Research Paper Topic Guidelines

 

Your task in your research paper is defend a claim. Whereas in Paper One you mainly reported, in this paper you must take a stand and support it with substantial evidence and effective appeals. You must also AVOID fallacies such as post hoc ergo propter hoc (the river is getting worse, it must be because of the budget cuts) and “the reason.” While you may have found and reported on many facts and statistics in Paper One, you will now need to evaluate those statistics and draw conclusions, in addition to amassing more information. Expert testimony from stakeholders is one of the strongest ways to support your claim, so you should be thinking of who you might contact for an interview.

The first task, however, is to define an appropriate topic. Following is an example of the research topics that could result from a Paper One topic.

Paper One Topic:  Water Quality in the Roanoke River

Text Box: Policy topics:   The DEQ should increase water quality monitoring in the Roanoke River. The DEQ and the EPA should strengthen enforcement and impose stricter penalties for polluters of the Roanoke River.    

 

Text Box: Causation topics:   Virginia budget cuts are resulting in severe cutbacks to enforcement of water quality standards for the Roanoke River. More widespread monitoring of the Roanoke River would identify pollution sources in a more timely fashion.  

 

Text Box: Evaluative Topics:   Water quality in the Roanoke is not being effectively monitored. The DEQ does not have adequate resources to enforce water quality standards for the Roanoke River.  

 

                                                                                                          

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Topic Worksheet

Write two different topics on either side of a piece of notebook paper. Phrase your topic in the form of a question. In parentheses label your claim as evaluation, causation, or policy. For each topic, answer the following:

I. Background information:  What basic information will your reader need to know to understand the problem? (Who is your intended audience?)

II.  What do you need to know before you can turn your question into a thesis?

III.  Who is likely to have this information? Label each piece of information with at least one source that may help you. Include newspaper articles, professional journals, government offices (DEQ, etc.), government officials, faculty here, books, government publications, stakeholder web sites, etc.

IV.  What search terms will be helpful? How far back will you need to look?

 


After you do this for one topic, meet with two other classmates and share your list. Have them help you add information, and get their feedback on whether they think your topic is feasible. Complete the activity for your second topic for our next class meeting. Plan to have a tentative thesis question/statement within a few days. Save this and all planning sheets for Paper Three.

 

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