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One of the hardest parts of writing a research paper can be just finding a good topic to write about. Fortunately we've done the hard work for you and have compiled a list of 113 interesting research paper topics. They've been organized into ten categories and cover a wide range of subjects so you can easily find the best topic for you.

In addition to the list of good research topics, we've included advice on what makes a good research paper topic and how you can use your topic to start writing a great paper.

What Makes a Good Research Paper Topic?

Not all research paper topics are created equal, and you want to make sure you choose a great topic before you start writing. Below are the three most important factors to consider to make sure you choose the best research paper topics.

#1: It's Something You're Interested In

A paper is always easier to write if you're interested in the topic, and you'll be more motivated to do in-depth research and write a paper that really covers the entire subject. Even if a certain research paper topic is getting a lot of buzz right now or other people seem interested in writing about it, don't feel tempted to make it your topic unless you genuinely have some sort of interest in it as well.

#2: There's Enough Information to Write a Paper

Even if you come up with the absolute best research paper topic and you're so excited to write about it, you won't be able to produce a good paper if there isn't enough research about the topic. This can happen for very specific or specialized topics, as well as topics that are too new to have enough research done on them at the moment. Easy research paper topics will always be topics with enough information to write a full-length paper.

Trying to write a research paper on a topic that doesn't have much research on it is incredibly hard, so before you decide on a topic, do a bit of preliminary searching and make sure you'll have all the information you need to write your paper.

#3: It Fits Your Teacher's Guidelines

Don't get so carried away looking at lists of research paper topics that you forget any requirements or restrictions your teacher may have put on research topic ideas. If you're writing a research paper on a health-related topic, deciding to write about the impact of rap on the music scene probably won't be allowed, but there may be some sort of leeway. For example, if you're really interested in current events but your teacher wants you to write a research paper on a history topic, you may be able to choose a topic that fits both categories, like exploring the relationship between the US and North Korea. No matter what, always get your research paper topic approved by your teacher first before you begin writing.

113 Good Research Paper Topics

Below are 113 good research topics to help you get you started on your paper. We've organized them into ten categories to make it easier to find the type of research paper topics you're looking for.

Arts/Culture

• Discuss the main differences in art from the Italian Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance .
• Analyze the impact a famous artist had on the world.
• How is sexism portrayed in different types of media (music, film, video games, etc.)? Has the amount/type of sexism changed over the years?
• How has the music of slaves brought over from Africa shaped modern American music?
• How has rap music evolved in the past decade?
• How has the portrayal of minorities in the media changed?

Current Events

• What have been the impacts of China's one child policy?
• How have the goals of feminists changed over the decades?
• How has the Trump presidency changed international relations?
• Analyze the history of the relationship between the United States and North Korea.
• What factors contributed to the current decline in the rate of unemployment?
• What have been the impacts of states which have increased their minimum wage?
• How do US immigration laws compare to immigration laws of other countries?
• How have the US's immigration laws changed in the past few years/decades?
• How has the Black Lives Matter movement affected discussions and view about racism in the US?
• What impact has the Affordable Care Act had on healthcare in the US?
• What factors contributed to the UK deciding to leave the EU (Brexit)?
• What factors contributed to China becoming an economic power?
• Discuss the history of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies  (some of which tokenize the S&P 500 Index on the blockchain) .
• Do students in schools that eliminate grades do better in college and their careers?
• Do students from wealthier backgrounds score higher on standardized tests?
• Do students who receive free meals at school get higher grades compared to when they weren't receiving a free meal?
• Do students who attend charter schools score higher on standardized tests than students in public schools?
• Do students learn better in same-sex classrooms?
• How does giving each student access to an iPad or laptop affect their studies?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Montessori Method ?
• Do children who attend preschool do better in school later on?
• What was the impact of the No Child Left Behind act?
• How does the US education system compare to education systems in other countries?
• What impact does mandatory physical education classes have on students' health?
• Which methods are most effective at reducing bullying in schools?
• Do homeschoolers who attend college do as well as students who attended traditional schools?
• Does offering tenure increase or decrease quality of teaching?
• How does college debt affect future life choices of students?
• Should graduate students be able to form unions?

• What are different ways to lower gun-related deaths in the US?
• How and why have divorce rates changed over time?
• Is affirmative action still necessary in education and/or the workplace?
• Should physician-assisted suicide be legal?
• How has stem cell research impacted the medical field?
• How can human trafficking be reduced in the United States/world?
• Should people be able to donate organs in exchange for money?
• Which types of juvenile punishment have proven most effective at preventing future crimes?
• Has the increase in US airport security made passengers safer?
• Analyze the immigration policies of certain countries and how they are similar and different from one another.
• Several states have legalized recreational marijuana. What positive and negative impacts have they experienced as a result?
• Do tariffs increase the number of domestic jobs?
• Which prison reforms have proven most effective?
• Should governments be able to censor certain information on the internet?
• Which methods/programs have been most effective at reducing teen pregnancy?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Keto diet?
• How effective are different exercise regimes for losing weight and maintaining weight loss?
• How do the healthcare plans of various countries differ from each other?
• What are the most effective ways to treat depression ?
• What are the pros and cons of genetically modified foods?
• Which methods are most effective for improving memory?
• What can be done to lower healthcare costs in the US?
• What factors contributed to the current opioid crisis?
• Analyze the history and impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic .
• Are low-carbohydrate or low-fat diets more effective for weight loss?
• How much exercise should the average adult be getting each week?
• Which methods are most effective to get parents to vaccinate their children?
• What are the pros and cons of clean needle programs?
• How does stress affect the body?
• Discuss the history of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
• What were the causes and effects of the Salem Witch Trials?
• Who was responsible for the Iran-Contra situation?
• How has New Orleans and the government's response to natural disasters changed since Hurricane Katrina?
• What events led to the fall of the Roman Empire?
• What were the impacts of British rule in India ?
• Was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki necessary?
• What were the successes and failures of the women's suffrage movement in the United States?
• What were the causes of the Civil War?
• How did Abraham Lincoln's assassination impact the country and reconstruction after the Civil War?
• Which factors contributed to the colonies winning the American Revolution?
• What caused Hitler's rise to power?
• Discuss how a specific invention impacted history.
• What led to Cleopatra's fall as ruler of Egypt?
• How has Japan changed and evolved over the centuries?
• What were the causes of the Rwandan genocide ?

• Why did Martin Luther decide to split with the Catholic Church?
• Analyze the history and impact of a well-known cult (Jonestown, Manson family, etc.)
• How did the sexual abuse scandal impact how people view the Catholic Church?
• How has the Catholic church's power changed over the past decades/centuries?
• What are the causes behind the rise in atheism/ agnosticism in the United States?
• What were the influences in Siddhartha's life resulted in him becoming the Buddha?
• How has media portrayal of Islam/Muslims changed since September 11th?

Science/Environment

• How has the earth's climate changed in the past few decades?
• How has the use and elimination of DDT affected bird populations in the US?
• Analyze how the number and severity of natural disasters have increased in the past few decades.
• Analyze deforestation rates in a certain area or globally over a period of time.
• How have past oil spills changed regulations and cleanup methods?
• How has the Flint water crisis changed water regulation safety?
• What are the pros and cons of fracking?
• What impact has the Paris Climate Agreement had so far?
• What have NASA's biggest successes and failures been?
• How can we improve access to clean water around the world?
• Does ecotourism actually have a positive impact on the environment?
• Should the US rely on nuclear energy more?
• What can be done to save amphibian species currently at risk of extinction?
• What impact has climate change had on coral reefs?
• How are black holes created?
• Are teens who spend more time on social media more likely to suffer anxiety and/or depression?
• How will the loss of net neutrality affect internet users?
• Analyze the history and progress of self-driving vehicles.
• How has the use of drones changed surveillance and warfare methods?
• Has social media made people more or less connected?
• What progress has currently been made with artificial intelligence ?
• Do smartphones increase or decrease workplace productivity?
• What are the most effective ways to use technology in the classroom?
• How is Google search affecting our intelligence?
• When is the best age for a child to begin owning a smartphone?
• Has frequent texting reduced teen literacy rates?

How to Write a Great Research Paper

Even great research paper topics won't give you a great research paper if you don't hone your topic before and during the writing process. Follow these three tips to turn good research paper topics into great papers.

#1: Figure Out Your Thesis Early

Before you start writing a single word of your paper, you first need to know what your thesis will be. Your thesis is a statement that explains what you intend to prove/show in your paper. Every sentence in your research paper will relate back to your thesis, so you don't want to start writing without it!

As some examples, if you're writing a research paper on if students learn better in same-sex classrooms, your thesis might be "Research has shown that elementary-age students in same-sex classrooms score higher on standardized tests and report feeling more comfortable in the classroom."

If you're writing a paper on the causes of the Civil War, your thesis might be "While the dispute between the North and South over slavery is the most well-known cause of the Civil War, other key causes include differences in the economies of the North and South, states' rights, and territorial expansion."

#2: Back Every Statement Up With Research

Remember, this is a research paper you're writing, so you'll need to use lots of research to make your points. Every statement you give must be backed up with research, properly cited the way your teacher requested. You're allowed to include opinions of your own, but they must also be supported by the research you give.

#3: Do Your Research Before You Begin Writing

You don't want to start writing your research paper and then learn that there isn't enough research to back up the points you're making, or, even worse, that the research contradicts the points you're trying to make!

Get most of your research on your good research topics done before you begin writing. Then use the research you've collected to create a rough outline of what your paper will cover and the key points you're going to make. This will help keep your paper clear and organized, and it'll ensure you have enough research to produce a strong paper.

What's Next?

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Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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1000+ FREE Research Topics & Title Ideas

If you’re at the start of your research journey and are trying to figure out which research topic you want to focus on, you’ve come to the right place. Select your area of interest below to view a comprehensive collection of potential research ideas.

Research Topic FAQs

What (exactly) is a research topic.

A research topic is the subject of a research project or study – for example, a dissertation or thesis. A research topic typically takes the form of a problem to be solved, or a question to be answered.

A good research topic should be specific enough to allow for focused research and analysis. For example, if you are interested in studying the effects of climate change on agriculture, your research topic could focus on how rising temperatures have impacted crop yields in certain regions over time.

To learn more about the basics of developing a research topic, consider our free research topic ideation webinar.

What constitutes a good research topic?

A strong research topic comprises three important qualities : originality, value and feasibility.

• Originality – a good topic explores an original area or takes a novel angle on an existing area of study.
• Value – a strong research topic provides value and makes a contribution, either academically or practically.
• Feasibility – a good research topic needs to be practical and manageable, given the resource constraints you face.

To learn more about what makes for a high-quality research topic, check out this post .

What's the difference between a research topic and research problem?

A research topic and a research problem are two distinct concepts that are often confused. A research topic is a broader label that indicates the focus of the study , while a research problem is an issue or gap in knowledge within the broader field that needs to be addressed.

To illustrate this distinction, consider a student who has chosen “teenage pregnancy in the United Kingdom” as their research topic. This research topic could encompass any number of issues related to teenage pregnancy such as causes, prevention strategies, health outcomes for mothers and babies, etc.

Within this broad category (the research topic) lies potential areas of inquiry that can be explored further – these become the research problems . For example:

• What factors contribute to higher rates of teenage pregnancy in certain communities?
• How do different types of parenting styles affect teen pregnancy rates?
• What interventions have been successful in reducing teenage pregnancies?

Simply put, a key difference between a research topic and a research problem is scope ; the research topic provides an umbrella under which multiple questions can be asked, while the research problem focuses on one specific question or set of questions within that larger context.

How can I find potential research topics for my project?

There are many steps involved in the process of finding and choosing a high-quality research topic for a dissertation or thesis. We cover these steps in detail in this video (also accessible below).

How can I find quality sources for my research topic?

Finding quality sources is an essential step in the topic ideation process. To do this, you should start by researching scholarly journals, books, and other academic publications related to your topic. These sources can provide reliable information on a wide range of topics. Additionally, they may contain data or statistics that can help support your argument or conclusions.

Identifying Relevant Sources

When searching for relevant sources, it’s important to look beyond just published material; try using online databases such as Google Scholar or JSTOR to find articles from reputable journals that have been peer-reviewed by experts in the field.

You can also use search engines like Google or Bing to locate websites with useful information about your topic. However, be sure to evaluate any website before citing it as a source—look for evidence of authorship (such as an “About Us” page) and make sure the content is up-to-date and accurate before relying on it.

Evaluating Sources

Once you’ve identified potential sources for your research project, take some time to evaluate them thoroughly before deciding which ones will best serve your purpose. Consider factors such as author credibility (are they an expert in their field?), publication date (is the source current?), objectivity (does the author present both sides of an issue?) and relevance (how closely does this source relate to my specific topic?).

By researching the current literature on your topic, you can identify potential sources that will help to provide quality information. Once you’ve identified these sources, it’s time to look for a gap in the research and determine what new knowledge could be gained from further study.

How can I find a good research gap?

Finding a strong gap in the literature is an essential step when looking for potential research topics. We explain what research gaps are and how to find them in this post.

How should I evaluate potential research topics/ideas?

When evaluating potential research topics, it is important to consider the factors that make for a strong topic (we discussed these earlier). Specifically:

• Originality
• Feasibility

So, when you have a list of potential topics or ideas, assess each of them in terms of these three criteria. A good topic should take a unique angle, provide value (either to academia or practitioners), and be practical enough for you to pull off, given your limited resources.

Finally, you should also assess whether this project could lead to potential career opportunities such as internships or job offers down the line. Make sure that you are researching something that is relevant enough so that it can benefit your professional development in some way. Additionally, consider how each research topic aligns with your career goals and interests; researching something that you are passionate about can help keep motivation high throughout the process.

How can I assess the feasibility of a research topic?

When evaluating the feasibility and practicality of a research topic, it is important to consider several factors.

First, you should assess whether or not the research topic is within your area of competence. Of course, when you start out, you are not expected to be the world’s leading expert, but do should at least have some foundational knowledge.

Time commitment

When considering a research topic, you should think about how much time will be required for completion. Depending on your field of study, some topics may require more time than others due to their complexity or scope.

Additionally, if you plan on collaborating with other researchers or institutions in order to complete your project, additional considerations must be taken into account such as coordinating schedules and ensuring that all parties involved have adequate resources available.

Resources needed

It’s also critically important to consider what type of resources are necessary in order to conduct the research successfully. This includes physical materials such as lab equipment and chemicals but can also include intangible items like access to certain databases or software programs which may be necessary depending on the nature of your work. Additionally, if there are costs associated with obtaining these materials then this must also be factored into your evaluation process.

Potential risks

It’s important to consider the inherent potential risks for each potential research topic. These can include ethical risks (challenges getting ethical approval), data risks (not being able to access the data you’ll need), technical risks relating to the equipment you’ll use and funding risks (not securing the necessary financial back to undertake the research).

If you’re looking for more information about how to find, evaluate and select research topics for your dissertation or thesis, check out our free webinar here . Alternatively, if you’d like 1:1 help with the topic ideation process, consider our private coaching services .

Psst... there’s more!

This post was based on one of our popular Research Bootcamps . If you're working on a research project, you'll definitely want to check this out ...

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Research Topic Ideas

Getting started, 1. brainstorming for a topic, 2. read general background information, 3. focus your topic, more research help.

• Area & Interdisciplinary Studies
• Behavioral & Social Sciences
• Business, Economics, & Management
• Current Events and Controversial Issues
• Education & Social Work
• Health Sciences
• Natural and Physical Sciences

This guide provides you with a list of topic ideas (by subject or academic discipline) which could be developed into a research paper or project. It is not an all-inclusive list, but a list developed over time with input from faculty and students.

It is intended to offer suggestions only.

This is NOT a guide to help you research a topic. It is only intended to provide ideas for a paper.

The ability to develop a good research topic is an important skill. An instructor may assign you a specific topic, but most often instructors require you to select your own topic of interest. When deciding on a topic, there are a few things that you will need to do:

• Brainstorm for ideas.
• Choose a topic that will enable you to read and understand the articles and books you find.
• Ensure that the topic is manageable and that material is available.
• Make a list of key words.
• Be flexible. You may have to broaden or narrow your topic to fit your assignment or the sources you find.

Selecting a good topic may not be easy. It must be narrow and focused enough to be interesting, yet broad enough to find adequate information. Before selecting your final topic, make sure you know what your final project should look like. Each class or instructor will likely require a different format or style of research project.

Choose a topic that interests you. Use the following questions to help generate topic ideas.

• Do you have a strong opinion on a current social or political controversy?
• Did you read or see a news story recently that has piqued your interest or made you angry or anxious?
• Do you have a personal issue, problem, or interest that you would like to know more about?
• Is there an aspect of a class that you are interested in learning more about?

Write down any key words or concepts that may be of interest to you. These terms can be helpful in your searching and used to form a more focused research topic.

Be aware of overused ideas when deciding a topic. You may wish to avoid topics such as abortion, gun control, teen pregnancy, or suicide unless you feel you have a unique approach to the topic. Ask the instructor for ideas if you feel you are stuck or need additional guidance.

Sometimes using a  Concept Map  can help you come up with directions to take your research.

• Topic Concept Map Download and print this PDF to create a concept map for your topic. Put your main topic in the middle circle and then put ideas related to your topic on the lines radiating from the circle.

Read a general encyclopedia article on the top two or three topics you are considering.

Reading a broad summary enables you to get an overview of the topic and see how your idea relates to broader, narrower, and related issues. It also provides a great source for finding words commonly used to describe the topic. These keywords may be very useful to your later research.

If you can't find an article on your topic, try using broader terms and ask for help from a librarian.

The databases listed below are good places to find general information. The library's print reference collection can also be useful and is located on the third floor of the library.

Authoritative coverage of thousands of topics in all areas of study.

Encyclopaedia Britannica's latest article database (including hundreds of articles not found in the print edition), Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus, and the Britannica Book of the Year (1994-present), with thousands of web links selected by editors. Updated daily.

Fully indexed, cross-searchable database of over 400 dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press. Includes subject reference works in the humanities, social sciences, and science--both "Quick Reference" titles (concise dictionaries, etc.) and larger "Reference Library" titles (multi-volume encyclopedias, etc.).

Covers anthropology, communication, education, geography, health, history, law, management, politics, psychology, and sociology.

Concise introductions to a diverse range of subject areas in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities.

Keep it manageable and be flexible. If you start doing more research and not finding enough sources that support your thesis, you may need to adjust your topic.

A topic will be very difficult to research if it is too broad or narrow. One way to narrow a broad topic such as "the environment" is to limit your topic. Some common ways to limit a topic are:

• by geographic area

Example: What environmental issues are most important in the Southwestern United States?

• by time frame:

Example: What are the most prominent environmental issues of the last 10 years?

• by discipline

Example: How does environmental awareness effect business practices today?

• by population group

Example: What are the effects of air pollution on senior citizens?

Remember that a topic may be too difficult to research if it is too:

• locally confined - Topics this specific may only be covered in local newspapers and not in scholarly articles.

Example: What sources of pollution affect the Genesee County water supply?

• recent - If a topic is quite recent, books or journal articles may not be available, but newspaper or magazine articles may. Also, websites related to the topic may or may not be available.
• broadly interdisciplinary - You could be overwhelmed with superficial information.

Example: How can the environment contribute to the culture, politics and society of the Western United States?

• popular - You will only find very popular articles about some topics such as sports figures and high-profile celebrities and musicians.

Putting your topic in the form of a question will help you focus on what type of information you want to collect.

If you have any difficulties or questions with focusing your topic, discuss the topic with your instructor, or with a librarian.

For more help with the research help, please see our Research Help Guides:

• Research Process by Liz Svoboda Last Updated Apr 26, 2024 7864 views this year
• Primary Sources for Historical Research: A Library Guide by Reference Librarians Last Updated Mar 28, 2024 77 views this year
• Understanding Journals: Peer-Reviewed, Scholarly, & Popular by Liz Svoboda Last Updated Jan 10, 2024 1346 views this year
• Identifying Information Sources by Liz Svoboda Last Updated Mar 13, 2024 1956 views this year
• Next: Area & Interdisciplinary Studies >>
• Last Updated: Mar 1, 2024 1:06 PM
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Examples of Research Paper Topics in Different Study Areas

Posted by Rene Tetzner | Sep 19, 2021 | How To Get Published | 0 |

72 Examples of Research Paper Topics in 18 Different Study Areas The examples of research paper topics listed in this post range across disciplines and fields of study to help a wide range of academics, scientists and students choose and develop topics with true research potential that will prove engaging not only for those authors, but also for their readers. A topic of particular personal interest & relevance to the researcher & his or her life tends to make the research and writing processes more exciting and enjoyable. It can also be helpful to know a little about a topic in advance, but prior knowledge is never as important as a true passion for a topic.

The topic chosen for a research paper must be appropriate for the field of study and observe any specific guidelines or requirements associated with the intended paper. The editor of a literary journal, for instance, or the instructor of a literature course will want a paper exploring some aspect of literature, usually the literature of a particular period, genre, style or author, and the same kind of focus will also be required in other research areas. The length and scope of the paper as well as the time available to complete the research and writing should certainly be considered when choosing a topic, and it is always wise to preview recently published sources on a topic to determine how the topic has been treated in scholarship and whether there is enough material to enable the new research. Topics that are of concern to both specialists and more general readers tend to be particularly successful, so I have aimed for topics of this kind in the list below. Areas of interest appear in alphabetical order, and helpful tips are offered amidst the example topics.

ANIMALS & ANIMAL RIGHTS 1. Consider animal testing in relation to animal rights. Do the benefits of animal testing outweigh the suffering of laboratory animals or not? This topic could be wide and general or very closely focussed on one kind of animal or the testing that takes place in a single laboratory. 2. Should animals be used by humans as food? This could include a study of slaughterhouses and processing facilities and perhaps an argument for or against a vegetarian or vegan diet. 3. There should (or should not) be greater penalties for cruelty to animals. Specific instances and their legal ramifications could be described and discussed as meaningful case studies. 4. Is it right to use animals in sports and entertainment? Animals that become hunting trophies, captive cetaceans entertaining tourists, rodeo horses, circus elephants, animals in film, etc. – the possibilities for discussion are virtually endless. Tip: Always be sure to support whatever argument you pursue with convincing evidence acquired through sound research methods. Opinions and feelings may play a part in choosing a research topic and formulating ideas, but they are not enough on their own, no matter how strong or fashionable they may be.

