Research Paper Topics

1
Research Paper Topics

• What Interests You?
• What do you want to learn more about?

1. Homeschooling 2. Cheetahs 3. Child Abuse
2
Consider Your Topics Carefully

• Think about the So What.
• How can you help refine these topics?
• How can you avoid the Slam Dunk?
• How do you plan to approach these topics? Pro?
  Con? Think about the Colon Approach.

3
Homeschooling

• For?
• Against?
• The necessity of?
• Christian-based reasons?
• Does it hurt public schooling?
• How do homeschooled children do in college?
• Problems with homeschooling?

4
Cheetahs

• Pro Cheetahs? (!) Anti-Cheetahs? (!)
• History?
• Life in Africa
• How does destruction of the rain forest affect
  Cheetah population?
• Do economic factors in host countries influence
  the rate of Cheetah hunting?

5
Child Abuse

• Pro? (!) Against? (!)
• Same as Corporal Punishment?
• Should Corporal Punishment be brought back into
  schools?
• Where does parental punishment end and child
  abuse start?

6
What Now?

• Youve got your 3 choices and have some ideas
  about WHAT you want to research on them.

Now its time to find out how much information is
readily available on them BEFORE narrowing down
to one topic.
7
How?

• RESEARCH!

8
Some Available Research Tools

• Magazines
• Books
• Newspapers
• Radio/TV/Movies
• Internet
• Interviews

Available at your Library!
9
WWW Search Engines

• Altavista
• Infoseek
• Yahoo
• Lycos

• Hotbot
• Excite
• Webcrawler
• Google
• Directhit

The URLs for all search engines are www.XXX.com
10
How To Refine Web Searches
11
Choosing A Topic The Colon Approach

• Homeschooling A necessity for the Christian
  Family
• Homeschooling A safer approach to educating
  your children in Fairfax County
• Homeschooled children How well do they achieve
  post-high school?