profuse quantities of many intermediate species, but there are no profuse quantities of even one intermediate species. What archaeologists have are the kinds of isolated samples of bones and fossils which must be interpreted and "given meaning;" the findings by no means speak for themselves.
The "scientific" method of interpreting bones and fossils appears to be somewhat similar to interpreting the ink blots of psychologists, in the sense that what you see depends a great deal on who you are and the particular inclination of your imaginative faculties. Along these lines, if you discovered a thin string buried together with some old chicken bones, for example, you could, if you tried hard enough, interpret it to mean that prehistoric chickens had teeth because they obviously used dental floss. The fact that no teeth were found would only mean that a "minor" missing link still remained to be found in this otherwise solid theory.
What the "science" of interpreting bones and fossils pretty much boils down to is a game in which any interpretation is correct as long as it cannot be disproven. Proving the interpretation doesn't seem to be part of the game. And for very good reason. The interpretation cannot be proven for the same reason that it cannot be disproven -- bone and fossil records are grossly deficient of cold, hard facts.
COMMON TRAITS
The above two topics -- dating methods and archaeological records -- have one thing in common: as they stand, neither one proves or disproves the theory of evolution. And, as limited as these branches of science seem to be in their ability to uncover strong leads in reconstructing past events, I find it unlikely that either one will change drastically as relates to evolution in the foreseeable future.
Ironically, when it comes to trying to substantiate evolution, it is archaeological discoveries which evolutionists harp on the most. Perhaps they do this for the same reason that I cover it only briefly in my book at EvolutionDead.com -- because it leads nowhere, pro or con. And if you're trying to avoid being disproven, what safer ground is there to tread upon?
Furthermore, even if profuse quantities of many intermediate species did exist, which of course they do not, they still could not stand up in face of the case built against evolution in the chapters on genetics and space exploration (EvolutionDead.com). The genetic impossibility of evolution and the fact that there is no extraterrestrial life would necessitate another interpretation of such archaeological findings. Such findings could by no means prove that evolution is genetically possible, when modern science shows it is not. And such findings could not suggest that there must be life elsewhere in space, when space exploration shows there is none. i.e. Even if such archaeological discoveries did exist, they still would not come close to being a "formidable opponent" of the cases made against evolution by genetics and space exploration. Needless to say, as far as present archaeological findings go, with regards to evolution, they couldn't be worse off if they were still buried deep in the ground.
by Josh Greenberger
This has been an excerpt from his free book on evolution at EvolutionDead.com