ART & ART HISTORY 1. Art is (or is not) a vital aspect of a primary (or secondary) school education and should (or should not) be included in the curriculum. Discuss. Tip: Since most authors of research papers are well educated, this is the type of topic that could easily include evidence derived from the researcher’s own experiences, whether positive or negative. 2. The importance (or perhaps role) of illustrations in children’s books. A selection of different examples to compare and contrast or a close focus on a particular book, series or author would prove effective. Alternatively, the use of art in books written for adults could be considered. 3. Discuss a work of art in relation to a poem or story, a piece of music, a remarkable building or some other product of human creativity. This topic encourages an interdisciplinary approach that can be particularly interesting, but careful thought should be given to choosing the pieces for comparison. 4. Art history courses often define and describe art periods, styles, schools and the like, so exploring the characteristics, development or impact of any of those or of a particular artist makes a good topic. If specialised terminology is required for this topic, it should be carefully explained and used both accurately and consistently.

COMPUTERS & COMPUTER SCIENCE 1. Mac versus PC: which computer is better and why? Opinions tend to be strong and in many cases uninformed on this issue, which can be an important point for discussion, but it is essential in a research paper to investigate and discuss the facts about the two types of computer. 2. Do spell checkers, grammar checkers and autocorrect functions strengthen or weaken the writing skills of computer users? Consider more than one of these tools in the investigation. 3. Identify the next great development in computer science and discuss why you think it will be so very important. 4. What role or roles do you think artificial intelligence is now playing and/or will in the future play in human evolution?

ECONOMICS & BUSINESS STUDIES 1. Is the wealth of the world distributed equally among its people? What could be done to promote greater equality? 2. Consider the consequences of some aspect of salaries or pay that is currently in the news, such as early-career professionals working for free, promotions given without raises or unacceptably low minimum wages. 3. In what ways and to what degree do social media and networking sites function as instruments for business promotion? 4. Are large corporations able to break the law and get away with it in ways that small businesses and individuals cannot? Why or why not? Tip: Topic 4 here is the type of topic for which there may be far more opinions than actual facts available, so it is important to be especially careful about the quality of evidence used to support an argument.

EDUCATION & SCHOOLS 1. Explore the benefits and drawbacks of a ‘no child left behind’ educational policy. 2. Bullying occurs in the schools of many countries. How serious do you think the problem is in your area, and what, if anything, could be done to improve the situation? 3. Plagiarism is on the rise in modern universities, yet many accused students appear not to understand their error. Explore the concept of plagiarism in the twenty-first century and discuss its consequences. 4. Does religion have a valid place in public schools? If so, what might its role be? If not, why not?

ENGLISH LITERATURE 1. Compare and contrast two different literary texts or the writing of two different authors. Consider a number of aspects such as genre, style, character development, metaphor, imagery and word play in examining and discussing the texts. Tip: Comparing and contrasting two or more things, events or problems in a research paper can be a useful approach for initiating and focussing an investigation. The secret to success is to choose the items for comparison with care and to narrow the topic as much as necessary for the intended paper. 2. Discuss the role, suppression and/or rediscovery of pre-twentieth-century women authors in the English literary canon as it is usually taught in schools. 3. Investigate and discuss the sophisticated use of irony to establish character and communicate potentially unwelcome concepts to readers in the writing of a major author such as Chaucer, Shakespeare or Dickens. 4. Does quality literature have a positive effect on society? Does it make readers wiser, more perceptive, more empathetic or perhaps better writers? Views can be supported with both personal and research-based evidence.

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES & GLOBAL WARMING 1. Is global warming a reality or a hoax? If it really is happening, what are the primary causes? Can humanity make a difference? 2. Oil and mineral exploration has recently taken place in and very close to wildlife reserves and national parks. Consider whether this should be allowed or not. 3. Investigate power sources in your region or country. Are they environmentally sound? What sources of alternate energy might be especially well suited to the area and why? 4. Learn all you can about an endangered wildlife species or group in your locality. Consider the current state of the animals, the reasons why they have become endangered and the actions that have been used and could be used to increase their chances of survival. Tip: A great deal of propaganda is generated around certain issues of current concern, and environmental matters are certainly among them. It is therefore imperative to look for the signs of authoritative scientific reporting as you conduct your research and to be both specific and precise in discussing subjects and events.

FAMILIES, FOOD & NUTRITION 1. Explore the relationship between nutrition and family health. This topic could easily be narrowed to focus, for instance, on breastfeeding and baby health or perhaps the health and social benefits of a family sitting down together over a home-cooked meal. 2. How have fast-food restaurants affected family nutrition and health? Should the menus of such restaurants be regulated? 3. Investigate local family farms and food producers in your area to determine how much of your diet could be acquired from these sources. What would be missing? Would an attempt to purchase as much of your food from local sources as possible result in changes to your diet? 4. Should parents be able to spank their children? Why or why not?

HEALTH & MEDICINE 1. Explore one of the health problems that currently pose particular challenges for humanity and are under intense investigation in the published scholarship: depression, Alzheimer’s, cancer, AIDS and autism are good examples. Consider how the condition affects individuals and society and what might be done to alleviate suffering and cost. 2. Study a group of teenagers under treatment for depression to discover common predictors of the disease and suggest how this information could help in the prevention of teenage depression. Tip: As the first two topics here indicate, when writing a research paper about human health an author should usually dedicate part of the discussion to improving the lives of the people under investigation. 3. Do the benefits of vaccinating children outweigh the risks? Consider different types of vaccinations, the frequency and nature of complications, and the risks to society. 4. Should healthcare and medication be available free of charge to all people? Why or why not?

HISTORY 1. Investigate and discuss the importance of a major historical event, such as the first moon landing or the assassination of J.F. Kennedy, of some decisive battle or war, such as the Battle of Hastings or the American Civil War, or of some revolutionary document, such as Magna Carta or the Declaration of Independence. Why was it so very important? 2. Did Columbus really ‘discover’ America first? Consider other voyagers – the Vikings and Chinese, for instance – as well as native populations. 3. Explore the role and importance of salt in world history. This topic could be productively narrowed to focus on a particular region or period. 4. Learn about a historical individual, family or group through their books. The extensive devotional library of a twelfth-century monastery, the single anthology of romances owned by a fifteenth-century merchant family or the esoteric book collection cherished by a renaissance scholar could be considered in terms of content and examined for reader responses. The possibilities are endless as long as the books can be firmly connected with their historical readers.

THE INTERNET 1. Has the internet affected the ways in which academic and scientific research is published and made available to readers? Consider factors such as open access, publisher paywalls, article retractions and scholarly blogs. 2. Does frequent use of the internet enhance or undermine a child’s health, development, education and/or social skills? Consider what children are doing online as well as what they might be doing were they not online. 3. How big an issue is online security or cyber security as far as you are concerned? What makes you feel safe and secure about your online activities? What might make you feel safer? 4. Examine one or more of the major problems associated with the internet such as child pornography, erroneous information or copyright infringement. Are there effective ways to prevent or eliminate such problems?

LAW 1. Look into the incarceration rates in your country. Are they higher or lower than the rates in other countries? Can you detect a reason for any significant differences? Do you think incarceration is an effective solution for managing crime and promoting the rehabilitation of criminals? 2. Gun control has been an issue of hot debate in recent years. Consider a variety of perspectives as you argue your view of the matter. 3. Should people be legally able to take their own lives when they are suffering from a debilitating terminal disease? Discuss. 4. Despite negative publicity and dire consequences, drivers continue to text while operating vehicles. Why do you think this happens and what would be the most effective way to prevent the problem?

MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS 1. Marketing invades nearly every aspect of modern life. Based on your own experience and that of friends and family, do you think the impact of these impersonal communications is predominantly positive or negative? 2. What kind of regulations or limitations apply to marketing products to children in your country or region? Are they appropriate, inadequate or excessive? 3. Discuss the pros and cons of outsourcing customer services. Comparing the views of customers with that of businesses will no doubt prove enlightening. 4. Has all the communicating we do via text messaging, email, social media, blog sites and professional online platforms improved our ability to communicate in person? Be sure to share your reasoning and support your viewpoint.

POLITICS 1. Investigate and discuss the unique nature of the Trump presidency and its implications both within the United States and beyond. Tip: For many research paper topics, including the one above, it is essential to recognise your own national and political perspective (Republican American, Liberal Canadian, etc.), to achieve some level of objectivity and to support your argument with research-based evidence. 2. Examine the conditions and forces associated with the rise of Nazi Germany. Was WWII inevitable? The focus of this topic could be shifted to any major war, such as WWI, the Battle of Hastings or the American Civil War. Discussion of a war’s aftermath can be of interest as well. 3. An enormous amount of money is spent on political advertising during election campaigns, which usually leaves neighbourhoods cluttered with flyers and posters. Is this a legitimate expense? Should parties be responsible for cleaning up the litter after a campaign? 4. Choose a significant political scandal or event that has recently occurred in your country or region and discuss how it began or occurred, how news of it was spread and how it affected individuals and society in the area.

RELIGION & BELIEFS 1. Are dreams meaningful or simply games of the sleeping mind? Research a variety of perspectives on the matter and consider the possible functions and causes of dreams such as prophecy, therapy, eating before bed or falling asleep in an anxious or troubled state. 2. Why are religious cults so appealing and powerful? Consider individual cases in your discussion. 3. Does the regular attendance of citizens at formal religious services have an impact on crime in a region? This topic could be narrowed by choosing a specific type of crime or focussing on children, teenagers or families. 4. Education rather than indoctrination is an ideal for the role of religion in schools. How might this ideal be achieved? Tip: When discussing religion and beliefs, be sure to avoid unsubstantiated value judgements. Instead, base your interpretations firmly on the evidence gleaned from sound research practices.

SOCIOLOGY & SOCIAL CONCERNS 1. Should parents be allowed to engineer designer babies? Different situations and reasons for genetic manipulation should be considered along with a variety of perspectives on the matter. 2. The successful settlement of immigrants in a new country often depends upon the social services immediately available to them. What sort of financial, medical and educational assistance does your country provide for immigrants and refugees when they arrive? Should more or less be provided? 3. Terrorism creates a fear culture that can become a society’s own unintentional terrorist. Explore and discuss how this is true or false of the effects of terrorism in the twenty-first century. 4. Discuss gay rights in relation to your own community. Consider whether gay marriage is permitted, whether gay couples can adopt children, whether gay individuals are welcome at religious services and social events, whether gay pride is publicly displayed and other telltale signs. Could the situation be better?

TECHNOLOGY & INDUSTRIALISATION 1. How did the steel sword, the long bow, gunpowder, airplanes, biological warfare or the atomic bomb change the nature of warfare forever? The focus could be on one of these technological developments or two or more could be compared in a single paper. 2. Investigate how home computers, tablets and smart phones have changed human beings, their behaviours and their culture. Be sure to consult published scholarship on the topic as well as your own experience. Tip: The first of the topics above focuses on historical impacts, whereas the second investigates a current impact, but both should be approached in a research paper context with an equally formal and objective perspective. 3. Railroads and trains have been identified as primary forces in the exploitation, settlement and industrialisation of countries and continents. How is this true or not of your homeland? 4. How has the use of fossil fuels shaped the modern world? This topic could be narrowed to focus on a particular or local area or on one major effect of the predominance of fossil fuels, such as pollution from oil spills or the slow development of alternate energy sources.

WOMEN’S STUDIES 1. Many young women suffer from anorexia and bulimia. Learn all you can about these eating disorders, their causes and their symptoms. How significant is the impact and what might improve the situation? 2. Investigate a major event or development in women’s history, such as the suffrage movement, the admission of women to institutes of higher education, the Salem witch trials or the legalisation of birth control or abortion. What were the immediate and lasting implications of the event or development? 3. Women still tend to earn less money than men for performing the same jobs and duties. Consider specific examples as you discuss why this is the case and suggest how the problem might be realistically remedied. 4. Do beauty contests empower or objectify women? This topic might be shifted to focus instead on female strippers, nude centrefolds or the women who act in pornographic films.

Tip: When writing about research of the kind outlined in the last topic here, do remember to be tactful and professional when presenting evidence. The point is to persuade, not offend your readers.

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Summary This post provides seventy-two examples of engaging research paper topics arranged in eighteen different study areas

Examples of Research Paper Topics

About the author.

Rene Tetzner

Rene Tetzner's blog posts dedicated to academic and scientific writing and publishing. Although the focus is on publishing research papers in peer-reviewed journals, many other important aspects of research-based writing, editing and publishing are addressed in helpful detail.

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• Published: 22 September 2020

Transdisciplinarity as a discipline and a way of being : complementarities and creative tensions

• Cyrille Rigolot   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8316-0226 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  7 , Article number:  100 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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Transdisciplinarity is generally defined by the inclusion of non-academic stakeholders in the process of knowledge production. Transdisciplinarity is a promising notion, but its ability to efficiently address the world’s most pressing issues still requires improvement. Several typologies of transdisciplinarity have been proposed, generally with a theoretical versus practical dichotomy (Mode 1/Mode 2), and effort has focused on possible linkages between different types. However, in the last two decades, transdisciplinarity has significantly matured to the extent that the classical theoretical versus practical distinction appears clearly limited. In this paper, a reframing of the debate is proposed by considering transdisciplinarity as a new discipline and as a way of being . The conception of transdisciplinarity as a discipline can be related to the recent development of the broader discipline of “integration and implementation sciences” (i2S), to which “practical” Mode 2 transdisciplinarity is a major contributor. When transdisciplinarity is considered as a way of being , it is inseparable from personal life and extends far beyond the professional activities of a researcher. To illustrate this conception, the work and life of Edgar Morin can be used as an exemplary reference in conjunction with other streams of thought, such as integral theory. Transdisciplinarity as a discipline and transdisciplinarity as a way of being have complementarities in terms of researchers’ personal dispositions and space for expression in academia. The proposed distinction also raises the question of the status of consciousness in transdisciplinary projects, which may be a fruitful controversial topic for the transdisciplinary research community.

Introduction

In the context of unprecedented worldwide crises, transdisciplinarity is increasingly mentioned as a promising way of producing knowledge and decision-making (Lang et al., 2012 ). Transdisciplinarity is often characterized by the inclusion of non-academic stakeholders in the process of knowledge production (Scholz and Steiner, 2015 ). The notion of transdisciplinarity emerged in the 1970s and developed in different streams that correspond to different communities and contrasting research practices (Klein, 2014 ). Several typologies have been proposed to characterize these different streams and their relationships. In one of the most common typologies, based on the work of Gibbons et al. ( 1994 ) in the sociology of science, Scholz and Steiner ( 2015 ) distinguish two modes of transdisciplinarity: “Mode 1” transdisciplinarity, which is mostly theoretical, is motivated by a general search for a “unity of knowledge” and corresponds to an “inner-science activity”, while “Mode 2” transdisciplinarity, which is mostly practical, is typically characterized by the inclusion of stakeholders in participatory problem-solving approaches that are applied to tangible, real-world problems (Scholz and Steiner, 2015 ). Mode 1 transdisciplinarity is typically associated with the quantum physicist Basarab Nicolescu’s proposal of a methodology based on three axioms: (1) levels of reality, (2) the principle of the hidden third, and (3) complexity. These axioms are extensively developed in the literature (Nicolescu, 2010 ; McGregor, 2015a ). In another famous typology, Max-Neef ( 2005 ) proposes distinguishing “weak transdisciplinarity”, which can be applied “following traditional methods and logic”, and “strong transdisciplinarity”, notably inspired by Nicolescu’s work, which is characterized by a specific quantum-like logic and breaks with the assumption of a single reality (Max-Neef, 2005 ). From this perspective, transdisciplinarity is more than a new discipline or a super-discipline; it is “a different manner of seeing the world [that is] more systemic and holistic” (Max-Neef, 2005 ). As a last example, Nicolescu ( 2010 ) distinguishes three forms of transdisciplinary: (1) theoretical (referring to his own work and that of his collaborator, Edgar Morin), (2) phenomenological (corresponding to Gibbon’s Mode 2), and (3) experimental (which is based on existing data in a diversity of fields, such as education, art, and literature).

Transdisciplinarity is often described as a promising notion, but its ability to efficiently address the world’s most pressing issues still requires improvement. Although several transdisciplinary projects with non-academic stakeholders have led to significant improvements in addressing important issues, many other projects have been disappointing as the benefits claimed for participation are often not realized (Frame and Brown, 2008 ). One common response to overcome these limitations is to provide a better link between different types of transdisciplinarity regardless of the typology used. For example, for Scholz and Steiner ( 2015 ), a major challenge for transdisciplinarity is to better link Mode 1 and Mode 2 as a way to maintain high quality standards and to prevent transdisciplinarity from “being increasingly used for labeling any interactions between scientists and practitioners”. For Max-Neef ( 2005 ), efforts are needed to perfect transdisciplinarity as a world vision “until the weak is absorbed and consolidated in the strong”. Nicolescu ( 2010 ) also stresses the need to acknowledge both the diversity and the unity of his three types of transdisciplinarity (theoretical, phenomenological, experimental). In line with these different calls, some approaches have been proposed to better link different types of transdisciplinarity. For example, Rigolot ( 2020 ) suggests that quantum theory can be used as a source of insight to narrow the gap between Mode 1 and Mode 2 transdisciplinarity.

In this paper, another strategy is proposed by reframing the entire debate. Each of the mentioned typologies of transdisciplinarity has important limitations, and the very idea of a typology itself has become limited. As discussed in the next section, the notion of a Mode 1 transdisciplinarity and the related “theoretical” transdisciplinarity in Nicolescu’s terms were somewhat misleading notions from the start. In contrast, Mode 2 transdisciplinarity has evolved considerably in the last two decades, particularly with regard to its openness to shared methods and theories. The hierarchy introduced by Max-Neef ( 2005 ) between weak and strong transdisciplinarity also seems questionable. To move forward, rather than proposing another typology, it might be more fruitful to engage a dialog between transdisciplinarity as a new discipline and as a way of being . The next section presents the emergence and main characteristics of both the discipline and the way of being . Transdisciplinarity as a discipline can be seen as emerging from “Mode 2” transdisciplinarity as a result of a “bottom-up” mutualization of methodologies and theories. As an exemplary illustration, it can be related to the recent stimulating development of “integration and implementation sciences” (i2S) (Bammer, 2017 ; Bammer et al., 2020 ), although the correspondence is not exact (i2S is larger than transdisciplinarity as a discipline). Insights from complex thought (Morin, 2008 ) and integral theory (Wilber, 1995 ; Esbjörn-Hargens, 2009 ) are used to illustrate transdisciplinarity as a way of being . The third section of this paper presents the complementarities and creative tensions between a transdisciplinary discipline and a way of being before concluding with the added value of the proposed approach.

Mode 2 transdisciplinarity and the discipline of “integration and implementation sciences”

The emergence of a new academic discipline requires a broad research community with a common purpose that collaborates not only on a practical level but also on methodological and theoretical levels. Following this approach, transdisciplinarity as a discipline can be understood in terms of Mode 2 transdisciplinarity and insights from integration and implementation sciences. The notion of Mode 2 transdisciplinarity was adopted in the Zürich congress in 2000 by the major academic transdisciplinarity research community, which ultimately became the Swiss-based TD-net Network for Transdisciplinarity Research (McGregor, 2015a ). The “Zürich approach” discarded the notion of transdisciplinary as a methodology with axioms, as proposed by Nicolescu, which was later labeled “Mode 1” (Scholz and Steiner, 2015 ) or “theoretical” (Nicolescu, 2010 ) transdisciplinarity. According to Klein ( 2014 ), the Zürich congress 2000 was a pivotal event in the evolution of transdisciplinarity discourses. Originally, Mode 2 science was characterized by six principles (Gibbons et al. 1994 ) that would later be used as a basis for an “ideal-type” Mode 2 transdisciplinarity (Scholtz and Steiner, 2015 ): (1) Mode 2 knowledge is produced in the context where it will be applied; (2) it has its own distinct characteristics beyond disciplinary knowledge; (3) Mode 2 is heterogeneous in terms of skills, viewpoints and participants’ experiences; (4) structures are seen as transient and evolving rather than rigidly hierarchical; (5) the resulting knowledge is socially robust and relevant for the actors involved; (6) the quality of the produced knowledge is ensured by adequate criteria and procedures (McGregor, 2015a ). Following the principles of Mode 2, Scholtz and Steiner ( 2015 ) identified a possible “kernel” of transdisciplinary processes, which can be seen as a common purpose for the related community, in “the mutual learning among scientists and practitioners about a complex, societally relevant problem”.

As Mode 2 transdisciplinarity emerged at the expense of the methodology proposed by Nicolescu ( 2010 ), it became characterized by the adjective “practical” by contrast. Because the Zürich approach refused to embrace an overarching methodology (i.e., Nicolescu’s methodology), it became associated with “the refusal to formulate any methodology” (Nicolescu, 2010 ) and, correlatively, with an aversion to theoretical developments. However, recent breakthroughs have led to a move beyond what now appears as an over-simplification, as exemplified by the development of a new discipline of integration and implementation sciences (I2S) (Bammer, 2017 ). Integration and implementation sciences (i2S) does not strictly correspond to transdisciplinarity as it encompasses many other approaches, such as system dynamics, sustainability sciences and action research (Bammer, 2017 ). However, there is a significant overlap, as indicated in the definition of i2S as “a new discipline providing concepts and methods for conducting research on complex, real-world problems” (Bammer, 2017 ). In particular, the domain of application of i2S includes topics such as the synthesis of disciplinary and stakeholder knowledge, the understanding and management of diverse unknowns and the provision of integrated research support for policy and practice change (Bammer, 2017 ). As noted by Bammer ( 2017 ), the development of the i2S discipline was motivated by the difficulty of interdisciplinarity (including transdisciplinarity) in fitting into the mainstream and the fragmentation of methods and academic communities, which led to extensive “reinventing of methods”. A major advance has been to build a methods repository, which is also open to theoretical exchanges and development (Bammer et al., 2020 ). In a post on the i2S blog Footnote 1 presenting discussions held at the 2015 TD-net conference, a group of researchers discuss the role of theory specifically for transdisciplinary research. For this group, “theory makes clear what transdisciplinary researchers value and stand for”, which is why they feel “a responsibility to build and articulate it”. This group also insists on the specificities of transdisciplinarity research and the importance of “holding theory lightly and approaching and using it pragmatically”. While the distance from Nicolescu’s overarching approach clearly remains, such recent reflections unambiguously break with the previous view of a mostly practical transdisciplinarity that is methodology and theory averse.

