Post 5: Research Proposals

Let's just get this out of the way: research papers are usually miserable. Racking my brain about what to research and write about is typically even more miserable. This chapter addresses the struggle of choosing topics for research papers and different ways to conquer this battle step-by-step. My personal favorite of the tips is to make a list. For the indecisive perfectionist like myself, lists get the job done when making any kind of choice. This part of the topic-choosing process really gets down all the ideas swimming around in my brain and allows me to eliminate the terrible away from the slightly-less-terrible. The book also offers an example where the student poses questions about each potential topic, making it even MORE simple to narrow down choices. For example, if I have 3 cool topics but only have a captivating angle on one of them, I go where the creative wind is clearly directing me.

With this research paper nearing the corner like a dreadful storm looming in the distance (too dramatic?), I am reminded of the first of these pieces I ever forced myself to draft. With the prompt asking something about issues in society, the hardest part was by far picking a topic to run with. I started listing everything I could possibly be interested in that I had a personal connection to, from the legalization of gay marriage to alcoholism and its effect on families to Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and why no other chocolate candy need exist. Fine, I was hungry that day so the last one was a stretch. Regardless, following the steps of brainstorming given by this chapter proved to be a foolproof way to access my topic destiny. After asking some questions and free writing, I finally decided on the psychological effects of child beauty pageants on the contestants.

Another issue, also discussed in this chapter, is the actual research. Being the stubborn hipster that I am, I chose a topic that was not often written about and lacked substantial hard statistics. After pulling out my hairs one-by-one, I did the unbelievable, the unspeakable, the despicable. I popped open a new tab and paid a visit to my old friend, Wikipedia. Wikipedia, although shunned by professors worldwide, is a great branch-off point for research. By reading the Wiki page on child beauty pageants, I was able to find that there was several laws set by governments of other countries banning the events. Through more thorough research of what brought the legislations to light, I was able to find amazing facts and numbers on my topic from academic resources. Wikipedia may not be best suited for your bibliography but, like my friends from the Bedford Book of Genres say, it can introduce leads to your paper you never even thought of.