Transdisciplinarity as a way of being

To date, most academic debates about types of transdisciplinarity have focused on the Mode 2 or Zürich transdisciplinarity approach, on the one hand, and the theoretical work of the quantum physicist Nicolescu ( 2010 ), on the other hand (Scholtz and Steiner, 2015 ; Bernstein, 2015 ; McGregor, 2015a ). Although these debates have yielded stimulating insights regarding, for example, the complementarity of Mode 2 transdisciplinarity with Nicolescu’s axioms, they may have reached a limit. In particular, Nicolescu’s propensity for theoretical developments and his background as a quantum physicist have contributed to the idea of a “theoretical” transdisciplinarity, as he labels it, and even further to a Mode 1 transdisciplinarity, typically associated with the image of the “ivory tower” (Scholtz and Steiner, 2015 ). To move the debate forward, the work of the French philosopher Edgar Morin can be used as a key reference for further exploration. Morin’s work and “complex thought” are widely acknowledged as a major contribution to domains such as philosophy, sociology and biology but, surprisingly, to a lesser degree to transdisciplinarity (compared to Nicolescu). However, Morin is a cosignatory with Nicolescu of the seminal “charter of transdisciplinarity” (Nicolescu et al., 1994 ). Morin himself did not engage in academic debates about transdisciplinarity as Nicolescu did (which is indicative of Morin’s approach to transdisciplinarity as a way of being ). As summarized by Montuori ( 2013 ), “ Morin’s work does not come from an attempt to escape life for an ivory tower (…) but from an effort to immerse himself in it more deeply ”. As several other commentators have noted, Montuori ( 2013 ) shows how Morin’s transdisciplinary work and well-known “complex thought” are deeply integrated with his own life experiences, including events such as the death of his mother and his participation in French resistance, about which Morin constantly reflects in journals and autobiographies. Morin is also deeply engaged in the public and political debate in France. He played a significant role, for example, in the emergence of ecological questions in the public debate (Morin and Kern, 1993 ). For Montuori ( 2013 ), Morin’s transdisciplinary approach “ does not seek to simply solve a problem, but is rather a quest for meaning derived from personal experience ”.

From his own life experiences (such as the lies around his mother’s death when he was a child and his disillusionment with the French communist party), Edgar Morin developed a particularly strong sense of distrust towards self-deception and illusion. He became aware (and then theorized) that every form of knowledge is a construction resulting from specific sources and choices that themselves depend on historical contingencies and personal preferences (Morin, 2008 ). Consequently, transdisciplinarity as a way of being cannot be fairly represented by the biased perception of only one key author, including Edgar Morin. For Gidley ( 2016 ), a diversity of authors and research fields are complementary to Morin’s way of thinking. For example, integral theory shows particularly stimulating complementarities (Gidley, 2016 ; Kelly, 2018 ). In line with the search for a unity of knowledge in Morin’s and Nicolescu’s works (Klein, 2014 ), integral theory is an attempt “to integrate as many approaches, theories and thinkers as possible in a common framework” (Esbjörn-Hargens, 2009 ). On the basis of the philosopher Ken Wilber’s seminal work ( 1995 ), integral theory has been presented as a “theory of everything” that aims to gather “separate paradigms into an interrelated network of approaches that are mutually enriching” (Esbjörn-Hargens, 2009 ). Among other authors (e.g., Gidley, 2016 ; Kelly, 2018 ), Sue McGregor ( 2015b ) has identified some strong complementarities between integral theory and transdisciplinarity, for example, with regard to the consideration of different levels of reality. For this author, integral theory can be seen as an “internal life- and world-processing orientation” (McGregor, 2015b ), which precisely corresponds to the broad definition of transdisciplinarity as a way of being adopted in the present paper. A stimulating complementarity between Integral theory and Edgar Morin’s complex thought lies in the integration of spiritual knowledge: whereas integral theory insists that there is some truth everywhere and gives strong credit to religions as holders of truth, Morin is open to spiritual knowledge but is also constantly skeptical (Montuori, 2013 ; Kelly, 2018 ). This skepticism is related to Morin embodied distrust towards self-deception, errors and illusions, which he sees constantly in knowledge production, including in the realm of science (Montuori, 2013 ; Kelly, 2018 ).

Complementarities and creative tensions

Some important characteristics of the i2S discipline were developed by Bammer et al. ( 2020 ) and can be used as a basis for characterizing transdisciplinarity as a discipline (although the i2S discipline is larger) in comparison with transdisciplinarity as a way of being . When transdisciplinarity is seen as a discipline (as part of i2S), it applies to particular issues or “wicked” problems (Bammer et al., 2020 ). More precisely, expertize in integration and implementation is required at different stages of the problem-solving process, from delimiting the problem to accommodating solutions. Bammer et al. ( 2020 ) also identify different realms where expertize can be found, which are related to communities of professional scientists or associated with academic research projects or research domains (such as unknowns and innovation). From the explorations of Bammer et al. ( 2020 ), it appears that the production of specific knowledge for the discipline of integration and implementation sciences occurs primarily in a community of professional scientists. On the other hand, from the perspective of a transdisciplinary way of being , every problem in real life can be framed as complex (Morin, 2008 ). Moreover, the relevant skills, knowledge and know-how to overcome such complex problems have been developed from ancient times and far beyond academia (Wilber, 1995 ). The way of being lens is also useful to make sense of why the first main practical application domain of Morin’s complex thought was education (Morin, 2002 ; Gidley, 2016 ). Transdisciplinarity as a new discipline and transdisciplinarity as a way of being partly overlap. Notably, the transdisciplinary way of being provides relevant “dispositions” to engage in the transdisciplinary discipline (McGregor, 2015b ). For example, participation in the public debate (agora) can be seen both as a possible characteristic of a transdisciplinary way of being (as exemplified by Edgar Morin) and as essential for the contextualization of problems in research projects (McGregor, 2015b ). Reciprocally, a transdisciplinary discipline provides specific skills and a much-needed space for the expression of the transdisciplinary way of being in academia (Ross and Mitchell, 2018 ).

However, tensions may also occur between transdisciplinarity as a discipline and as a way of being . In particular, this distinction raises the question of the status of consciousness in transdisciplinary research projects. In line with the developmental approach of the psychologist and epistemologist Jean Piaget, who coined the term transdisciplinarity (Nicolescu, 2010 ), a transdisciplinary way of being is embedded in an evolutionary approach to consciousness. A typical expression of Edgar Morin is that “we are at the prehistory of the human mind”, meaning that much of the human mental capacity remains to be explored. To a large extent, Morin’s approach is consistent with the deep exploration of transpersonal psychology by integral scholars (Gidley, 2016 ; Kelly, 2018 ). Transpersonal psychology refers to the integration of the spiritual and transcendent aspects of the human experience with the framework of modern psychology. The transpersonal is defined as “experiences in which the sense of identity or self extends beyond the individual or personal to encompass wider aspects of humankind, life, psyche or cosmos” (Walsh and Vaughan, 1993 ). Correlative with this conception, in the current context of worldwide unprecedented crisis, the transdisciplinary way of being encourages consideration of ideas such as a whole civilization change (Morin, 2011 ) based on an evolution of human thought or consciousness (Botta, 2019 ). However, many transdisciplinary scholars may hesitate to consider these ideas in the solution space of research projects. In particular, the potential tension is apparent in relation to integral theory, which explicitly and significantly includes spiritual knowledge and often associates an evolution of consciousness with processes of “awakening” (Wilber, 1995 ). Although integral theory is currently used by a large number of transdisciplinary scholars (Esbjörn-Hargens, 2009 ), it may be considered by other transdisciplinary scholars to be non-scientific and misleading. This tension is mostly implicit and seldom discussed in the literature, but it can manifest concretely as part of transdisciplinary research projects. Tension can particularly occur between a search for consensus that integrates and respects diverse stakeholders’ viewpoints as they are and the aim of transforming ways of thinking (including those of scientists themselves). In the first case, transdisciplinarity (as a discipline) is a means by which scientists contribute to problem solving. In the second case, transdisciplinarity (as a way of being ) is also a solution that must be enhanced in society at large.

Transdisciplinarity is a promising notion, but its ability to efficiently address the world’s most pressing issues has been intensively debated. To date, most debates have been structured by identifying several types of transdisciplinarity, generally with a theoretical versus practical dichotomy, and their possible linkages. In the last two decades, important efforts to mutualize methodologies and theories have led to the emergence of a discipline of integration and implementation, which enables the conception of transdisciplinarity as a discipline. Somewhat paradoxically, such a discipline seems to emerge from “Mode 2” transdisciplinarity as a result of a “bottom-up” mutualization rather than from the so-called Mode 1 “inner-science” transdisciplinarity. This distinction shows the interpenetration of Mode 2 and Mode 1 transdisciplinarity and the limits of existing typologies of transdisciplinarity. On the other hand, when transdisciplinarity is taken as a way of being , the need for knowledge and know-how for integration and implementation extends far beyond the scope of research projects and appears constantly and ubiquitously in real life. The relevant resources can be found not only in academia but also in domains such as literature and religion, keeping in mind the constant risks of errors and illusion (including in science itself). Compared to existing typologies, the consideration of transdisciplinarity as a discipline and a way of being could generate new insights in the ongoing debate about the potential and effectiveness of transdisciplinary approaches. Complementarities can be considered in terms of personal dispositions for the discipline and of a space for expression for the way of being in academia. The proposed reframing also sheds light on the status of consciousness in transdisciplinary research projects. In a sense, consciousness can be seen as a critical “unknown” for the activity of integration and implementation and a major topic for further investigation.

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Acknowledgements

This paper was funded by the French government IDEX-ISITE initiative 16-IDEX-0001 (CAP 20-25). This paper has benefited from discussions with Isabelle Arpin, Cécile Barnaud, Gaël Plumecocq, and INRAE ACT division (Sciences for Action and Transitions).

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Rigolot, C. Transdisciplinarity as a discipline and a way of being : complementarities and creative tensions. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 7 , 100 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-00598-5

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• The Psychology of Art Appreciation: Understanding Aesthetic Experiences
• Art Conservation and Preservation: Challenges and Ethical Considerations
• Art Therapy: Exploring the Healing Power of Creativity

Research Paper Topics on Religion

• Religious Pluralism and Interfaith Dialogue: Promoting Understanding and Tolerance
• The Role of Religion in Shaping Moral Values and Ethics
• Religion and Politics: Examining the Influence of Faith on Governance
• Religious Rituals and Their Significance in Different Cultures
• Secularism and Its Impact on Religious Practice and Belief
• Religion and Science: Exploring the Compatibility and Conflict
• The Influence of Religion on Gender Roles and Equality
• Religious Fundamentalism and Its Implications for Society
• Religion and Environmental Ethics: Perspectives on Stewardship
• Religious Conversion and the Psychology Behind Faith Changes

Philosophy Research Paper Topics

• The Philosophy of Ethics: Exploring Different Ethical Theories
• The Problem of Free Will and Determinism: Philosophical Perspectives
• Existentialism in Literature: A Philosophical Analysis
• The Philosophy of Mind: Dualism vs. Materialism
• The Nature of Reality: Metaphysical Approaches and Debates
• Moral Dilemmas and Ethical Decision-Making: A Philosophical Examination
• Philosophy of Technology: Ethical Implications of Advancements
• Political Philosophy: Theories of Justice and Social Contracts
• Philosophy of Religion: The Existence of God and Theodicy
• Environmental Ethics: Philosophical Perspectives on Nature and Sustainability

Research Paper Topics for Ethics

• Ethical Dilemmas in Medical Decision-Making: Balancing Autonomy and Beneficence
• The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence: Accountability and Bias in AI Systems
• Corporate Ethics: Ethical Responsibility of Multinational Corporations
• Ethical Considerations in Environmental Conservation: Sustainability and Future Generations
• The Ethics of Genetic Engineering and Designer Babies
• The Intersection of Ethics and Technology: Privacy, Surveillance, and Data Ethics
• Ethical Implications of End-of-Life Care and Euthanasia
• Animal Rights and Ethical Treatment of Animals in Research
• The Role of Ethics in Criminal Justice: Police Conduct and Criminal Punishment
• The Ethics of Whistleblowing: Balancing Loyalty and Accountability

Law Research Paper Topics

• The Evolution of Privacy Rights in the Digital Age: Legal and Ethical Considerations
• Criminal Justice Reform: Assessing the Impact of Changes in Sentencing and Policing
• Intellectual Property Rights in the Digital Era: Copyright, Trademarks, and Patents
• The Role of International Law in Addressing Global Human Rights Violations
• Environmental Law and Sustainable Development: Balancing Conservation and Economic Interests
• Legal Aspects of Cybersecurity: Privacy, Data Protection, and Cybercrime
• The Legalization of Marijuana: Implications for Criminal Justice and Public Health
• Corporate Governance and Ethics: Analyzing Legal Frameworks for Accountability
• Family Law and Child Custody Disputes: Examining Best Interests and Parental Rights
• The Intersection of Law and Bioethics: Ethical Dilemmas in Medical and Scientific Research

Research Paper Topics on Criminal Justice 

• Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System: Causes and Consequences
• Police Use of Force: Policies, Accountability, and Community Relations
• Criminal Profiling and Its Effectiveness in Solving Crimes
• Mental Illness in the Criminal Justice System: Diversion Programs and Treatment
• The Impact of Mass Incarceration on Communities and Rehabilitation Efforts
• Forensic Science and Criminal Investigations: Advances, Challenges, and Ethics
• Cybercrime and Digital Forensics: Investigative Techniques and Legal Implications
• Juvenile Justice: Rehabilitation vs. Punishment and the Recidivism Rate
• The Death Penalty: Ethical, Legal, and Policy Considerations
• Victim Rights and Restorative Justice Programs: Balancing the Scales of Justice

Research Paper Topics on Economics

• Income Inequality: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Solutions
• The Impact of Economic Globalization on Developing Countries
• Behavioral Economics: Exploring Psychological Factors in Decision-Making
• The Economics of Climate Change: Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies
• Monetary Policy and Its Effects on Economic Stability
• Trade Wars and Tariffs: Economic Effects and Global Trade Relations
• Healthcare Economics: Examining Healthcare Costs, Access, and Reform
• The Economics of Education: Investment in Human Capital and Economic Growth
• Urban Economics: Challenges and Solutions in Sustainable City Development
• Labor Market Trends: Gig Economy, Automation, and Future of Work

Research Paper Topics Related to Marketing

• Influencer Marketing: Effectiveness, Ethics, and the Role of Social Media
• Consumer Behavior in the Digital Age: Online Shopping Trends and Decision-Making
• Brand Loyalty and Customer Retention Strategies in Competitive Markets
• Neuromarketing: Understanding the Psychology of Consumer Choices
• The Impact of Social Media Marketing on Brand Image and Customer Engagement
• E-commerce and Marketplaces: Strategies for Success in Online Retail
• Content Marketing: Creating and Measuring the Value of Branded Content
• Marketing to Generation Z: Preferences, Values, and Communication Channels
• The Role of Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Marketing
• Crisis Marketing and Reputation Management: Strategies for Navigating Challenges

Best Research Paper Topics 2023

Here are some impressive and easy research paper topics to write an extraordinary paper.

Argumentative Research Paper Topics 

• Should the Minimum Wage be Raised?
• The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health: Harmful or Beneficial?
• Is Genetic Engineering Ethical? Examining the Pros and Cons of Genetic Modification
• The Death Penalty: Should it be Abolished or Retained?
• Gun Control: Balancing Second Amendment Rights and Public Safety
• Universal Healthcare: Is it a Right or a Privilege?
• The Role of Government in Regulating Big Tech Companies
• Climate Change: Is Human Activity the Primary Cause?
• Online Privacy: Balancing Security and Civil Liberties
• The Legalization of Recreational Marijuana: Weighing the Social and Economic Impacts

US History Research Paper Topics

• The American Revolution: Causes, Key Figures, and Impact on the Nation
• The Abolitionist Movement: Strategies, Leaders, and the Fight Against Slavery
• The Reconstruction Era: Challenges, Achievements, and Failures
• The Women's Suffrage Movement: Struggles and Triumphs in the Fight for Voting Rights
• The Civil Rights Movement: Leaders, Events, and the Struggle for Equality
• The Great Depression: Causes, Effects, and Government Responses
• The Vietnam War: Origins, Controversies, and Legacy
• The Space Race: The Cold War Competition for Supremacy Beyond Earth
• The Civil War: Battlefronts, Political Divisions, and the Emancipation Proclamation
• The American Westward Expansion: Manifest Destiny, Conflicts, and Impacts on Native Americans

Persuasive Research Paper Topics 

• The Importance of Comprehensive Sex Education in Schools
• Banning Single-Use Plastics: Protecting the Environment and Marine Life
• Promoting Renewable Energy: Transitioning to a Sustainable Future
• Mandatory Vaccination: Protecting Public Health and Herd Immunity
• The Benefits of Telecommuting: A Win-Win for Employers and Employees
• Promoting Healthy Eating Habits: The Case for Implementing Sugar Taxes
• The Need for Stricter Animal Welfare Laws: Preventing Animal Cruelty
• Accessible Education for All: The Case for Affordable College Tuition
• Promoting Voting Rights: Ensuring a Fair and Inclusive Democracy
• The Importance of Mental Health Awareness and Support: Breaking the Stigma

Easy Research Paper Topics 

• The Benefits of Regular Exercise for Physical and Mental Health
• The History and Impact of Social Media on Society
• The Basics of Climate Change: Causes, Effects, and Solutions
• The Life and Achievements of a Notable Inventor or Scientist
• The Importance of Recycling and Waste Reduction in Daily Life
• The Impact of Fast Food on Diet and Health
• Effect of Global Warming on The Frequency And Intensity Of Natural Disasters
• Should Marijuana be legalized in US? Costs, Economic And Social Benefits
• How Do Terrorist Attacks Influence Public Opinion And Political Behavior In Democratic Countries
• Crime Rates: Main Factors That Explain The Variation In Crime Rates Across Different Countries And Regions

Research Paper Topics on Current Affairs 

• The Impact of COVID-19 on Global Health Systems and Preparedness
• Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events: Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies
• The Future of Work: Remote Work Trends and Implications
• Economic Recovery Post-Pandemic: Challenges and Opportunities
• Vaccine Hesitancy: Understanding Causes and Addressing Concerns
• Cybersecurity in the Digital Age: Threats, Vulnerabilities, and Defense
• Immigration Policies and Border Security: A Global Perspective
• The Role of Social Media in Political Movements and Disinformation
• Global Supply Chain Disruptions: Causes and Strategies for Resilience
• Racial and Social Justice Movements: Progress and Ongoing Challenges

Controversial Research Paper Topics 

• The Legalization of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: Ethical and Legal Considerations
• Gun Control Laws: Balancing Second Amendment Rights and Public Safety
• The Death Penalty: Is it an Effective Deterrent or a Violation of Human Rights?
• Animal Testing: Ethical Issues and Alternatives for Scientific Research
• The Legalization of Recreational Drugs: Assessing Risks and Benefits
• Abortion: Examining the Ethical, Legal, and Medical Aspects
• Freedom of Speech vs. Hate Speech: Protecting Civil Liberties in a Digital Age
• Climate Change Denial: Analyzing the Science and Skepticism
• School Vouchers and School Choice: The Future of Public Education
• Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs): Safety, Labeling, and Environmental Concerns

Research Paper Topics on Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

• Historical Roots of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Tracing the Beginnings
• Media Framing of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Impact on Public Perception
• The Role of International Diplomacy in Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
• Human Rights Violations in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Critical Analysis
• Refugees and Displacement: The Ongoing Humanitarian Crisis in the Conflict
• Religious Perspectives in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Comparative Study
• Water Scarcity and Resource Management in the Context of the Conflict
• Education and Propaganda: Examining the Impact of Curricula on Perpetuating Conflict Narratives
• The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Peacebuilding Efforts
• Media and Social Media's Influence on Shaping Public Opinion in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Nursing Research Paper Topics 

• The Impact of Nurse-to-Patient Ratios on Patient Outcomes
• Nursing Shortages: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions
• Evidence-Based Practice in Nursing: Implementing Research into Clinical Care
• Nursing Ethics: Ethical Dilemmas and Decision-Making in Patient Care
• Palliative Care and End-of-Life Nursing: Improving Quality of Life for Patients
• Nursing Informatics: Advancements in Healthcare Technology and Data Management
• The Role of Cultural Competence in Nursing: Providing Culturally Sensitive Care
• Nursing Burnout and Staff Well-being: Strategies for Prevention and Support
• The Impact of Nurse Leadership on Patient Safety and Quality of Care
• Pediatric Nursing: Specialized Care for Children and Families

How to Choose a Good Research Paper Topic?

Now that you have a plethora of ideas for your research paper, which one should you choose? Here are some steps you need to follow to choose a good research paper topic: 

• Identify Your Interests: Start by considering your own interests and passions. Research is much more enjoyable when you're exploring a topic you're genuinely curious about. Think about subjects, issues, or questions that intrigue you.
• Brainstorm and Mind Map: Write down potential topics or research questions and create a mind map to visualize how they connect to one another. This can help you see the relationships between different ideas and narrow down your options.
• Do Some Preliminary Research: Conduct initial research to see what resources are available on potential topics. This will help you gauge whether there is enough information and credible sources to support your research.
• Consider Your Audience: Think about who will be reading your research paper. Tailor your topic to your target audience's interests and knowledge level. You should also comply with the instructor's requirements. Make sure your topic gets approved before you begin with the writing process.
• Discuss with Others: Talk to your peers, professors, or mentors about your potential topics. They may offer valuable insights, suggest relevant resources, or help you refine your ideas.

To conclude,

Selecting a good topic is the first and most important step in writing a research paper. Your decision should be guided by your interests, the assignment requirements, and the availability of credible resources. 

With this list of potential research paper topics and tips on how to choose a good topic, you are able to select a topic that is both engaging for you and relevant to your audience.

Remember that staying current and conducting preliminary research will help you make an informed choice. Seek feedback from peers and mentors, and don't shy away from challenging or controversial topics when appropriate. 

Looking for a research paper writing service? Look no further! MyPerfectWords.com can help you out!

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Professions & Career — Discipline

Discipline Essays

Brief description of discipline:.

Discipline encompasses the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience. It is essential for maintaining order in society and fostering personal growth and achievement.

Importance of Writing Essays on This Topic:

Essays on discipline are crucial for students to understand the significance of following rules and regulations in various aspects of life. They also help in developing critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.

Tips on Choosing a Good Topic:

• Focus on a specific area of discipline, such as self-discipline, school discipline, or workplace discipline.
• Explore the impact of discipline on personal development and success.
• Consider the cultural and historical perspectives on discipline and its evolution over time.

Essay Topics:

• The role of discipline in achieving academic success
• The impact of self-discipline on personal and professional growth
• The correlation between discipline and mental health
• The importance of discipline in building a successful career
• The cultural and societal differences in disciplinary practices
• The history of discipline and its influence on modern society
• The role of discipline in maintaining a healthy work-life balance
• The impact of discipline on children's development and behavior
• The effectiveness of different disciplinary strategies in educational settings
• The ethical implications of disciplinary actions in various contexts

Concluding Thought

Exploring discipline through essay writing allows for a deeper understanding of its significance in personal and academic growth. It encourages critical reflection and analysis, leading to valuable insights and perspectives. By delving into this topic, individuals can gain a greater appreciation for the role of discipline in shaping their lives and the world around them.

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271 Strong Argumentative Research Paper Topics You Must Know

Writing good argumentative research paper topics can always place you in a rock and a hard place. Writing from scratch can be daunting, but writing to a deadline is worse. Creating a terrific academic argumentative research paper takes a few tweaks. Through them, you will eventually craft a standardized paper that would earn you all points and, if not all, perhaps better grades.

This article will discuss the various angles you could take flawlessly to finish an argumentative research paper. Consequently, do not let terror take over you when writing a research paper.

Instead, it will be your forte after reading through this article’s steps.

What Is An Argumentative Research Paper?

An argumentative research paper is a paper that is structured in a way that allows you to present and defend your ideas about the topic, and that’s what definitional argument paper topics involve. The main purpose of an argumentative research paper is to make it possible for you to demonstrate your arguments. They may be based on either scientific knowledge or personal experience.

College argumentative research paper topics can be a single paper or a collection of several papers that you have written. Alternatively, it can be a series of papers in which you have analyzed different aspects of the topic. It will take you a while of introspection to understand this.

An award-winning research paper or one that could earn you better grades must be deeply rooted in facts. Generally, you must employ extensive evidence to defend your opinion or point.

What Are The Different Types Of Argumentative Research Paper Topics?

The are many different types of argumentative research paper topics. Here we explore the classic classification of the topics and their characteristics

• Classical Western Argument These types of classical argument paper topics have always been footed on two bases: to convince the audience that they are right and give well-reasoned answers to questionsThey are easy argument paper topics. Topics for argumentative research paper tasks do not necessarily have to be complicated. An introduction is imperative for a classical western argument since it welcomes the audience and builds goodwill and a connection with the readers. It also announces the overall theme or thesis of the argument.It must have a narration that portrays necessary background facts. It is intended to inform the listener about the setting and occurrences that produced the argument.A classic western argument must have confirmation, refutation, and summation. Remember, the summary must be concrete, echoing the gravity of the argument and equally reflecting the best solution to the readers.
• Toulon Argument The primary goal of a Toulmin argument is frequently to gather the most compelling proof in favor of the presented statements. For example, if you take “Philosophy argument paper topics”, you have to work through this topic well and understand it.The goal of a Toulmin argument is precise, unlike the previous types. It is made up of six parts, namely: introduction, data, warrants, qualifiers, rebuttal, and backing. It has a conclusion intended to trigger evocative thought among the readers.
• Rogerian Argument The Rogerian argument seeks the greatest plausible solution based on the wants and preferences of everyone concerned, or, in other words, some form of unanimity. The essay structure of this type of argument does not bear innate disparities to the different types. It has a structure that aims at reaching a consensus amidst the contest.The Rogerian argument topics for a paper focus on expanding comprehension between conflicting viewpoints by noting that an issue can be viewed from various perspectives. Its building blocks are; an introduction, an acknowledgement of the opposition, a thesis statement, support for the thesis, and a conclusion.Notably, the summary has to highlight the imperatives of a classical argument paper topic, even if it cannot resolve the problem wholly. Also, it has to acknowledge that more work needs to be done in the future to find lasting remedies.

How To Write A Strong Thesis Statement

A thesis statement outlines the topic of your assignments, that is, argumentative research essay topics, and provides a summary of the article’s content, particularly your position on the subject. It is helpful to pose a concern before making your assertion in a thesis, so that your thesis can provide a resolution.

This is a powerful strategy for getting the reader interested in your subject and the viewpoint you advocate. The basic custom of any argument should be briefly covered in a thesis. By accomplishing this-getting thesis writing help, you can assist the reader in becoming ready for the essay’s main body.

When writing a thesis statement, you must include: A question A provocative statement A well-laid description An anecdote that compels the readers to find out more about the essay

Whenever you start writing, make an effort to define your aim explicitly. This is what argumentative research paper topics college institutions demand. Constantly write on your subject if you cannot express your purpose effectively.

How To Select A Topic For An Argumentative Essay

You might occasionally find yourself debating points you do not particularly agree with. That is just good – making a convincing argument does not need you to believe what you are saying fervently.

However, picking a subject you are passionate about is a fantastic option when you have complete freedom over it. A strong perspective and various supporting arguments are the two essential elements of a high quality successful argumentative essay.

It will be simpler for a student to obtain proof to back up an argument if they are fascinated and enthusiastic about the issue that they chose. The evidence itself is what matters most.

Decide on a topic by considering issues that are important to you, irrespective of whether they are good or bad. Create a list of concepts, and then pick a couple to focus on. You will then elaborate upon such concepts by addressing a few compensatory picks.

Making these lists may lead you to discover that a few are more powerful than others. The greater the issue, the more proof you have and the more compelling you believe that proved to be.

Again, choosing a different argument research topic is acceptable if you think one issue would have more verifiable data, but you would prefer not to pen about it. If you are enthusiastic about our topic, it might be much simpler to uncover solid arguments and evidence to support your claims than if you are not.

Well, here is a list of sample argumentative research paper topics you could decide to choose from and develop a terrific essay.

Good Argument Paper Topics On Education

Here are some ingenious argumentative essay sample topics touching on matters of education:

• Can parents be able to alter their unborn children’s characteristics?
• Should pupils need to be immunized to attend a public school?
• Should global governments take action to combat climate change?
• Should physical education classes have an impact on a student’s grades?
• Is free college a good idea?
• Should Greek life be banned from academic institutions?
• Should comprehensive sex education be given to scholars?
• It should be possible for pupils to choose the high school curriculum.
• The importance of physical education in education.
• Schools should not permit the use of cell phones.
• Like scholars, teachers need to pass a professional exam.
• Less work should be assigned to pupils in schools.
• High schools should be required to include sex education.
• The Best Alternative to Regular School is Home Schooling
• Scholars should only spend three months studying and nine months vacationing.
• Sporting Activities Can Help You Change Your Life.
• Lies Are a Vital Component of a Healthy Relationship
• There Are Aliens
• Keeping a Journal Is a Fun Stress Reduction Technique
• Colleges need medical facilities to aid scholars in overcoming stress and depression.
• You Can Learn Important Life Skills from Video Games
• Having a pet is a way to improve your happiness.
• Better Off Renting Than Buying a Home
• Is the American educational system ideal for the modern world?

Interesting Argument Paper Topics On Ethics

When faced with an argumentative essay touching on ethics, here are samples to jog your mind:

• Do GMOs benefit or hurt humans?
• Should Facebook be permitted to gather user data?
• Should autonomous vehicles be made legal?
• Is it moral to use automation to replace human labor?
• Should use a cell phone while driving is prohibited by law?
• Has the Internet had a good or bad impact on society?
• Should college athletes receive compensation for playing on teams?
• Must fracking be permitted?
• Same-sex couples ought to be permitted to wed.
• Death Penalties: Are They Still Valid in the Twenty-First Century?
• Benefits of Medical Marijuana Legalization
• Without organized religion, the world might be a better place.
• More harm than good is caused by technology.
• What would life be like if animals ruled the world?
• What if scholars and teachers switched places?
• How will having flying automobiles affect our daily lives?
• The most prosperous people are school dropouts.
• Why drinking is advisable before a test
• What if humans were to view the world as dogs do?
• The causes behind Starbucks’ delicious flavor
• How defying your parents can help you succeed?
• Why passing the driving test is crucial
• The top pupils are those who do not attend class.
• The best visitors are those who arrived already stuffed.
• Why I enjoy junk mail
• Why setting your school on fire is not an option
• Clowns are not as terrifying as you would imagine.
• The reason why your washing won’t do itself
• Why you should continue to wear a mask even after COVID-19
• Which film has ever been the worst?
• How playing video games can benefit your career search
• Why I don’t like country music
• Why films are superior to books
• Is it wrong to show sex scenes on television?
• Should learning institutions condone cheating?
• Should young people have access to birth control?
• Is religion a valid justification for terrorism?
• Does bullying make one stronger?
• Do you think young kids should have access to cell phones and tablets?
• Should minors be allowed to obtain contraception without their parent’s permission?
• Is it time for single-payer healthcare in the US?
• Should assisted suicide be allowed to exist?
• Should nutritional supplements and products for weight loss, such as teas, be allowed to use influencer marketing?
• Should physicians be permitted to promote medications?
• Is the electoral college still a useful mechanism in contemporary America?
• Should Puerto Rico gain statehood?
• Is automatic voter registration a good idea?
• Should prisoners have the right to vote?
• Should justices of the Supreme Court be voted into power?
• Children should not be served soda at restaurants.
• Should sexual labor be made legal?
• Should Indigenous Peoples’ Day take the place of Columbus Day?
• Should executions be permitted?
• Are uniforms for schools a good idea?
• Should using animals for clinical tests be permitted?
• Should the crime of drug possession be dropped?
• Must unpaid internships be permitted?
• Must abortion be outlawed?
• Do individuals misuse their freedom to carry weapons?
• Is there a racial component to police violence?
• It is time to raise the legal drinking age.
• A child’s sexual orientation is established when they are young.
• All around the world, same-sex unions should be permitted.
• Inmates should not be kept as illegal immigrants.
• Should all women have access to reproductive health care and birth control?
• Would anyone benefit equally from our tax system?
• Is vaping just as dangerous as cigarette smoking?
• Is global consumption a serious problem?
• Is social media a privacy infringement?
• Does everyone need to get vaccinated?
• Do food firms have a say in what we eat?
• Does our system of education fit our culture?
• Why should certain languages be recognized as official in the US?
• Is the death penalty ever justified?
• Victims of rape ought to abort their unborn children.
• Equal paternity leave should be granted to fathers.
• Do trouble-making behaviors among teenagers stem from boredom?
• Parents who have failed their children should be disciplined.
• Animal testing ought to be prohibited.
• Gaming that is violent needs to be prohibited.
• Adopting parents with mental impairments should not be permitted.
• Islamist nations should allow alcohol usage.
• Everyone should receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
• School dress codes ought to be abolished
• Assignments should not be required
• Pets ought to be allowed in learning institutions
• Cellphone use should be permitted in class for scholars.
• The daily schooling hours ought to be cut shorter
• Why longer school breaks are necessary
• Every classroom needs a TV.
• We must extend our summer vacation.
• Schools ought to have recess in between class sessions.
• A pet belongs in every classroom.
• Is a College Education Still Required?
• Should High School Graduates Have a Gap Year?
• Cyberbullying in High School Is a Serious Problem
• Scholars ought to be permitted to dress however they like.
• The Existing Grading System Does Not Reflect Scholars’ Knowledge in the Contemporary World
• Is a Lower Voting Age Needed?
• The Benefits of Offering Free Condoms to Scholars
• Partners expecting a child ought to take parenting classes
• Sex education ought to be taught in schools.
• Should the legal drinking age be lowered?
• Standardized Tests Need to Be Banned
• Scholar loans: Are They Favorable or Bad?
• Is drug use on campuses a test or a genuine issue?
• Do College Relationships Last a Long Time?
• Children should not be permitted to attend college classes by scholars.
• Fraternities’ detrimental effects on scholars’ behavior and performance
• When Is a Gap Year a Welcomed Idea?
• There should be more benefits for college athletes when schooling.
• Most college units are already obsolete and unfit for the contemporary world.
• The cost of lodging in universities ought to be zero.
• Celebs ought not to serve as teenage girls’ role models.
• Diet obsession can result in a variety of eating conditions and health complications.
• School uniforms ought to be required.
• Males and females can have friendships that are limited to just that.
• The vegetarian lifestyle is not practical
• Democracy is currently the sanest form of government.
• GMO diets aren’t as risky as we once thought
• Horror films may harm one’s mental health.
• Junk food ought not to be offered in school lunches.

Easy Argument Paper Topics On Sports

Sports argumentative essay topics can prove hard to formulate. Here are samples:

• Should there be a gender divide in sports?
• Should baseball’s designated hitter system be eliminated?
• Should American sports treat soccer with more respect?
• Should players and coaches receive the same compensation?
• Girls should be urged to participate in sports and put just as much effort into their studies as boys do.
• College Sports Players Must Be Paid
• Sports should allow women to compete against men.
• Countries benefit economically and socially by hosting the Olympic Games.
• Media coverage of female athletes is still sexist.
• Certain sports can encourage violent behavior.
• Injury Has a Significant Impact on an Athlete’s Mental Health
• Among Athletes, Eating Disorders Are a Common Issue
• Schools and Colleges should emphasize physical education more
• Taking part in sports can have calming, resonant effects on the body and mind.
• Motivating girls to participate in sports is important.

Argument Paper Topics On Religion

Argumentative essay topics on religion could prove contentious. Below are samples:

• Should religious institutions be subject to taxation?
• Should schools allow religious clubs?
• Should the pledge of allegiance include “one nation under God”?
• Should religion be covered in the classroom?
• Should clerics be permitted to wed?

Professional Argument  Paper Topics On Economics

Argumentative topics in economics essays are easy. Here are some examples:

• Is raising the minimum wage necessary?
• Do monopolies deserve to exist?
• Is the concept of universal basic income wisely?
• Should the tax rate on companies be higher or cheap?

Argument Paper Topics On Society And Culture

Formulating argumentative essay topics on culture and society, in general, should not bother you that much. Here are samples. But if you have problems with your writing you can order a dissertation online .

• Is graffiti considered destruction or art?
• Should books with offensive language be prohibited?
• Should YouTube content be more strictly regulated?
• Is the study of art important?
• Should people be able to share their art and music online?
• Current assessments do not match the scholar’s ability.
• Breastfeeding in public should be permitted for women.
• To bring about change, the Internet was developed.
• When it comes to giving their kids a nutritious diet, parents should be accountable.
• Churches ought to be taxed as well.
• The Contribution of Art to the Evolution of Our World
• Using Art Therapy to Treat Mental Illness
• Scholars that participate in the arts excel academically.
• Unlike traditional art, digital art lacks soul.
• Everybody ought to enrol in art classes in school
• Is Art Actually Required?
• What Inner Fears Do Children Express in Their Art?
• What Is Art For?
• How Has the Representation of Women in Art Changed Over the Centuries?
• Most art forms were created in ancient Greece, which is where they originated.
• A potent treatment for psychological issues is music.
• Hard Rock Harmfully influences teenage Behavior
• If You Pay Attention, You Can Hear Music in the Natural World
• Billie Eilish Is Not Your Average Teen Pop Star-Star
• The Human Brain is Positively affected by Music
• The Calming Power of Celtic Music
• Modern music is largely commercial rather than artistic.
• Rap music encourages aggression.
• A better pregnancy can be ensured by classical music.
• College scholars’ academic performance is improved through music

Technology Argument Paper Topics

Many learners avoid technology-related argumentative topics due to their technicality. Below are samples:

• Owners of social media platforms should keep an eye on and delete comments that use offensive language.
• Does technology contribute to individuals feeling more alone?
• Will there ever be a moment when no new technological developments take place?
• Vlogging is not a legitimate career.
• Is LinkedIn useful in terms of job search?
• The number of business opportunities has significantly increased thanks to social media.
• Is Java going out of style?
• Are social media profiles of candidates something employers should look through?
• Social media cause teenage despair.

Science Argument Paper Topics

Below are argumentative topics touching on the science field:

• The Morality of Cloning the Benefits of Genetic Engineering and How They Can Change the World the Potential Benefits of Investing in Space Exploration
• Universities should spend more money on scientific programs.
• How Do New Scientific Discoveries Affect Our Everyday Lives?
• Do New Technologies Pose Health Risks?
• The use of animals in scientific research should be prohibited
• The Science of Medical Marijuana’s Healing Effect
• Food that has been genetically modified: Is it healthy for us or not?
• Why Science Should Be Taught to Everyone.

Argument Paper Topics On The Environment

Argumentative topics on the environment tend to be broad. Here are useful samples:

• Existing environmental statutes do not avert human encroachment and habitat obliteration
• Human encroachment endangers the lives of plants and animals
• Climate change is real
• Developed nations primarily cause global warming
• A change in farming practices is required to cease environmental obliteration.
• Environment-friendly effects of vegetarianism
• The worst polluters of air and water are industrial by-products and farming additives
• Overpopulation is the root cause of city pollution
• We must protect the world’s resources.
• Hunting is a sinful activity.
• Is using animals in a circus acceptable?
• Evil dogs ought to be put to sleep.
• Recycling ought to be required.
• Should recycling be made required?
• Is competition advantageous?
• Does blogging as a profession have a future?
• Is it possible for people to ever exist without the Internet?
• Should everyone volunteer and donate to charities?
• Does the media infringe on famous people’s privacy?

Argument Paper Topics On Government

Politics is not everyone. Below are argumentative topics on governance you could exploit:

• In wealthy nations, unlawful immigration is a serious problem.
• Citizenship should always be granted to persons sired within a particular country’s borders. Stricter immigration laws should be enforced against illegal immigration
• Border restrictions should be tightened to stop illegal immigration.
• The main driver of unlawful immigration is poverty.
• Deporting illegal immigrants to their nations of origin is usually pointless.
• High Illegal Immigration Rates May Encourage Prostitution
• High levels of unlawful immigration are one of the main causes of terrorism.
• Lowering immigration costs may help avert illegal immigration
• Refugee applicants ought not to be viewed as unauthorized immigrants.
• Is Racial Profiling Still Appropriate in Today’s World?
• Euthanasia for terminally ill patients should be made legal.
• All should have access to free higher education.
• Is Donald Trump’s presidency detrimental to the US and the rest of the world, or beneficial?
• In colleges and schools, energy drinks have to be prohibited.
• In the US, gambling ought to be outlawed.
• Should abortion be outlawed globally?
• Should the death penalty be carried out universally?
• Certain kinds of animal experimentation and other forms of study ought to be prohibited.
• Should the government take additional steps to provide accessibility for the physically challenged?
• Are people born with the skill to be a politician, or do they learn it?

High Quality Argument Paper Topics On Health

There are numerous argumentative topics on health to choose from. Below are samples:

• Everyone should have access to free health care.
• It is possible to discover a working cure for AIDs
• Art therapy can be effective for a wide range of health issues
• Healthy alternatives: benefits and drawbacks
• The negative consequences of a head injury
• Does the media accurately represent the risk of coronavirus?
• Are electronic cigarettes more harmless than smoke?
• Could 3D printing help the medical field?
• Nanotechnology can aid in cancer treatment
• How would stem cells reduce cardiac arrest patients’ mortality rates?
• Pro-life vs. Pro-choice views on abortion
• Alcoholism harms all aspects of life, not just health
• The production and sale of tobacco should be prohibited
• Vaping is safer than cigarette smoking.
• The risks of the COVID-19 vaccine outweigh the benefits.

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Working students can consider our consulting and thesis writing services when faced with tough argumentative research paper assignments. Our writers are some of the best experts and can provide a fast turnaround with your argumentative research essays to help you beat the deadlines. Even so, writing essays and coming up with good argument paper topics can be strenuous. Our team of writers can help you get the best argumentative research paper topics that will earn you grades generously.

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Writing discipline specific research papers

• 1 Writing and Research in the Disciplines
• 2.1 How to Take Notes
• 2.2 How to Summarize
• 2.3 How to Paraphrase
• 2.4 How to Organize
• 2.5 How to Create a Thesis
• 2.6 How to illustrate with the second degree
• 3.1 Reliable and Unreliable Sources
• 3.2 Biology
• 3.3 Search Engines for Business Related Disciplines
• 3.4 Business Journals
• 3.5 Advertising Techniques
• 4.1 Citing Sources
• 4.2 Formatting
• 4.4 Citing In-Text
• 5.1 Bibliography
• 5.2 In-Text citation
• 5.3 Footnotes
• 5.4 Endnotes

Writing and Research in the Disciplines [ edit | edit source ]

This is a resource for students who are writing research projects in various disciplines. The sections that follow contain information about writing conventions in major citation style guides, sources for information in different fields of study, and helpful advice for developing a thesis and organizing material when writing a research paper.

Writing [ edit | edit source ]

How to take notes [ edit | edit source ].

When researching for a paper, taking notes is an essential part to the paper’s actual success. It is also a great way to avoid plagiarism and get as much original information into the paper as possible.

To start out, 3 x 5 note cards are great sources to write on, but regular loose leaf paper could be used just as well. It’s good to write down points, but summarizing and paraphrasing can be good too. I find that the best way is to take in a couple of sentences at a time. Read the small bit of information and then from what you can recollect in your mind without looking at the source, write down what you remember. This way you can avoid copying word for word and in the end avoid reiterating that exact information of ideas or actual words in your paper.

Make sure that you write down the major issues; you can go into details later. In order to take advantage of the time in which you are given to take notes, start with bold prints or look for main subject words, and then if you have time later, go back and highlight the specifics you might have missed to begin with. Also before you begin taking notes, you might want to start out with a source card so that you can go back and reference and cite your information later. Number the source cards according to the information contained in the note cards.

Melissa Collins' Work Cited Page

Brizee, H. Allen. Writing a Research Paper . 1995-2004: Internet. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/hypertext/ResearchW/notes.html Apr 11, 2008.

How to Summarize [ edit | edit source ]

Summarizing is one of the most important tools needed in education. It is the basis for interpreting and translating text into one’s own words. Summarizing is taking the main idea of a text and putting it in fewer words to get the general idea of the material (Jones). When we summarize, we extract what the most important parts are to show the main essence of the material (Jones). There are some general ideas and guidelines that many agree on when teaching to summarize.

Some useful ways to start the summarizing process while reading the material include underlining or highlighting important words or passages and then writing down the main ideas in a column or separate sheet of paper (“How to….”). Multiple readings of the original source are often helpful, as well as reading it quickly to only pick up the most important ideas (“How to…”). After quickly reading the material, it is helpful to go through the material more in-depth to dissect each section.

The main point to remember about a summary is that it should be put into the writer’s own words to avoid any suspicion of plagiarism. Not only is it important to not use the exact same words as the original author, but it is also important to not use the same sentence structure (“Learn to…”). To avoid exactly copying the original source, it is helpful to set the original source out of view, and then trying to write a brief overview in your own words. It is important to stay dedicated to the original source, keeping its main essence and idea, without copying it exactly (“Learn to…”).

“How To Summarize.” Mantex. 2007. Mantex. 10 April 2008. < http://www.mantex.co.uk/samples/summary.htm >.

Jones, Raymond. “Summarizing.” Reading Quest. 3 February 2007. ReadingQuest.org. 10 April 2008. < http://www.readingquest.org/strat/summarize.html >.

“Learn to Summarize.” University of Houston Victoria. 2006. Academic Center University of Houston Victoria. 10 April 2008. < http://www.uhv.edu/ac/research/write/summary.asp >.

How to Paraphrase [ edit | edit source ]

Paraphrasing is something that everyone should know how to do and do it correctly. Paraphrasing is often confused with summarizing. They are not the same thing and can produce very different results to the reader. To summarize something will leave only a very general idea. Paraphrasing is taking someone else’s ideas and putting them in your own, unique words.

It is important, when paraphrasing someone, to give credit to the author. If you don’t give credit where it is due, it is considered plagiarism.

Here are a few basic guidelines for solid paraphrasing from Ms. Driscoll at Purdue University: 1. Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning. 2. Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase on a note card. 3. Jot down a few words below your paraphrase to remind you later how you envision using this material. At the top of the note card, write a key word or phrase to indicate the subject of your paraphrase. 4. Check your rendition with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form. 5. Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source. 6. Record the source (including the page) on your note card so that you can credit it easily if you decide to incorporate the material into your paper. (Driscoll, 1)

Mr. Plotnick gives a great example of what not to do when paraphrasing another person’s writing. Given this excerpt from Oliver Sack’s essay “An Anthropologist on Mars”:

“The cause of autism has also been a matter of dispute. Its incidence is about one in a thousand, and it occurs throughout the world, its features remarkably consistent even in extremely different cultures. It is often not recognized in the first year of life, but tends to become obvious in the second or third year. Though Asperger regarded it as a biological defect of affective contact—innate, inborn, analogous to a physical or intellectual defect—Kanner tended to view it as a psychogenic disorder, a reflection of bad parenting, and most especially of a chillingly remote, often professional, "refrigerator mother." At this time, autism was often regarded as "defensive" in nature, or confused with childhood schizophrenia. A whole generation of parents—mothers, particularly—were made to feel guilty for the autism of their children.”

Here is an example of poor paraphrasing:

“The cause of the condition autism has been disputed. It occurs in approximately one in a thousand children, and it exists in all parts of the world, its characteristics strikingly similar in vastly differing cultures. The condition is often not noticeable in the child's first year, yet it becomes more apparent as the child reaches the ages of two or three. Although Asperger saw the condition as a biological defect of the emotions that was inborn and therefore similar to a physical defect, Kanner saw it as psychological in origin, as reflecting poor parenting and particularly a frigidly distant mother. During this period, autism was often seen as a defense mechanism, or it was misdiagnosed as childhood schizophrenia. An entire generation of mothers and fathers (but especially mothers) were made to feel responsible for their offspring's autism (Sacks 247-48).” Notice how most of the sentences have only a few words rearranged or changed for synonyms. The sentence structure and paragraph layout are even almost identical to the original. Just because you cite the page numbers at the end of your paragraph doesn’t mean that you’re in the clear for plagiarism (Plotnick, 1).

Driscoll, Dana Lynn. “Paraphrase: Write it in Your Own Words.” The Owl at Purdue. 1995. University of Purdue. April 11, 2008. [1]

Plotnick, Jerry. “Paraphrase and Summary.” University College: Writing Workshop. 2007. University of Toronto. April 11, 2008. [2]

How to Organize [ edit | edit source ]

One of the toughest things about writing a paper is figuring out just how to organize it. Where do you begin? How do you begin? What do you include? What order do you put it in? How do you conclude your paper? Well below is a list of websites that may assist you in your organizational writing process. Included is also a brief summary of the positive and negative points of each website to help you further narrow your search.

1) How to Organize a Research Paper http://www.geocities.com/athens/oracle/4184 A Research Paper is a Tree

good: This provides a simple explanation of what to include in your paper, how to organize the basics of your paper, and what section to include specific information in. It gives an example of how an outline is a tree and how each aspect of your paper is like a specific part of the tree. This makes it easy to visually see where each piece of information should fall in your paper.

bad: It takes the example of the outline being a tree a bit far. It focuses more on making that analogy than it does presenting valuable information about writing a paper.

2) How to Organize Your Paper http://www.lasalle.edu/services/sheekey/organize.htm

good: It is a list of links to several websites to help with specific organizational problems such as having trouble putting ideas into the proper format in a paper, having trouble relating the different concepts in the paper, and having trouble getting started/getting organized.

bad: This site contains no actual information itself; it merely provides links to other sites that may be useful.

3) How to Organize a Research Paper http://www.ehow.com/how_138072_organize-research-paper.html

good: It contains a very cleat set of 8 steps to prepare for and organize your research paper. It also contains tips, warnings, and links to related articles and example research papers.

bad: It contains no examples of an actual paper, just links.

4) Research Guide for Students http://www.aresearchguide.com/1steps.html How to Write an A+ Research Paper

good: It contains a very clear list of steps to go through including choosing a topic, finding information, stating your thesis, making a tentative outline, organizing your notes, https://sites.google.com/site/bestessaywritingservicereview/ writing your first draft, and revising your final outline and draft. It includes a detailed explanation of each step as well as examples and links to find further information. It also contains a series of checklists to help ensure that you included everything and have written an effective paper.

bad: It unfortunately doesn't focus too much on actually writing the paper other than a brief discussion of the introduction, body, and conclusion.

5)How to write a Term Paper http://gale.cengage.com/free_resources/term_paper/begin.htm Begin and Organize a Research Paper

good: It contains a very detailed outline of instructions on essentially how to go about formatting your thoughts, creating a detailed outline, and different methods to implement following the creation of and outline.

bad: It only has a few examples of how to actually carry out each step of the given process which may make it a little more difficult to thoroughly follow.

How to Create a Thesis [ edit | edit source ]

1. Defining Your Research Topic and Starting Your Search http://www.camellia.shc.edu/literacy/tableversion/lessons/lesson3/defining2.htm

Summary: The site seemed to be a broader, not quite as in-depth, website. The main reason I found it to be a useful resource is that it provided a very helpful analogy regarding narrowing a topic. The author compared it to two lakes, a smaller lake and a larger lake. The smaller lake was deep, but the large was shallow. The point was to emphasize how if you choose the larger lake, your topic will be more vague and broad, but by choosing the smaller, deeper lake you are able to go more into detail on your topic.

2. How To Write A Thesis Statement http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/thesis_statement.shtml

Summary: I liked this website because it was more specific as far as discussing certain points of developing a topic which would then turn into a thesis statement. What I found most interesting is the site had two sections which provided two approaches to developing the statement depending on whether or not the topic was assigned. Despite being given a topic, one must develop their own thesis. It also gave tips on deciding upon a topic if one is not assigned. I liked where the author stated that, "In general, your thesis statement will accomplish these goals if you think of the thesis as the answer to the question your paper explores." Very well put.

3. Developing a Central Claim http://uwp.duke.edu/wstudio/documents/developing_claim_000.pdf

Summary: This Duke University Writer's Studio webpage was a useful resource for explaining the development of a research question/thesis statement. It was a bit more detailed that most of the sites I have viewed, but I believe that is a good thing. It contained a lot of information, but it was well-organized into a paragraph layout, and it was easy to read. I liked one of the points in the second paragraph stating that, "Several sentences might be necessary to convery your thesis or central claim". I think many are taught that a thesis is a single sentence, and the website addresses that appropriately.

5. Creating A Thesis Statement http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/545/01

Summary: I was glad to find a page on the Owl site because I have found it to be a useful database for writing in the past. The design of the page is simple and clearcut, making it easy to find information about the desired subject. The webpage provides several great ideas for developing a thesis as well as provides examples. There was not as much information as I had thought there might be, but the information provided was useful and to-the-point.

How to illustrate with the second degree [ edit | edit source ]

The second degree can make a text attractive or pleasant, but can also introduce a malaise when not mastered (eg: to ask to keep an eye on your text to a one-eyed person).

One way to be inspired and warned is to learn the idioms , stylistic devices and other figures of speech which are typical of the destination language.

Apart from those conventional tools, it exists many different ways to build a proper style, and become proud of the communication poetic function , especially with the help of homonyms and false-friends.

How to Find Sources [ edit | edit source ]

Reliable and unreliable sources [ edit | edit source ].

Searching for information and developing the knowledge needed to discuss your topic in depth can be the most nerve-racking step in writing a research paper. Finding credible and reliable sources of information from which to draw your conclusions has become increasingly difficult in today’s information drenched world but here are a few steps that you can take to better insure the credibility of any particular source.

Take a moment to ask yourself these questions when you are presented with a new potential source.

What is the author’s motivation for presenting the information provided in this source?

• Is it to report facts or data?
• Is the writer trying to attract attention to a cause?
• If so, what is the cause?
• Is the work geared toward advertising a product or Idea?
• Is this motivation apparent or was it hidden?
• Do any objectives of the source create a bias that is pertinent to your issue?
• Has the information presented been verified?
• How has the information been verified?
• Does the verifying party have any bias toward the issue? Do they stand to gain from the presentation of this information?

If the work has been published, check out the publishing company.

• What other works have been published by the company?
• Are the works popular? Are they scholarly? Are they accurate?

If the name of the Author is available research their previous works and background.

• Is the author experienced in the field he or she has written about?
• How has the public and/ or the academic community responded to the authors past work?

Finding reliable sources on the internet can be extremely difficult because of the publishing freedom that is found online. The site below has a lot of helpful information on determining the reliability of a web source. There is even a section that teaches you to decode a URL and discover all the information that is hidden within it

http://www.wesleyan.edu/libr/tut/websearch/evaluate.html- .

The Wikipedia policy on Reliable Sources also provides valuable guidance.

Biology [ edit | edit source ]

Finding resources can be overwhelming at first. With all the information that is out there, how are you supposed to know where to find all of it? The first place that you should go to is your local library and searches their online databases for the specific topic that you are working on. A great database to use in the field of biology is PubMed. [3] It has over 11 million documents, some with full text that you can view. Another very broad database is the Biological and Agricultural Index Plus. It has a great variety of full text sources that one can utilize. Another database that you can search from your own home is called EurekAlert! [4] This site is regularly updated and includes links to article and databases dealing with science and technology.

Internet sources If you want to do a simple internet search on your topic, there are a few things that you need to keep in mind. Make sure that it is a scholarly website, primarily .org or .edu. Make sure that the author is credible. If the article isn’t peer reviewed, do a background check to make sure the author is trustworthy.

If you are stuck and can’t find any sources, try checking the bibliographies of the books you already have. These usually contain relative information on the topic that you are researching and should provide a good starting point to lead you to other sources. If all else fails, just ask a librarian. They will be more than happy to assist you in finding information for a topic. Even if they don’t have the information in the library, they will either order it for you or send you to a place where you can get it.

Search Engines for Business Related Disciplines [ edit | edit source ]

There are a number of professional online journals that cover current business topics. These include magazines concerned with the connection between business and environment and even running businesses from home. Others include…

[5] [6] [7]

Business Journals [ edit | edit source ]

[8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]

Advertising Techniques [ edit | edit source ]

[14] [15] [16]

APA [ edit | edit source ]

Citing sources [ edit | edit source ].

Citing Sources using APA*

In APA, the works cited list at the end of a paper is called "References." The order, punctuation, and capitalization of the information in a citation are all very important, so here are general guidelines for citing sources using APA.

Listing a Publication’s Author(s) Authors are listed by last name and first (and possibly middle) initial, followed by the year of publication in parenthesis. Up to six authors may be listed in this format, placing “&” before the last author’s name. For something with more than six authors, the first six should be listed followed by “et al.” which means “and others.” If the author is unknown, the title of the publication is written before the date of publication.

Capitalization of Titles In APA format, only journal titles follow traditional capitalization techniques. For all other titles, only capitalize the first letter of the first word of a title (and subtitle), proper nouns, and the first word in a title to come after a colon or dash (excluding hyphenated compound words.)

Citing a Book Author, X. Y. (Publication Year). Title of Book: Subtitle. Publication City: Publisher. —For a book with an editor, the editor’s name is written in parentheses after the book title, followed by “Ed.” (or “Eds.”)

Citing an Article in a Periodical Author, X. Y. (Year). Title of Article. Name of Periodical. Volume(Issue). Page-Range.

—If the article being cited is a letter to the editor, this is indicated by adding “[Letter to the Editor]” between the title and the name of the periodical. —If a review is being cited, the title of the review is given followed by “[Review of the book]” and the book title.

Citing an Electronic Source Author, X. Y. (Date of Update). Title of Document on Site. In Title of Website. Retrieved Date of Access, from URLofWebsite.com —If there is no date of publication, it is replaced by “(n.d.)” —For an article from an online periodical which also appears in a printed journal, “[Electronic Version]” is added after the article title. —If the source is obtained from a university program’s website, include the program name in the “Retrieved” statement.

Article from Database Author, X. Y. (Date of Publication). Title of Article. Name of Periodical. Volume(Issue). Pages. Retrieved Date of Access, from Database Name database (Document number).

For more specific and in-depth guidelines, and to view citation examples within each category, go to http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/05/

Adapted from Hacker, D. (2007). A writer's reference (6th ed.). Boston: Bedford/St. Martins. and from Neyhart, D. & Karper, E. (2008, April 9). APA formatting and style guide. In The owl at Purdue. Retrieved April 10, 2008, from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

Formatting [ edit | edit source ]

The following is a very helpful web link to a sample paper done in APA style - http://www.vanguard.edu/uploadedFiles/Faculty/DDegelman/psychapa.doc .

Also, another good reference tool is Diana Hacker’s 6th Edition of A Writer’s Reference . Pages 414 through 459 give you all sorts of advice when creating a paper to be done in APA. Another sample paper is given in pages 451 through 459 of the Hacker book.

Formatting your paper in APA style can be a little tedious, but the process is quite simple once you understand the rules. For example, you are allowed to insert visuals such as graphs, comics, or any type of pictures. Make sure each visual has a title and number (like Table 1, Table 2, Table 3, etc.) posted above the artwork and place this fragment in a paragraph that addresses its purpose.

Basic Rules:

Margins = 1 inch

Double Space? Yes and No – do double space your actual paper (this includes in-text citations), but single space footnotes.

Quotations: If you want to use a quote that is longer than 40 words, don’t use quotation marks. Instead, you need to indent the quotation 5 space bar clicks from the left margin (if this confuses you – check out a sample paper to get a more hands-on approach).

Headings: Not required, but can be very useful for addressing your main points. Center your headings.

Page Numbers: If you have a title page, label it i (where? far upper right) …if you have an abstract page, label it ii. One of the most noticeable characteristics of APA style papers are the page numbers partnered with a title. The title can be a shortened version of your main title. Here is an example:

Main Title: Bee Keeping Journals of the Late 1860’s: The Value of These Collections to American Science

Heading of page 2 in an APA type paper: Bee Keeping Journals 2

Works Cited: You’ll actually label your “Works Cited” page, as “References”. This will be the final page of your paper, one that still deserves a heading, and will be double spaced. When typing authors’ names, you will use initials instead of first names (Ex: “Mallory Durham” would be cited as “Durham, M.”). Secondly, don’t use quotations when citing article titles. Instead you will italicize .

IMPORTANT : A distinct trait of APA style reference pages is the format. Alphabetize by the first letter of authors’ last name(s) – if there is no author, then type out the source name (Ex: March for Cancer Foundation - in this case you would use the “M” from “March” to alphabetize). Don’t number your sources. The first line (starting with author name(s) or other sources) is typed with no indention, but all of the lines following the first one will be shifted 5 space bar clicks from the left margin.

Links [ edit | edit source ]

Free APA bibliography generator

If you have never composed a cited bibliography in APA, MLA or CSE before, this website could be the answer to all your questions. Simply create a new folder on the website, fill in the citation type, format, author, title, publication year and a few more optional boxes, hit format and it’s completed! Another great feature about this site is that you can either print it from the website directly, or download it to another document. www.carmun.com

APA formatting

Need help formatting your paper? Learn the basics for writing an APA style research paper. It is user friendly with great links to more detailed features that go into writing a research paper. Most cites like this are not free and very hard to navigate through. The home page contains an example of a term paper with all the correct formats. However, I was still slightly confused after skimming though the given work. To fix this problem, the creators of English Works provide links to general guidelines of APA, how to avoid plagiarism, guides to writing a thesis, introduction and conclusion, prewriting strategies, and guide to paraphrasing. If you are a first time APA style writer, I highly recommend checking out this cite! http://depts.gallaudet.edu/englishworks/writing/apa_sample.html

Everything you need to know about writing an APA paper

This cite is a hypertext which is perfect for this class since we have been dealing with them! It is focused towards writing psychology papers but its main purpose is to guide another in writing and giving examples on an APA paper. Everything is listed on the helpful cite: style details, abbreviations, numbers, citations in text, quotations, title page, introduction, methods, references, the body, and conclusions. If you are still confused and want examples there is an appendix of example title pages and reference sections. http://www.uwsp.edu/PSYCH/apa4b.htm

Tips For Citing Your Academic Paper In APA Format

A brief lesson on how students and researchers can learn the basics of constructing a properly formatted paper that meets APA guidelines. https://canvas.elsevier.com/eportfolios/9904/Home/Five_Tips_For_Citing_Your_Academic_Paper_In_APA_Format

Citing In-Text [ edit | edit source ]

In-text Citation of Sources in APA Style

In APA style, not only direct quotes used within a paper must be cited. In addition to these, in-text citations must include all ideas borrowed from any other source. This may be paraphrased material or it may even be something like statistics. Visuals such as cartoons and graphs must also be cited. General information known by many and appearing in numerous other sources is not cited.

There is a three-part system that is accepted by the APA. First, the authors’ names are included in a “signal phrase” and the publication date in parentheses. Second, a page number in parentheses follows the cited material. Finally, the last page of the paper must be an alphabetical list of sources cited in the paper.

CMS [ edit | edit source ]

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Discipline-Based Education Research: Understanding and Improving Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering (2012)

Chapter: 7 some emerging areas of discipline-based education research.

Some Emerging Areas of Discipline-Based Education Research

Discipline-based education researchers study several other important aspects of teaching and learning beyond those described in previous chapters. For many of these topics, the research base in discipline-based education research (DBER) is not yet robust. This chapter highlights a few of these topics that are vital to learning science and engineering and warrant further study:

•   The role of science and engineering practices in undergraduate education, including in undergraduate research experiences

•   Students’ ability to apply knowledge in different settings (transfer)

•   Students’ ability to monitor their own learning processes (metacognition)

•   Students’ dispositions and motivations to study science and engineering (affective domain)

Some of these topics have been studied by cognitive science researchers or educational psychologists, but they are understudied in DBER for a variety of reasons. They may be addressed implicitly or as a secondary focus in studies on other topics; they may involve basic research (rather than the applied research that dominated the early stages of DBER and remains a strong emphasis today); or they may simply not yet be a priority for DBER scholars. In addition, DBER scholars are just beginning to deploy some of the measurement tools used by scholars in other disciplines that are necessary to research these topics. Despite the relatively sparse DBER literature on these topics thus far, they are of central importance.

This chapter discusses each of the above topics in turn, recognizing the conceptual overlap among some of them and with the topics discussed in Chapters 5 and 6 . In contrast to earlier chapters that included a discipline-by-discipline summary of each topic, the evidence base for these four topics does not support such treatment. Instead, we briefly discuss the cross-disciplinary findings—all of which we have characterized as limited because few studies exist, much of the existing research consists of small-scale investigations, and no reviews have been published—and discuss in more detail the findings from the particular DBER field(s) with the most research to date on these emerging topics. Because these topics warrant further study in the context of DBER, each section ends with an identification of directions for future research. However, unlike previous chapters, this chapter does not conclude with a summary of key findings because DBER on these topics is too limited to support conclusions.

SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING PRACTICES

In part, science may be thought of as a vast and powerful compendium of factual information, concepts, principles, and laws that describe the nature of the universe and its inhabitants. But science also comprises a set of investigative processes, or ways of empirically and systematically studying the natural world, to advance the collective understanding of its order. These investigative processes—which we refer to as practices—and the knowledge gained from their application are critical components of scientific disciplines. Without those investigative practices, there would be no new scientific and engineering knowledge. Thus, an understanding of the attributes of science and engineering practices is vital, as is imparting them to new generations of learners.

In contrast to the clear delineation of content knowledge presented in introductory textbooks, no consensus exists on core disciplinary practices at the undergraduate level. Professional societies emphasize science and engineering practices in different ways. In physics, the American Association of Physics Teachers (1997) provides a set of goals for instructional laboratories that emphasize the central role of practices. In engineering, the ABET accreditation criteria F, G, and H focus on the needed skills of teamwork, communication, and ethics (see Chapter 3 ). In chemistry, the American Chemical Society Committee on Professional Training revised its guidelines for the training of chemists to include the same skills as engineering. 1

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1 The guidelines are available at http://portal.acs.org/portal/PublicWebSite/about/governance/committees/training/acsapproved/degreeprogram/WPCP_008491 [accessed March 10, 2012].

At the K-12 level, the nature of science has historically received greater attention (Collins and Pinch, 1993; DeBoer, 1991; Petroski, 1996). Indeed, “The idea of science as a set of practices has emerged from the work of historians, philosophers, psychologists and sociologists over the past 60 years” (National Research Council, 2012, p. 43). More recently, A Framework for K-12 Science Education identifies core disciplinary ideas, practices, and cross-cutting concepts in the physical, life, and Earth sciences and engineering. That report’s conceptualization of practices is useful to consider here (National Research Council, 2012, pp. 44-45):

One helpful way of understanding the practices of scientists and engineers is to frame them as work that is done in three spheres of activity, as shown in Figure [7-1] . In one sphere, the dominant activity is investigation and empirical inquiry. In the second, the essence of work is the construction of explanations or designs using reasoning, creative thinking, and models. And in the third sphere, the ideas, such as the fit of models and explanations to evidence or the appropriateness of product designs, are analyzed, debated, and evaluated…. In all three spheres of activity, scientists and engineers try to use the best available tools to support the task at hand.

The framework goes on to identify eight specific science and engineering practices that advance an understanding of science among students.

FIGURE 7-1 The three spheres of activity for scientists and engineers. SOURCE: National Research Council (2012, p. 45).

These practices also apply to undergraduate education. They include the following (National Research Council, 2012, p. 49):

1.   Asking questions and defining problems

2.   Developing and using models

3.   Planning and carrying out investigations

4.   Analyzing and interpreting data

5.   Using mathematics and computational thinking

6.   Constructing explanations and designing solutions

7.   Engaging in argument from evidence

8.   Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information

Learning and becoming adept at science and engineering practices should not be separated from content learning. Rather, research at the K-12 level has shown that well-designed curricula and instructional practices can support deeper learning of content at the same time that students are engaging with these practices (National Research Council, 2007).

Overview of Discipline-Based Education Research on Science and Engineering Practices

In contrast to K-12 education (see Flick and Lederman, 2004), science and engineering practices at the undergraduate level are largely understudied across the disciplines in this report. Most of the available evidence comes from physics and chemistry, with fewer studies in biology the geosciences, engineering, and astronomy. The studies that are available reflect the considerable range of accepted methods in science, as well as the lack of clear consensus among scientists and engineers about which practices are most important at the undergraduate level.

Research Focus and Methods

DBER studies of science practices typically adopt one of two perspectives: (1) examining practices as an outcome (i.e., how proficient students are in a specific practice or practices of science and engineering), or (2) engaging in practices as a means of leveraging content learning or other outcomes. Much of the engineering education research on professional skill-related process falls outside of these categories. That research largely describes “how to”—for example, how to build and use teams—rather than studying what works for developing students’ professional skills and how those strategies work. However, research on teamwork in particular is shifting toward the latter focus (Svinicki, 2011). Similarly, some notable curriculum development efforts promote practices in biology (e.g., BioQuest,

which focuses on problem posing, problem solving, and peer persuasion), 2 although with few efforts to evaluate their efficacy.

Most DBER studies that the committee reviewed on science practices do not explicitly situate themselves in broader theories of learning. An implicit framework for some biology education studies on this topic harkens back to Karplus’ (1977) learning cycle as elaborated by Lawson (1988). The learning cycle is fundamentally a constructivist approach, which argues that people generate their own understandings and form meaning as a result of their experiences and ideas (Piaget, 1978; Vygotsky, 1978).

DBER scholars use a range of methods to study science and engineering practices. Evidence is typically derived from self-developed assessments, surveys, interviews, and observations of students in class or laboratory sessions. Five of the 11 studies that the committee reviewed in biology are quasi-experimental studies of students in different courses (Dirks, 2011). The majority of these studies involve only students majoring in the biological sciences, and it is much more common for these studies to take place in lower division courses than upper division courses (Dirks, 2011).

Students’ Proficiency with Practices

Regarding practices as an outcome, findings from DBER suggest that undergraduate students have little experience or expertise in aspects of designing or conducting scientific investigations that are important to practicing scientists and engineers. Specifically, students struggle to

•   distinguish between data and evidence (Lyons, 2011);

•   classify matter (Stains and Talanquer, 2008);

•   ask scientifically fruitful questions (Karelina and Etkina, 2007; Slater, Slater, and Lyons; 2010; Slater, Slater, and Shaner, 2008); and

•   make predictions, observations, and explanations (Kastens, Agrawal, and Liben, 2009; Mattox, Reisner, and Rickey, 2006; Tien, Teichert, and Rickey, 2007).

Some research suggests that students also lack an understanding of experimental uncertainty unless they are explicitly taught about it (see Sere, Journeaux, and Larcher, 1993). These results are consistent with the prevalence of traditional laboratory exercises for introductory students, which are not effective in teaching higher-order skills (Redish, Steinberg, and Saul, 1997).

2 See http://www.bioquest.org for a description of this curriculum [accessed March 31, 2012].

In addition to these studies of general practices, DBER is beginning to generate evidence about specific practices of individual disciplines. In physics, the research on problem solving is extensive, as is research about how students do and do not use discipline-specific models and graphical representations (see Chapter 5 for a discussion of research on problem solving and the use of representations in various disciplines). This research shows that students who use representations outperform those who do not but that students rarely use representations on their own (De Leone and Gire, 2006; Kohl and Finkelstein, 2005; Rosengrant, Etkina, and Van Heuvelen, 2006; Van Heuvelen and Zou, 2001). Research also has shown that some visualization skills that are important to the geosciences can be improved through a targeted set of practice exercises (Titus and Horsman, 2009; see Chapter 5 ). Also discussed in Chapter 5 , engineering education courses that use case analyses, model-eliciting activities, worked out problem examples, and heuristics have been shown to help students develop the practices of problem analysis and design (Svinicki, 2011).

The laboratory is an important setting for students to engage in science and engineering practices, either in the context of regular course work or through research experiences with faculty. In astronomy education research, a limited number of studies address the role of traditional laboratories in improving proficiency with practices, and the results so far are mixed. Although some research suggests that these laboratories do not help students understand that scientists use a wide variety of methods to conduct investigations, they have been shown to help students improve their ability to develop appropriate scientific questions (Slater, Slater, and Lyons, 2010; Slater, Slater, and Shaner, 2008). As discussed in Chapter 6 , research on students’ experiences in general chemistry (Miller et al., 2004) and analytical chemistry (Malina and Nakhleh, 2003) has found that the goals of the faculty determine the features of the laboratory that students identify as important. Depending on how faculty structure the laboratory experiment and assess student learning, students can perceive of instruments (e.g., spectrophotometers) simply as objects, without any knowledge of their internal workings, or as useful tools for collecting evidence about the behavior of molecules and their properties.

Using Practices to Enhance Conceptual Understanding

Considerably less research exists on using science and engineering practices to leverage learning. In physics, some studies demonstrate that engaging in scientific practices improves conceptual understanding (Cox and Junkin, 2002; Etkina et al., 2010) and that making predictions can enhance the educational impact of professor-led demonstrations (Crouch et al., 2004; Cummings et al., 1999). In biology, explicit instruction in

science practices—either through supplemental instruction or during a regular course—also appears to help students learn content (Coil et al., 2010; Dirks and Cunningham, 2006; Kitchen et al., 2003). For example, at one university, a preparatory short course for first-year students who were not prepared for rigorous coursework in the sciences explicitly taught graphing, experimental design, and science communication. Students who took the short course before taking a biology course earned, on average, higher overall grades in their introductory biology courses than students who did not participate (Coil et al., 2010; Dirks and Cunningham, 2006). Likewise, engineering students identified as having low-spatial ability who were selected to participate in a one-semester preparatory course on spatial visualization skills had better grades in subsequent courses and better retention in the major than similar students who did not participate in the program (Sorby and Baartmans, 2000).

Research Experiences for Undergraduates

Some colleges and universities use undergraduate research experiences and internships to supplement traditional learning experiences and offer students additional opportunities to engage in the practices of science and engineering outside the course setting. Many undergraduate research experiences are built on the same apprenticeship model as graduate education. These experiences might include opportunities for discovery of new knowledge; rediscovery of knowledge already acquired from mentors or from the larger disciplinary literature, including through replication or simulation of earlier results; and acquiring skills—perhaps doing bench science, learning to use analytical instruments, mastering modeling programs, or doing field work. Research experiences can give the student a sense of whether advanced study and a career in the particular field is a good personal fit (Hunter, Laursen, and Seymour, 2007; Seymour et al., 2004); allow them to experience the social dimensions of the work of science and engineering (Dunbar, 1995); and begin the long process of induction into science and engineering by involving them in a community of practice that shares goals, values, assumptions, and methods (Mogk and Goodwin, 2012; Zuckerman, 1992).

Studies on undergraduate research experiences generally cut across science disciplinary boundaries (e.g., Hunter, Laursen, and Seymour, 2007; Kardash, 2000; Lopatto, 2010; Reuckert, 2002; Sadler et al., 2010). These studies show that students who participate in undergraduate research believe that they have enhanced their research skills and report being more motivated to pursue a career in science after the experience. Other benefits include improved attitudes or dispositions toward science and a better understanding of the nature of science (Jarrett and Burnley, 2010).

A widespread assumption is that extended research experiences will promote more robust knowledge of science content and understandings of scientific ideas and principles, but this assumption has not been adequately tested or borne out (Sadler et al., 2010). The typical methodology is students’ or mentors’ self-reports via survey or interview; direct assessment of students’ pre- and post-apprenticeship knowledge/understanding is rare.

The few studies that have examined group differences show that research experiences enhanced retention in science for students from underrepresented groups (Gregerman, 2008; Locks and Gregerman, 2008; Nagda et al., 1998; Russell, Hancock, and McCullough, 2007), and in some cases, improved academic performance (Gilligan et al., 2007). The most promising findings come from a longitudinal study of the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP), which includes many science disciplines and has been in existence at the University of Michigan since 1988. In that research, 75 percent of the African American men who participated in UROP completed their degrees, compared with 56 percent of a control group who applied but were not accepted into the program (Gregerman, 2008; Locks and Gregerman, 2008).

Although research experiences appear to improve student retention, they do not appear to affect students’ decisions about their future courses of study. In a multi-institutional survey study of the benefits of research for undergraduates and the progression rate of those students to advanced degrees, 3 83 percent of the 1,135 respondents earned, or intended to go on to earn, advanced degrees (Hunter, Laursen, and Seymour, 2007; Lopatto, 2007). The percentages of underrepresented minorities and whites who intended to earn advanced degrees were similar. However, the research experiences did not change students’ minds about pursuing future study. Along similar lines, a separate study of 51 students found that an undergraduate research program made little difference in the intent of females to pursue a graduate degree in astronomy (Slater, 2010).

It is important to note that most undergraduate research experiences are voluntary. The self-selection of students into these programs potentially confounds the research findings because the students who opt to participate might be more motivated or inclined to pursue further study or a career in science or engineering. Notable efforts to counter self-selection bias in the research include the evaluation of UROP (Gregerman, 2008), which compared students in the program to students who applied but were not

3 Lopatto (2007) validated an instrument to measure how students experience undergraduate research (Survey of the Undergraduate Research Experience, SURE). The quality of the instrument adds weight to the evidence that undergraduate research enhances student perceptions of their science skills and interest in science.

accepted, and a review of four undergraduate programs that compared students and faculty who were involved in the programs and students and faculty who were not involved (Hunter, Laursen, and Seymour, 2007).

Directions for Future Research on Science and Engineering Practices

For most of the disciplines examined in this report, the research on how students learn in laboratories or in the field—where they are likely to engage in science and engineering practices—is scarce. Additional research is needed to better understand how to measure and promote proficiency with these practices, and to explore relationships among practices and other outcomes such as overall understanding of concepts, practices, and ways of thinking of science and engineering.

In addition to the general practices described in this chapter, which span all of the science and engineering disciplines, individual disciplines may emphasize other practices or nuances of the general practices. Future research on practices at the undergraduate level might involve scientists, engineers, and/or scholars of the nature of science in reflecting on such discipline-specific variations and taking them into account when studying student learning.

More specifically, given the increase in undergraduate research programs and the expense of these programs in both time and money, it is important to understand the short- and long-term impacts of undergraduate research experiences and other research apprenticeships. Most reports on research apprenticeships document general trends (e.g., experiences have a positive effect on a specified outcome), but do not investigate the processes or mechanisms by which the outcome is achieved (Sadler et al., 2010). Ideally, future research examining these mechanisms would be conducted in ways that minimize or account for the effects of the self-selection bias of undergraduate research experiences. Additional studies are also needed on research experiences that occur during the regular school year, as most of the published research on the impact of undergraduate research experiences has been conducted on 10-week summer research apprenticeships rather than ongoing, independent, or mentored research in faculty laboratories.

It would be useful to study a wider variety of opportunities that engage students in science and engineering practices (e.g., internships in government or industry settings, service learning experiences, or museum and planetarium programs) and that emphasize different dimensions of practice. As one example of the latter, although knowledge of professional ethics is mandated through the ABET engineering accreditation criteria, engineering education research on enhancing student knowledge of professional ethics is scant, and represents a promising area for future study.

APPLYING KNOWLEDGE IN DIFFERENT SETTINGS (TRANSFER)

Instructors expect that students will be able to apply what they learn in the classroom to new situations encountered inside and outside the classroom. Indeed, a prime goal and fundamental assumption of education is the transfer of knowledge from one context to another. Elementary school students are expected to transfer the subtraction skills learned in the classroom to the problem of making change at a neighborhood lemonade stand. At the college level, if students learn how to apply Newton’s second law of motion to a problem involving a block on an inclined plane, they are expected to recognize the applicability of that law in understanding the data collected in a physics laboratory or in designing a device for a mechanical engineering class. Indeed, the idea of knowledge transfer is inherent in the discipline of physics because it is assumed that a very small set of fundamental ideas can be used to explain the diversity of the universe. As a result, physics curricula are driven by the assumption that students will be able to apply what they learn across the physics curriculum and to other science and engineering courses. Geoscience curricula, on the other hand, are rich in opportunities for the transfer and application of concepts and insights from physics, chemistry, and biology to the Earth system—such as when concepts from chemistry are applied in mineralogy or concepts from physics are applied in structural geology.

Regardless of the discipline, if students were only able to use what they have learned in exactly the conditions under which the learning occurred, that learning would have little practical value. However, the application of knowledge in different contexts is limited by students’ understanding of the conditions under which knowledge applies. That understanding, in turn, typically stays fixed in the domain in which students initially learn the content (Bassok, 2003). For example, a student who learns an equation in physics may have difficulty seeing the applicability of the same equation in algebra. Thus, one of the enduring problems in education—no less an issue at the undergraduate level than in K-12 education—is that transfer of learned material to new situations is much more difficult than educators expect.

Discipline-Based Education Research on Transfer

Transfer is a two-part process: transfer during learning (effect of past learning on new knowledge acquisition) and transfer of learning (the degree to which the new learning is applied in future situations) (Sousa, 2011). DBER scholars have partially addressed the first dimension through their

extensive exploration of students’ conceptual understanding (see Chapter 4 ). Indeed, much of that research is predicated on the assumption that instructors need to know what their students already know, because prior knowledge can either interfere with new learning (negative transfer) or facilitate it (positive transfer) (Ausubel, 1968; Ausubel, Novak, and Hanesian, 1978; Bretz, 2001; Novak, Gowin, and Kahle, 1984). However, only a small amount of DBER has explicitly focused on either transfer during learning or transfer of learning. In contrast, a considerable number of cognitive science studies on physics problem solving (Bassok, 1990; Bassok and Holyoak, 1989) and mathematical problem solving (Bassok, 2003; Catrambone, 1998; Kaminsky and Sloutsky, 2012; Novick and Holyoak, 1991; Reed, 1987) have investigated transfer.

More DBER studies might be identified post hoc as exploring one or both of these dimensions of transfer. Studies on analogical reasoning (Jee et al., 2010; Sibley, 2009), concept mapping (Clark and James, 2004), the application of skills to novel situations such as the use of the petrographic microscope to identify minerals and then to interpret textures (Gunter, 2004; Milliken et al., 2003), and the relationships between learning in the classroom, laboratory, and field (Mogk and Goodwin, 2012) could provide early insights into transfer.

Much of the physics research on transfer in the context of problem solving is based on the theoretical underpinnings of information processing (Simon, 1978). However, the meaning and even the utility of the idea of knowledge transfer as a theoretical construct is controversial within physics education research (Mestre, 2005). Some scholars attempt to find the basic building blocks of physics knowledge and the mechanism for their interaction. This type of theoretical framework is expressed, for example, in terms of mental resources that are activated by situational perception (Hammer et al., 2005). Scholars working within this approach study building blocks of different scales. Within this theoretical framework, transfer is not a process but the outcome of interactions among building blocks. Knowledge transfer, in this approach, is a derived construct.

Other physics education researchers take a more phenomenological approach, driven by the assumption that learning is so complex that a linear set of mechanisms and interactions, even if they exist, are not adequate to describe knowing. Some of these theoretical frameworks are concerned with specifying meaningful characterizations of transfer (Schwartz, Bransford, and Sears, 2005). Others are concerned with characterizing teaching systems that achieve transfer without ascribing the underlying mental mechanisms (Brown, Collins, and Duguid, 1989).

In chemistry, researchers have analyzed students’ transfer of knowledge related to the characteristics and behavior of NaCl and NaCl (aq) (Kelly,

2007; Kelly and Jones, 2008; Teichert et al., 2008), and the transfer of knowledge gained from computer animations designed to help students learn concepts related to the particulate nature of matter (Kelly and Jones, 2008). This research is guided by Ausubel, Novak, and Hanesian’s (1978) theory of meaningful learning, which proposes that students store new information according to what they identify as similarities between what they already know and what they need to know. Meaningful learning stands in stark contrast to the strategy of rote memorization, explaining why the latter leaves chemistry students with fragmented pieces of knowledge not useful for building connections to new information (transfer during learning) or in future courses (transfer of learning).

Methods of studying transfer range from individual interviews and experiments in controlled research environments to the analysis of student behavior and written work in classes. Participants typically include students in general introductory courses.

Students’ Difficulties Transferring Knowledge

In DBER, most a priori studies of transfer come from chemistry education research. These studies generally suggest that students have trouble applying knowledge in a new context. A series of seminal studies in chemistry (Nakhleh, 1993; Nakhleh and Mitchell, 1993; Nurrenbern and Pickering, 1987; Pickering, 1990; Sawrey, 1990) have demonstrated that students can memorize how to solve problems that require mathematical manipulations of symbols and chemical formulas, but cannot transfer these skills forward to a similar problem involving particulate images (i.e., drawings of the atoms and molecules). In these studies, students could successfully calculate the mass of products when given information about the reactants and a balanced equation of the reaction. However, when presented with a particulate image of the reactants, they could not correctly identify the particulate image of what remained after the reaction.

A few studies in chemistry have documented students’ difficulties identifying the critical attributes of a problem (Kelley and Jones, 2008; Tien, Teichert, and Rickey, 2007), which is an important component of transfer (Sousa, 2011). Those difficulties, in turn, appear to preclude students’ abilities to transfer their existing knowledge to a new concept. For example, in one study (Teichert et al., 2008), 19 students were interviewed after completing a laboratory experiment that involved measuring the conductivity of sodium chloride solutions in water and explaining the results in terms of particulate images. They were asked to predict the conductivities of NaCl(aq), AgNO 3 (aq), and the resulting solution upon their mixing, and to draw particulate images to support their reasoning. Eighteen of 19

students correctly drew NaCl(aq) as solvated ions, and 15 of 19 did so for AgNO 3 (aq). 4 Students were then asked to read a paragraph about boiling point elevation—a property they had not yet learned—which explained that this property depended solely upon the number of particles in solution and not their chemical identity. In this context, only 10 of the 19 students drew NaCl(aq) as solvated ions. When the 9 who responded incorrectly were asked to look back at their drawing from the first interview, only 6 of them altered their drawing to reflect solvated ions. Consistent with findings discussed in Chapter 6 , these findings suggest that students had difficulty identifying the critical attributes of the problems at hand.

It is not surprising that if novices focus on superficial rather than structural features of problems, their ability to apply learned solution features to new situations will be limited (see Novick, 1988, for relevant experimental evidence from studies of mathematical problem solving). Consistent with research from cognitive science (National Research Council, 1999), the findings of Teichert et al. (2008) suggest that students need help to understand which aspects of problems are critical for determining the appropriate solution method and which are not.

Directions for Future Research on Transfer

In science and engineering, educators and researchers need a greater understanding of how to widely assess and promote the transfer of knowledge and skills within courses; across courses in the major; and among majors and nonmajors as they take different science courses. This understanding is vital because the same students often take chemistry, physics, and biology courses, and each instructor assumes a certain level of prior knowledge. Longitudinal studies would offer the opportunity to develop measures and use them to carefully document and track instances of negative and positive transfer for multiple cohorts of students. Ideally, these studies would be interdisciplinary to understand how students’ knowledge transfers across the suite of science and engineering courses they take in college.

One of the greatest research challenges will be framing transfer in a way that is both measureable and acceptable to instructors and students. The course structure and the usual assessment of students in those courses tend to channel DBER into the narrowest form of transfer, namely assessing the direct application of something learned to a new context as measured by the number of correct answers on a task. Bransford and Schwartz (1999) have developed a broader theory of transfer that emphasizes preparation for future learning, which could be a useful framework for further research

4 When a substance dissolves in a solvent, its ions spread out and become surrounded by the molecules in the solvent. These ions are then called “solvated ions.”

efforts in this area. For example, college students were more successful than precollege students when presented with the unfamiliar challenge of designing a recovery program for baby eagles, although neither group was completely successful. Bransford and Schwartz argue that the college students had greater general education experience and that they were able to transfer this experience to the new learning situation—evidence of positive transfer that might be missed using more traditional definitions.

Cognitive science research has illuminated some factors that influence transfer, including the quality and context of original learning; the similarity of problems across settings; and, as discussed, students’ recognition of the critical attributes of problems (Bassok, 2003; Sousa, 2011). Although this research has been conducted primarily in the context of investigating analogical problem solving in mathematics and physics, DBER scholars in other disciplines might be able to use this research to design studies that advance the understanding of transfer in different disciplines and learning environments.

Cognitive science research also provides insight into specific conditions under which successful transfer occurs, such as when instructors teach students to monitor their own thinking and learning processes (Bransford and Schwartz, 1999; see discussion of metacognition below) or, in the context of problem solving, when source and target problems are superficially and structurally similar (e.g., Chi and Bassok, 1989; Holyoak and Koh, 1987; Ross, 1984). These insights also might inform future DBER studies.

METACOGNITION

No one doubts that cognition is important to the work of the scientist and engineer and to learning in those disciplines. Cognition, a synonym for “thinking,” is necessary for understanding science concepts, for applying the methods of science to discover new aspects of the natural world, and for using scientific ideas to solve important problems. What may be less obvious is that cognition must be supplemented with metacognition . Metacognition is the mind’s ability to monitor and control its own activities (Brown, 1978; Flavell, 1979). Metacognition is “thinking about thinking.” It is a form of higher-order cognition that allows individuals to monitor the quality of their thoughts and to redirect their thinking processes as needed. Metacognition also comes into play during problem solving when the individual judges whether the chosen strategy is effective.

Metacognition is a potent intellectual competency. Students need to be metacognitive so that in every learning context—during lecture, independent reading, laboratory work, research, or discussions—they monitor their comprehension and, if comprehension fails, take corrective steps. A metacognitive learner asks: Do I truly understand? Is my strategy working?

When a student is preparing for a midterm or final exam, a crucial question must be posed: Am I ready to take the test?

An extensive research base in psychology indicates that the ability to make an honest and accurate appraisal of one’s own knowledge state is crucial to academic success. Differences in metacognitive ability translate to differences in students’ learning outcomes (Tobias and Everson, 1996). In general, students who are more metacognitive are better students overall, which suggests that one goal of education should be to help students become more metacognitive (Lin, Schwartz, and Hatano, 1995).

Metacognition is more than the binary distinction of to know or not. Understanding is always incremental. Indeed, the entire scientific enterprise is predicated on a sense of which aspects of the natural world are well understood, which are partially understood, and which are unknown. These metacognitive sensibilities steer the research agenda, alert investigators to promising questions, and give insights into whether investigative probes are answering the driving questions. Thus, metacognition is an essential competency for both learning and knowledge creation.

Metacognitive approaches are embedded in instructional practices such as problem-based learning, knowledge surveys, and reflective exercises during classes, and in activities designed to support critical thinking. Unfortunately, many instructors assume either that undergraduate students already have the requisite metacognitive skills, or that these skills are too advanced to teach in introductory courses (Trigwell et al., 2001; Yerushalmi et al., 2007). However, research has shown the benefits of teaching metacognitive skills as part of learning content (Collins, Brown, and Newman, 1989). Such practices include being explicit with students about the rationale for learner-centered pedagogy, including defining learning objectives, demanding more student responsibility in mastering content, and using class time for problem solving (Heller et al., 1992). The concomitant need is for students to become more aware of their own study habits and how to improve them (e.g., Silverthorn, 2006). (See also the discussion of cognitive apprenticeship in Chapter 5 .)

Discipline-Based Education Research on Metacognition

Students’ metacognition is an implicit focus of some research on problem solving and other kinds of decision making, and is increasingly an explicit focus of some DBER. Most of the research that the committee reviewed investigates or assesses the role of metacognition in specific learning environments, typically in the context of problem solving (see Chapter 5 ), and some research focuses on the development of tools to

measure metacognition (e.g., Cooper and Sandi-Urena, 2009). A few studies document efforts to develop students’ metacognitive skills (McCrindle and Christensen, 1995). DBER scholars study metacognition through interviews, case studies, quantitative studies, mixed methods, and phenomenology.

Physics studies on metacognition typically take place in a controlled environment outside of the classroom with a small number of students. Participants in these studies are typically students who know some physics, often paid volunteers who have taken one or two introductory courses in physics. This sort of study often uses interviews or students’ self-explanations to analyze students’ reasoning processes as they engage in a task. In other disciplines, researchers have assessed metacognitive activity in the context of a learning environment such as an inquiry laboratory, or a specific problem solving activity. In biology, for example, McCrindle and Christensen (1995) conducted an experiment in which they randomly assigned students in their introductory class to either a treatment group or a control group to test a strategy for developing metacognitive skills.

Assessing metacognition during learning can be challenging because it is largely a hidden skill, although there are techniques to infer its existence. Moreover, asking students to document metacognitive activities might artificially prompt metacognitive behavior. Such behavior is desirable, but the false positive results could confound the research findings. In chemistry, the Metacognitive Activities Instrument (MCAI), a validated self-report instrument, probes students’ thinking about problem solving (Cooper and Sandi-Urena, 2009). As described in Box 7-1 , students’ MCAI scores have been shown to correlate with their problem-solving strategies and abilities as measured by the online Interactive Multi-Media Exercises system (Cooper, Sandi-Urena, and Stevens, 2008). Besides the MCAI, evidence of metacognition in chemistry has been gathered from self-reports and observations of student work samples and behavior.

Promoting Metacognition to Enhance Learning

The effectiveness of deeper, more meaningful processing for retention of information was first documented in cognitive psychology by Craik and Lockhart (1972). Consistent with findings from cognitive science research (National Research Council, 1999), DBER suggests that students can develop metacognitive skills over time when metacognitive strategies are built into instruction (McCrindle and Christensen, 1995; Weinstein, Husman, and Dierking, 2000), but that relatively few students report using metacognitive strategies such as self-testing when studying on their own (Karpicke, Butler, and Roediger, 2009).

One focus of DBER on metacognition concerns the self-explanation effect, which is the benefit to learning and problem solving that accrues

BOX 7-1 Chemistry Education Research Metacognition and Problem Solving

The Metacognitive Activities Inventory (MCAI) was developed by Cooper and Sandi-Urena (2009) to measure students’ monitoring of their own thinking during problem solving. In prior work, the researchers investigated student learning using the Interactive Multi-Media Exercises system (Cooper et al., 2008; see Chapter 5 ). Through the use of hidden Markov modeling and artificial neural networks, Cooper and colleagues identified two dimensions of metacognition: the strategy state (the metacognition involved for a particular solution) and the ability state (a measure of problem difficulty). Students’ problem-solving strategies and abilities were significantly correlated with MCAI scores (Cooper, Sandi-Urena, and Stevens, 2008; Sandi-Urena, Cooper, and Stevens, 2011).

Because the MCAI is a self-report and the IMMEX scores are derived from data mining of student performance, the combination of methods allows for triangulation to assess different interventions. For example, students who participated in a workshop designed to promote meta-cognition showed consistent changes in their MCAI scores (Sandi-Urena, Cooper, and Stevens, 2011), and students who take laboratories designed to prompt metacognitive activity also show significant gains (Sandi-Urena, Cooper, and Stevens, 2012).

from attempts by learners to explain to themselves or another person concepts that are unclear. For example, studies of how college students use example solutions provided in physics textbooks to learn topics in mechanics found that successful students explained and justified solution steps to a greater extent than did unsuccessful students (Chi et al., 1989). The quality of the explanations also differed; good students referred to general principles, concepts, or procedures they had read about in an earlier part of the text and examined how they were instantiated in the current example (Chi and VanLehn, 1991).

Replication of these studies in biology (Ainsworth and Loizou, 2003) has yielded similar results. This research examined whether the way information about the human circulatory system is presented affects learners’ self-explanations and subsequent learning. The learners were college students who had not taken a biology class beyond high school. They took a pre-test, learned about the circulatory system via either text or diagrams, and then took a post-test. Students were directed to generate explanations to themselves during the study phase, and the students who generated more

self-explanations did better on the post-test. In addition, students who received diagrams provided more self-explanations, performed better on the post-test, and spent less time studying the material than students who received text. Similarly, research in engineering education has found that incorporating metacognitive reflection steps and self-explanation prompts into instruction can improve students’ problem solving (Svinicki, 2011).

Together, this research suggests that generating and articulating explanations can be an effective pedagogical tool to help students process more deeply the underlying structure of unfamiliar concepts and problems in all disciplines. This deeper processing can lead to enhanced learning compared with what is achieved by simply reading textbook paragraphs and examples or examining textbook diagrams.

Directions for Future Research on Metacognition

Metacognition is a necessary skill for meaningful learning and thus merits continued study in the context of DBER. Further research could clarify which metacognitive skills are useful to science and engineering. Because the skills may not be the same for each discipline, additional DBER could examine these similarities and differences. Other efforts might be directed at developing easy-to-use assessments that align to the appropriate metacognitive skills and that measure the effects on metacognition of instructional interventions and learning environments. Finally, the kinds of conditions and strategies that limit or promote metacognition (e.g., writing across the curriculum, structured problem solving, and assessments that promote metacognition) also merit examination. In this regard, the MORE model (model, observe, reflect, explain) (Tien, Rickey, and Stacy, 1999), which promotes metacognition in the chemistry laboratory, might be adapted to other settings and disciplines. The spread of cooperative group problem solving from physics to other disciplines such as chemistry, engineering, and health sciences also might be instructive (Heller, Keith, and Anderson, 1992). This approach emphasizes the practice of metacognitive skills by making them evident through the social interaction of co-constructing a problem solution with the use of specific scaffolding.

DISPOSITIONS AND MOTIVATION TO STUDY SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING (THE AFFECTIVE DOMAIN)

Successful science and engineering education cannot be defined solely in terms of how many concepts and practices students learn. Students have attitudes, beliefs, and expectations about learning that can influence their behavior and performance in courses (Halloun, 1997; Hammer, 1994, 1995; May and Etkina, 2002; Perkins et al., 2005). As an example, a

common student belief is that physics consists of many unrelated pieces of information. This belief often leads students to approach physics by memorizing formulas without connecting them to broader, underlying concepts and principles (Hammer, 1994, 1995). More generally, helping students become members of a scientific or engineering community requires attention to a wider range of outcomes and how to achieve them.

Educational outcomes beyond the mastery of discipline-specific content are considered part of the affective realm (Snow, Corno, and Jackson, 1996). The affective domain is very broad. Psychologists use the term “affect” to refer to an observable expression of emotion, but the term can extend to motivation, attribution, and willful action (i.e., volition). Affect can also refer broadly to belief systems, including the important concept of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986), or the belief that one is capable of accomplishing a goal such as learning within a particular discipline. The affective domain also can be defined to include a range of external and internal factors that influence a student’s ability to learn, including values, social pressures, stereotypes, perceptions, feelings, anxiety, or fear (Krathwohl, Bloom, and Masia, 1964). Another important concept is conation, which refers to volition, or more generally, to the connection between knowledge and affect (personal will, motivation) and intentional, goal-oriented personal actions or behaviors (the desire to learn more, or to engage in proactive activities). Conation provides critical evidence of self-direction and regulation (Hilgard, 2006; Snow, 1989). All such feelings, motives, and beliefs fall under the banner of affect or the affective domain as we use those terms here.

Scholars are increasingly aware that affective aspects of learning are directly linked to cognitive and memory functions (Gray, 2004; Pessoa, 2008; Storbeck and Clore, 2007). Indeed, sociocultural perspectives on learning recognize that a changing sense of one’s own identity and competence in a domain occurs at the same time that one is becoming increasingly adept at disciplinary practices and knowledge application and that these concurrent processes are mutually supportive (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Resnick and Klopfer, 1989; Rogoff and Wertsch, 1984). These findings suggest that researchers and instructors should not consider cognitive and affective development apart from each other.

Discipline-Based Education Research on the Affective Domain

The Carnegie Preparation for the Professions Program (Sullivan, 2005) describes three apprenticeships: the apprenticeship of the head (intellectual development), the hand (skill development), and the heart (development of habits of mind, values and attitudes). Many science disciplines and engineering stress the first apprenticeship (the head), place less emphasis on the

second (the hand), and are silent or implicit about the third apprenticeship (the heart) (Sullivan, 2005). Similarly, in DBER, the affective domain has received less attention than the cognitive domain.

The research that has been done in DBER is as broad as the affective domain itself, and ranges from students’ views about the discipline, to their motivations for pursuing science and engineering, to the social dimensions of fieldwork, to the role of student beliefs in conceptual change.

Scholarly research on the affective domain rigorously probes students’ attitudes and beliefs about content, pedagogy, the discipline as a whole, and/or learning in general. DBER scholars use a range of instruments to measure aspects of the affective domain. Some widely used, validated instruments include the following:

•   Epistemological Beliefs Assessment for Physical Sciences (Elby, 2001), which assesses students’ views about the nature of knowledge and learning in physics.

•   Science Motivation Questionnaire, which assesses six components of motivations: (1) intrinsically motivated science learning, (2) extrinsically motivated science learning, (3) relevance of learning science to personal goals, (4) responsibility (self-determination) for learning science, (5) confidence (self-efficacy) in learning science, and (6) anxiety about science assessment (Glynn and Koballa, 2006).

•   Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS), which is designed to compare novice and expert perceptions about the content and structure of a specific discipline, the source of knowledge about that discipline, and the connection of a discipline to the real world (Adams et al., 2006). Discipline-specific versions of the CLASS exist for physics, (Adams et al., 2006), biology (Semsar et al., 2011), and chemistry (Barbera et al., 2008).

Insight into student and faculty attitudes and beliefs has also come from in-depth interviews and case studies of a few individuals.

Students’ Attitudes, Beliefs, and Motivations

Although the evidence is limited, DBER on the affective domain suggests that student attitudes about physics, chemistry, biology—and, indeed, science in general—differ markedly from the views of practicing scientists. Student attitudes in physics after instruction diverge further from “expert-like” norms than before instruction, even when instruction

is more student-centered (Adams et al., 2006; Kost-Smith, Pollock, and Finkelstein, 2010; Redish, Steinberg, and Saul, 1998). In biology as well, students in one study became less expert-like following the introductory course, but subsequently became more expert-like in upper division courses (Semsar et al., 2011). In chemistry, nonmajors’ attitudes, as measured by an instrument known as CHEMX, move toward faculty norms during the first year of chemistry instruction. Chemistry majors, on the other hand, move away from the faculty’s norms during the first year, and then begin moving closer toward faculty views when they take organic chemistry (Grove and Bretz, 2007).

Although motivation is largely understudied in DBER, a longitudinal (7-year) study in engineering found that several factors influence students’ motivation to study engineering, including “psychological/personal reasons, a desire to contribute to the social good, financial security, or, in some cases, seeing engineering as a stepping stone to another profession” (Atman et al., 2010, pp. 3-4). That study also demonstrates that motivation is related to important outcomes such as the intention to pursue engineering as a major and a career.

The Geosciences. The nature of some subject matter covered in the geosciences makes consideration of the affective domain (e.g., sensory input from a natural setting) particularly important to scholars in that discipline. In addition, many applications of the geosciences also are directed toward controversial issues such as evolution, the age of the Earth, or climate change. Studying these issues may require students to confront prior beliefs and values. (Student beliefs are also of interest to biologists because of the debates surrounding evolution among some nonscientists—see Chapter 4 for a discussion.)

The Geoscience Affective Research Network has conducted research on the affective domain, with an emphasis on the attitudes and motivations of introductory students (McConnell and Kraft, 2011; van der Hoeven Kraft et al., 2011). In a composite study of introductory classes (7 colleges, 14 instructors, 800 students), student performance was most strongly correlated with scores on the self-efficacy section of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich and DeGroot, 1990). In addition, students with low Geoscience Concept Inventory (GCI) scores or low incoming grade point average (GPA) but high self-efficacy earned the same grade as students with high GCI scores or high GPA and low self-efficacy (McConnell et al., 2009, 2010).

Geoscience education research also has documented differences in attitudes and self-efficacy among males and females. One study of 539 males and 607 females from 14 introductory classes at 7 institutions used the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire to measure pre- and

post-course attitudes (Vislova et al., 2010). On the pre-test, females reported lower self-efficacy and higher test anxiety than males. On the post-test, females reported lower likelihood of engaging in future geoscience courses, despite earning similar course grades as their male peers. In a different study, Liben, Kastens, and Christensen (2011) found that female undergraduates’ self-reported confidence in the quality of their performance on strike-and-dip and direction tasks was lower than their actual performance or their general spatial ability.

Learning in the field setting, which is an integral part of geoscience education, also has a strong affective component. Fieldwork can engage a wide spectrum of students in learning, in part because of the social interaction it entails (Boyle et al., 2007; Fuller et al., 2006; Maguire, 1998; Marques, Praia, and Kempa, 2003; Stokes and Boyle, 2009). Social aspects of learning in the field include heightened interpersonal interactions, building friendships, and reducing social barriers (Crompton and Sellar, 1981; Fuller et al., 2006; Fuller, Gaskin, and Scott, 2003; Kempa and Orion, 1996; Kern and Carpenter, 1984; Tal, 2001). Well-designed field experiences are seen as an effective means to recruit students to Earth science majors (Karabinos, Stoll, and Fox, 1992; Kern and Carpenter, 1984, 1986; Manner, 1995; McKenzie, Utgard, and Lisowski, 1986; Salter, 2001) and to introduce nontraditional students to the geosciences (Elkins, Elkins, and Hemmings, 2008; Gawel and Greengrove, 2005; Semken, 2005). In addition, some studies have shown that student attitudes toward the geosciences—and indeed, science in general—become increasingly positive as a result of fieldwork (Huntoon, Bluth, and Kennedy, 2001; Stokes and Boyle, 2009), perhaps because students view learning in the field as more interesting than learning in other contexts (Maguire, 1998; Stokes and Boyle, 2009).

Directions for Future Research on the Affective Domain

To date, much DBER has treated cognitive and affective outcomes as distinct “variables.” Future DBER on the affective domain should avoid this dichotomy and recognize the interdependence of affect and cognitive outcomes.

Instructors and researchers would benefit from a greater understanding of the attitudes and beliefs that are the most salient to learning science and engineering, including the role of cultural and social factors and potential differences among different groups of students (e.g., Brandriet et al., 2011). Cognitive science can help DBER scholars to clarify distinctions in theories of affect as they apply to student learning. Such distinctions are useful because they offer new ways to think about undergraduate science education. To that end, research on the affective dimensions of K-12 science learning (e.g., Simpson et al., 1994) also might be applied to DBER.

Systematic research on student motivation in the sciences and engineering is lacking. Future DBER studies might build on the extensive literature on motivation, especially expectancy and value orientation in cognitive science and in the broader higher education literature (e.g., Ambrose et al., 2010; Svinicki, 2004).

Research on a range of teaching strategies that engage the affective domain (e.g., collaborative study; teaching controversial issues; human impacts of course content) and that have the potential to change student attitudes and beliefs also would be useful (e.g., Middlecamp, 2008). In this realm, the interplay between faculty behavior and students’ affect merits further exploration: Do faculty responses to student reactions influence teaching strategies and, as a result, student learning? Instructors also have attitudes, beliefs, and values about students and how they learn. The complex interaction of these elements influences how and what instructors teach. Thus, the attitudes and beliefs of instructors themselves should be studied to understand their expectations for student learning in science and engineering—perhaps building on work that has already been conducted in physics (Geortzen, Sherr, and Elby, 2009, 2010; Henderson and Dancy, 2007; Henderson et al., 2004, 2007; Yerushalmi et al., 2007).

On a broader level, research on multiple dimensions of the affective domain would enhance the understanding of “what works” in the recruitment and retention of students into science and engineering majors, with longitudinal studies to determine which career paths students ultimately choose (e.g., Connor, 2009). As one example, in light of the larger percentage of undergraduate females majoring in biology compared to the physical sciences, studies that focus on the persistence of females in undergraduate majors and careers in the life sciences would be illuminating.

The National Science Foundation funded a synthesis study on the status, contributions, and future direction of discipline-based education research (DBER) in physics, biological sciences, geosciences, and chemistry. DBER combines knowledge of teaching and learning with deep knowledge of discipline-specific science content. It describes the discipline-specific difficulties learners face and the specialized intellectual and instructional resources that can facilitate student understanding.

Discipline-Based Education Research is based on a 30-month study built on two workshops held in 2008 to explore evidence on promising practices in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. This book asks questions that are essential to advancing DBER and broadening its impact on undergraduate science teaching and learning. The book provides empirical research on undergraduate teaching and learning in the sciences, explores the extent to which this research currently influences undergraduate instruction, and identifies the intellectual and material resources required to further develop DBER.

Discipline-Based Education Research provides guidance for future DBER research. In addition, the findings and recommendations of this report may invite, if not assist, post-secondary institutions to increase interest and research activity in DBER and improve its quality and usefulness across all natural science disciples, as well as guide instruction and assessment across natural science courses to improve student learning. The book brings greater focus to issues of student attrition in the natural sciences that are related to the quality of instruction. Discipline-Based Education Research will be of interest to educators, policy makers, researchers, scholars, decision makers in universities, government agencies, curriculum developers, research sponsors, and education advocacy groups.

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Research Paper Topics - Find a Good Topic For Your Paper

There comes a time when you have to write research paper topics and present them to our lecturer or instructor to assess. A lot of students are usually faced with the problem of finding good topics to write on. In case you find some topics, most of the students are not able to turn them into impressive research topics, and as such they end up with a lot of rushed work that fails them in the long run. If you are or have ever been faced with this dilemma, you seriously need to consider having VivaEssays work on your paper for you. Why VivaEssays, someone might ask. Our essay consultancy network boasts of a team of professional writers drawn from different study areas throughout the world. With this in mind, we can assure you that apart from getting you good topics to present; we will go ahead and write up for you nothing but the best research paper topics. We have done since our inception in 2004 and we will continue doing it in the foreseeable future.

Having assisted a lot of students come up with great research paper topics in the past, we do have an idea of some of the things that you need to know about when writing your research paper. One of the first things that lecturers do look at is whether the students have good topics or not. Just by the look of your research paper topics, the instructors are able to tell whether your work is worth a second look or a brush through. Therefore this means that you need to devote a lot of your time in coming up with good topics. Once you have a topic in mind, you need to consult your instructor with it to make sure that you are headed in the right direction.

Some guidelines as regards choosing research topics include having an interest in the research paper topic that you have chosen. Once the topic interests you, you should be in a good position to find out more about it and actually present it to your level best. Besides, writing on research paper topics that do not interest you in any way can be so difficult. Once you have your topic, you need to consider the question that is to be tackled as regards your research paper topic. Good topics should not be either too shallow or too broad for the question you are to present.

In as far as finding good topics is concerned there are so many sources of these. There are lecturers that can be kind enough to give each and every one a topic to work on, while others might ask you to find one for yourselves. The down side of having a topic handed to you is that you are rather fixed in your scope of coverage. However, you can also ask your librarian for topics to cover in your research. Besides all of these you can always come to us at VivaEssays and let us do the work for you.

Do you panic at the mere thought of writing research papers? Does the thought of choosing essay topics send you into a tailspin? We all know that writing research papers can be a difficult and demanding task that requires much research. The hardest part about beginning research papers is choosing essay topics and making sure to find enough quality information about your research paper topics .

There are a few things to keep in mind when choosing unique topic for your research papers:

• Make sure your research paper topic is fitting for the assignment at hand. Determine whether your research papers are to be narrative, compare/contrast, or argumentative essays.
• Brainstorm. Try writing down as many topics as you can think of. You can weed through them later.
• Make sure your research paper topics are unique and easy to research so that you can have enough information and facts to support your research paper topics.
• Try to narrow down your topic. You want to keep well within the page limit for the research paper.
• Try to choose research paper topics that appeal to you, that you are knowledgeable about.
• Evaluate all of the research paper topics you have come up with to determine the most suitable topics for your research paper.

Maybe you are still finding it difficult to come up with research paper topics? Try doing a Google search for examples of research paper topics. Some sample and common research papers topics are listed below:

• Have social networking sites changed the way we interact for the better or worse?
• Should women be allowed in military combat?
• Should gay marriage be made legal?
• Should alcohol and tobacco advertising be allowed on television?
• Should gambling be made legal?
• Should cigarette smoking be banned?
• Should recycling be mandatory?
• Should music-sharing programs on the internet be outlawed?
• How has the invention of television changed the American family life?
• Are certain types of capital punishment cruel and unusual?
• Are juvenile boot camps safe and effective?
• Are vaccines safe and effective?

These are just a few of the multitude of research paper topics available to be found online and with a little brainstorming you can come up with your own common and unique research paper topics

Examples of Research Paper Topics by Discipline

Find Research paper topics by discipline. View our categorized examples of Research Paper Topics

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Part 1: Thinking Through the Disciplines

Exploring academic disciplines.

Most college writing has some basic features in common: a sense of ethical responsibility and the use of credible and credited sources, critical thinking, and sound argumentation. In addition to these common features, each academic discipline, over many generations, has developed its own specific methods of asking questions and sharing answers. This chapter will show you how to use the lenses of various academic disciplines to develop your writing, reading, and thinking.

3.1 Exploring Academic Disciplines

Learning objectives.

• Survey the landscape of academic disciplines.
• Appreciate how academic disciplines help shape how we understand the world.
• Understand that academic disciplines are constantly in flux, negotiating the terms, conditions, and standards of inquiry, attribution, and evidence.

The following table shows one version of the main academic disciplines and some of their branches.

Since the makeup of the different branches is always in flux and since the history of any institution of higher education is complicated, you will likely find some overlapping and varying arrangements of disciplines at your college.

Part of your transition into higher education involves being aware that each discipline is a distinct discourse community with specific vocabularies, styles, and modes of communication. Later in your college career, you will begin your writing apprenticeship in a specific discipline by studying the formats of published articles within it. You will look for the following formal aspects of articles within that discipline and plan to emulate them in your work:

• Title format
• Introduction
• Overall organization
• Tone (especially level of formality)
• Person (first, second, or third person)
• Voice (active or passive)
• Sections and subheads
• Use of images (photos, tables, graphics, graphs, etc.)
• Discipline-specific vocabulary
• Types of sources cited
• Use of source information
• Documentation style (American Psychological Association, Modern Language Association, Chicago, Council of Science Editors, and so on; for more on this, see Chapter 22 “Appendix B: A Guide to Research and Documentation” )
• Intended audience
• Published format (print or online)

Different disciplines tend to recommend collecting different types of evidence from research sources. For example, biologists are typically required to do laboratory research; art historians often use details from a mix of primary and secondary sources (works of art and art criticism, respectively); social scientists are likely to gather data from a variety of research study reports and direct ethnographic observation, interviews, and fieldwork; and a political scientist uses demographic data from government surveys and opinion polls along with direct quotations from political candidates and party platforms.

Consider the following circle of professors. They are all asking their students to conduct research in a variety of ways using a variety of sources.

What’s required to complete a basic, introductory essay might essentially be the same across all disciplines, but some types of assignments require discipline-specific organizational features. For example, in business disciplines, documents such as résumés, memos, and product descriptions require a specialized organization. Science and engineering students follow specific conventions as they write lab reports and keep notebooks that include their drawings and results of their experiments. Students in the social sciences and the humanities often use specialized formatting to develop research papers, literature reviews, and book reviews.

Part of your apprenticeship will involve understanding the conventions of a discipline’s key genres. If you are reading or writing texts in the social sciences, for example, you will notice a meticulous emphasis on the specifics of methodology (especially key concepts surrounding the collection of data, such as reliability, validity, sample size, and variables) and a careful presentation of results and their significance. Laboratory reports in the natural and applied sciences emphasize a careful statement of the hypothesis and prediction of the experiment. They also take special care to account for the role of the observer and the nature of the measurements used in the investigation to ensure that it is replicable. An essay in the humanities on a piece of literature might spend more time setting a theoretical foundation for its interpretation, it might also more readily draw from a variety of other disciplines, and it might present its “findings” more as questions than as answers. As you are taking a variety of introductory college courses, try to familiarize yourself with the jargon of each discipline you encounter, paying attention to its specialized vocabulary and terminology. It might even help you make a list of terms in your notes.

Scholars also tend to ask discipline-related kinds of questions. For example, the question of “renewable energy” might be a research topic within different disciplines. The following list shows the types of questions that would accommodate the different disciplines:

• Business (economics): Which renewable resources offer economically feasible solutions to energy issues?
• Humanities (history): At what point did humans switch from the use of renewable resources to nonrenewable resources?
• Natural and applied sciences (engineering): How can algae be developed at a pace and in the quantities needed to be a viable main renewable resource?
• Social sciences (geography): Which US states are best suited to being key providers of renewable natural resources?

Key Takeaways

• Most academic disciplines have developed over many generations. Even though these disciplines are constantly in flux, they observe certain standards for investigation, proof, and documentation of evidence.
• To meet the demands of writing and thinking in a certain discipline, you need to learn its conventions.
• An important aspect of being successful in college (and life) involves being aware of what academic disciplines (and professions and occupations) have in common and how they differ.

Think about your entire course load this semester as a collection of disciplines. For each course you are taking, answer the following questions, checking your textbooks and other course materials and consulting with your instructors, if necessary:

• What kinds of questions does this discipline ask?
• What kinds of controversies exist in this discipline?
• How does this discipline share the knowledge it constructs?
• How do writers in this discipline demonstrate their credibility?

After you’ve asked and answered these questions about each discipline in isolation, consider what underlying things your courses have in common, even if they approach the world very differently on the surface.

Based on the example at the end of this section, pick a topic that multiple disciplines study. Formulate four questions about the topic, one from each of any four different disciplines. Ideally choose a topic that might come up in four courses you are currently taking or have recently taken, or choose a topic of particular interest to you. Here are just a few examples to get you started:

• Child abuse
• Poverty in developing nations
• Women in the workforce
• Drawing from the synopses of current research on the Arts and Letters Daily website (see the Note 2.5 “Gallery of Web-Based Texts” in Chapter 2 “Becoming a Critical Reader” ), read the article referenced on a topic or theme of interest to you. Discuss how the author’s discipline affects the way the topic or theme is presented (specifically, the standards of inquiry and evidence).

3.2 Seeing and Making Connections across Disciplines

• Learn how to look for connections between the courses you are taking in different disciplines.
• Witness how topics and issues are connected across disciplines, even when they are expressed differently.
• Understand how to use disciplines to apply past knowledge to new situations.

Section 3.1 “Exploring Academic Disciplines” focused on the formal differences among various academic disciplines and their discourse communities. This section will explore the intellectual processes and concepts disciplines share in common. Even though you will eventually enter a discipline as an academic specialization (major) and as a career path (profession), the first couple of years of college may well be the best opportunity you will ever have to discover how disciplines are connected.

That process may be a re discovery, given that in the early grades (K–5), you were probably educated by one primary teacher each year covering a set of subjects in a single room. Even though you likely covered each subject in turn, that elementary school classroom was much more conducive to making connections across disciplines than your middle school or high school environment. If you’ve been educated in public schools during the recent era of rigid standardization and multiple-choice testing conducted in the name of “accountability,” the disciplines may seem more separate from one another in your mind than they actually are. In some ways, the first two years of your college experience are a chance to recapture the connections across disciplines you probably made naturally in preschool and the elementary grades, if only at a basic level at the time.

In truth, all disciplines are strikingly similar. Together, they are the primary reason for the survival and evolution of our species. As humans, we have designed disciplines, over time, to help us understand our world better. New knowledge about the world is typically produced when a practitioner builds on a previous body of work in the discipline, most often by advancing it only slightly but significantly. We use academic and professional disciplines to conduct persistent, often unresolved conversations with one another.

Most colleges insist on a “core curriculum” to make sure you have the chance to be exposed to each major discipline at least once before you specialize and concentrate on one in particular. The signature “Aha!” moments of your intellectual journey in college will come every time you grasp a concept or a process in one course that reminds you of something you learned in another course entirely. Ironically the more of those “Aha!” moments you have in the first two years of college, the better you’ll be at your specialization because you’ll have that much more perspective about how the world around you fits together.

How can you learn to make those “Aha!” moments happen on purpose? In each course you take, instead of focusing merely on memorizing content for the purposes of passing an exam or writing an essay that regurgitates your professor’s lecture notes, learn to look for the key questions and controversies that animate the discipline and energize the professions in it. If you organize your understanding of a discipline around such questions and controversies, the details will make more sense to you, and you will find them easier to master.

• Disciplines build on themselves, applying past knowledge to new situations and phenomena in a constant effort to improve understanding of the specific field of study.
• Different disciplines often look at the same facts in different ways, leading to wholly different discoveries and insights.
• Disciplines derive their energy from persistent and open debate about the key questions and controversies that animate them.
• Arrange at least one interview with at least one of your instructors, a graduate student, or a working professional in a discipline in which you are interested in studying or pursuing as a career. Ask your interviewee(s) to list and describe three of the most persistent controversies, questions, and debates in the field. After absorbing the response(s), write up a report in your own words about the discipline’s great questions.
• Using a textbook or materials from another course you are taking, describe a contemporary controversy surrounding the ways a discipline asks questions or shares evidence and a historical controversy that appears to have been resolved.
• Using one of your library’s disciplinary databases or the Note 2.5 “Gallery of Web-Based Texts” in Chapter 2 “Becoming a Critical Reader” , find a document that is at least fifty years old operating in a certain discipline, perhaps a branch of science, history, international diplomacy, political science, law, or medicine. The Smithsonian Institution or Avalon Project websites are excellent places to start your search. Knowing what you know about the current conventions and characteristics of the discipline through which this document was produced, how does its use of the discipline differ from the present day? How did the standards of the discipline change in the interim to make the document you’ve found seem so different? Have those standards improved or declined, in your opinion?

3.3 Articulating Multiple Sides of an Issue

• Explore how to recognize binary oppositions in various disciplines.
• Learn the value of entertaining two contradictory but plausible positions as part of your thinking, reading, and writing processes.
• Appreciate the productive, constructive benefits of using disciplinary lenses and borrowing from other disciplines.

Regardless of the discipline you choose to pursue, you will be arriving as an apprentice in the middle of an ongoing conversation. Disciplines have complicated histories you can’t be expected to master overnight. But learning to recognize the long-standing binary oppositions in individual disciplines can help you make sense of the specific issues, themes, topics, and controversies you will encounter as a student and as a professional. Here are some very broadly stated examples of those binary oppositions.

These binary oppositions move freely from one discipline to another, often becoming more complicated as they do so. Consider a couple of examples:

• The binary opposition in the natural and applied sciences between empiricism (the so-called scientific method) and rationalism (using pure reason to speculate about one’s surroundings) originated as a debate in philosophy, a branch of the humanities . In the social sciences , in recent years, empirical data about brain functions in neuroscience have challenged rationalistic theories in psychology. Even disciplines in business are using increasingly empirical methods to study how markets work, as rationalist economic theories of human behavior increasingly come under question.
• The binary opposition between text and context in the humanities is borrowed from the social sciences . Instead of viewing texts as self-contained creations, scholars and artists in the humanities began to appreciate and foreground the cultural influences that helped shape those texts. Borrowings from business disciplines, such as economics and marketing, furthered the notion of a literary and artistic “marketplace,” while borrowings from the natural and applied sciences helped humanists examine more closely the relationship between the observer (whether the critic or the artist) and the subject (the text).

Of course, these two brief summaries vastly oversimplify the evolution of multiple disciplines over generations of intellectual history. Like the chart of binary oppositions, they’re meant merely to inspire you at this point to begin to note the connections between disciplines. Learning to think, write, and function in interdisciplinary ways requires practice that begins at the level of close reading and gradually expands into the way you interact with your surroundings as a college student and working professional.

For a model of how to read and think through the disciplines, let’s draw on a short but very famous piece of writing (available through the Avalon Project in the Note 2.5 “Gallery of Web-Based Texts” ), Abraham Lincoln’s “Address at the Dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery,” composed and delivered in November of 1863, several months after one of the bloodiest battles in the American Civil War.

• A military historian (red passages) might focus on Lincoln’s rhetorical technique of using the field of a previous battle in an ongoing war (in this case a victory that nonetheless cost a great deal of casualties on both sides) as inspiration for a renewed, redoubled effort.
• A social psychologist (blue passages) might focus on how Lincoln uses this historical moment of unprecedented national trauma as an occasion for shared grief and shared sacrifice, largely through using the rhetorical technique of an extended metaphor of “conceiving and dedicating” a nation/child whose survival is at stake.
• A political scientist (green passages) might focus on how Lincoln uses the occasion as a rhetorical opportunity to emphasize that the purpose of this grisly and grim war is to preserve the ideals of the founders of the American republic (and perhaps even move them forward through the new language of the final sentence: “of the people, by the people, for the people”).

Notice that each reader, regardless of academic background, needs a solid understanding of how rhetoric works (something we’ll cover in Chapter 4 “Joining the Conversation” in more detail). Each reader has been trained to use a specific disciplinary lens that causes certain passages to rise to prominence and certain insights to emerge.

But the real power of disciplines comes when these readers and their readings interact with each other. Imagine how a military historian could use social psychology to enrich an understanding of how a civilian population was motivated to support a war effort. Imagine how a political scientist could use military history to show how a peacetime, postwar governmental policy can trade on the outcome of a battle. Imagine how a social psychologist could use political science to uncover how a traumatized social structure can begin to heal itself through an embrace of shared governance.

As Lincoln would say, “It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.”

• Disciplines have long-standing binary oppositions that help shape the terms of inquiry.
• To think, read, and write in a given discipline, you must learn to uncover binary oppositions in the texts, objects, and phenomena you are examining.
• Binary oppositions gain power and complexity when they are applied to multiple disciplines.
• Following the Gettysburg Address example at the end of this section, use three disciplinary lenses to color-code a reading of your choice from the Note 2.5 “Gallery of Web-Based Texts” in Chapter 2 “Becoming a Critical Reader” .
• Find a passage in one of the textbooks you’re using in another course (or look over your lecture notes from another course) where the main discipline appears to be borrowing theories, concepts, or binary oppositions from other disciplines in order to produce new insights and discoveries.
• Individually or with a partner, set up an imaginary two-person dialogue of at least twenty lines (or two pages) that expresses two sides of a contemporary issue with equal force and weight. You may use real people if you want, either from your reading of specific columnists at Arts and Letters Daily or of the essayists at the Big Questions Essay Series (see the Note 2.5 “Gallery of Web-Based Texts” in Chapter 2 “Becoming a Critical Reader” ). In a separate memo, indicate which side you lean toward personally and discuss any difficulty you had with the role playing required by this exercise.
• Show how one of the binary oppositions mentioned in this section is expressed by two writers in a discipline of your choosing. Alternatively, you can come up with a binary opposition of your own, backing it up with examples from the two extremes.
• Briefly describe how an insight or discovery applied past disciplinary knowledge to a new situation or challenge. How might you begin to think about addressing one of the contemporary problems in your chosen discipline?
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The Disciplines and Discipline of Educational Research

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It is, I think, important to clarify from the beginning of this book my understanding of the nature of educational research and educational theory, for this carries implications for many of the chapters that follow. This chapter begins by reviewing the development of educational theory and research from a time (in the 1960s and 1970s) when it was still possible to talk of four ‘foundation disciplines’, to one characterised by the diversity, fragmentation, and hybridisation of the intellectual sources of educational research—one in which this research is described in terms of multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and, as some would have it, postdisciplinarity. The chapter welcomes the greater diversity and enrichment of the resources available to contemporary educational researchers and acknowledges the importance of being able to combine different disciplinary approaches in the exploration of educational theory, policy, and practice. It argues, however, that this should not be at the expense of discipline in educational inquiry, i.e. of the systematic procedures that provide a better warrant for the beliefs that are put forward, rather than inquiry that lacks such ‘systematics’ and in the sense of shared rule-governed procedures, ‘which make a community of arguers possible’ (Hunt in Consequences of theory. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1991 : 104). In a final section, the chapter acknowledges and examines the perennial wrestling between, on the one hand, rules that operate to maintain particular hierarchies of power and control over what might count as credible belief and, on the other hand, rules that serve more narrowly epistemic functions related to the development of knowledge and understanding.

The original version of this chapter was published in Bridges, D. (2003) Fiction written under oath: Essays in philosophy and educational research , Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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Best History Research Paper Topics

Dive into the world of historical scholarship with our comprehensive guide to the best history research paper topics . Primarily designed for students tasked with writing history research papers, this guide presents a curated list of 100 exceptional topics, divided into 10 distinct categories, each with a unique historical focus. The guide offers clear and practical advice on how to choose the most compelling history research paper topics, and provides 10 handy tips on crafting an outstanding research paper. In addition to academic guidance, the guide introduces the superior writing services of iResearchNet, a reliable option for students needing customized history research papers.

Comprehensive List of Best History Research Paper Topics

The following comprehensive list of the best history research paper topics is crafted to stimulate your curiosity and ignite your passion for historical study. These topics cover a range of historical periods and geographical locations to cater to the diverse interests of history students.

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Ancient History Topics

• The Causes and Effects of the Fall of the Roman Empire
• Daily Life in Ancient Egypt
• The Influence of Alexander the Great’s Conquests on the Hellenistic World
• The Role of Women in Spartan Society
• The Construction and Significance of the Great Wall of China
• The Impact of Confucianism on Ancient Chinese Society
• Trade Routes and their Role in the Expansion of Ancient Civilizations
• The Cultural and Political Influence of the Phoenician Civilization
• Comparing Democracy in Ancient Greece to Modern Democracy
• The Religious Practices and Beliefs of the Mayans

Medieval History Topics

• The Role of the Catholic Church in Medieval Europe
• The Impact of the Black Death on Medieval Society
• The Cultural Significance of the Knights Templar
• Gender Roles and Family Structure in Medieval Japan
• The Causes and Consequences of the Hundred Years War
• The Political Structure of the Byzantine Empire
• The Influence of the Carolingian Renaissance on Europe
• The Role of Vikings in European Trade and Exploration
• The Crusades: Causes, Events, and Consequences
• The Architecture and Symbolism of Gothic Cathedrals

Early Modern History Topics

• The Causes and Effects of the Protestant Reformation
• The Role of the Enlightenment in the French Revolution
• The Impact of the Scientific Revolution on European Society
• The Socioeconomic Consequences of the Industrial Revolution
• The Influence of the Ottoman Empire on Southeast Europe
• The Role of Slavery in the Colonial Economies
• The Politics and Culture of the Renaissance in Italy
• European Imperialism in Africa and Asia
• The Cultural and Political Impacts of the Mughal Empire
• The American Revolution: Causes, Events, and Legacy

Modern History Topics

• The Causes and Global Consequences of World War I
• The Great Depression: Causes and Effects
• The Role of Propaganda in World War II
• The Impact of the Cold War on International Relations
• The Civil Rights Movement in the United States
• The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the End of the Cold War
• The Effects of Decolonization in the 20th Century
• The Role of Women in the World Wars
• The Formation and Impact of the European Union
• The Causes and Consequences of the Arab Spring

Asian History Topics

• The Cultural Impact of the Silk Road in Asia
• The Effects of Colonial Rule in India
• The Legacy of the Mongol Empire in Asia
• The Cultural and Political Changes in China’s Cultural Revolution
• The Korean War: Causes, Events, and Consequences
• The Role of Samurai in Feudal Japan
• The Impact of the Opium Wars on China
• The Influence of Buddhism on Asian Cultures
• The Cambodian Genocide under the Khmer Rouge
• The Role of Gandhi in India’s Independence

American History Topics

• The Impact of the New Deal on the American Economy
• The Vietnam War: Causes, Events, and Legacy
• The Influence of the Beat Generation on American Culture
• The Role of Manifest Destiny in Westward Expansion
• The Cuban Missile Crisis and Its Effects on the Cold War
• The Women’s Suffrage Movement in the United States
• The Native American Civil Rights Movement
• The Role of the Transcontinental Railroad in American Expansion
• The Civil War: Causes, Events, and Aftermath
• The Immigration Wave at Ellis Island: Causes and Effects

European History Topics

• The Impacts of the Russian Revolution
• The Influence of Martin Luther’s Theses on Europe
• The British Empire: Rise, Dominance, and Fall
• The Role of Art in the French Revolution
• The Impact of the Spanish Inquisition on Spain and its Colonies
• The Rise and Influence of Fascism in Europe
• The Role of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages
• The Consequences of the Treaty of Versailles
• The Formation and Impact of NATO
• The Role of the Media in the Fall of the Berlin Wall

African History Topics

• The Effects of Apartheid in South Africa
• The Influence of the Trans-Saharan Trade on West African Societies
• The Role of Nelson Mandela in Ending Apartheid
• The Scramble for Africa and its Effects on the Continent
• The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on West Africa
• The Rwandan Genocide: Causes and Consequences
• The Role of the African Union in Continental Politics
• The Impact of Islam on North Africa
• The Decolonization of Africa in the 20th Century
• The Role of Women in Pre-Colonial African Societies

Military History Topics

• The Influence of Technological Innovations on Warfare
• The Role of the French Foreign Legion in Global Conflicts
• The Impact of the Manhattan Project on World War II and Beyond
• The Role of the Spartans in Ancient Greek Warfare
• The Impact of Drones on Modern Warfare
• The Influence of the English Longbow on Medieval Warfare
• The Role of the Maginot Line in World War II
• The Impact of Naval Power on the British Empire
• The Influence of Nuclear Weapons on International Politics
• The Role of Propaganda in World War I

This expansive list of best history research paper topics offers a comprehensive exploration of the past, crossing different eras, regions, and themes. They form a rich tapestry of human experience and a foundation for understanding our present and future. Choose a topic that piques your interest, ignites your curiosity, and promises a journey of intellectual discovery. Remember that the exploration of history is a journey into the roots of our shared humanity and an exploration of the forces that shape our world.

History and What Range of Best Research Paper Topics it Offers

As a subject of study, history is more than a chronological list of events, dates, and prominent figures. History is the exploration of human experiences, societal changes, political upheavals, cultural transformations, economic shifts, and technological advancements across different periods and regions. This exploration allows us to understand how the past has shaped our present and how it can potentially shape our future. It teaches us to appreciate the complexities and nuances of human nature and society, making history a rich field for research paper topics.

History is an interdisciplinary field, interweaving elements from various areas of study, including politics, sociology, economics, anthropology, geography, and literature. This interdisciplinary nature provides a wide array of best history research paper topics. Moreover, the global scope of history further broadens the pool of topics, as it encompasses every region of the world and every period from the dawn of human civilization to the present day.

Exploring Different Periods

Historical research often focuses on specific periods, each offering unique topics for exploration. For instance, Ancient History provides topics related to ancient civilizations like Rome, Greece, Egypt, China, and India, and key events such as Alexander the Great’s conquests or the fall of the Roman Empire.

The Medieval Period offers topics related to the socio-political structure of societies, the influence of religion, the impact of plagues, and the role of significant historical figures. Researching the Renaissance can focus on cultural, artistic, and scientific revolutions that have shaped the modern world.

The Modern History category contains topics related to significant events and transformations, such as world wars, the Great Depression, the Cold War, decolonization, and various national and international movements.

Geographical Perspectives

Geographical focus is another common approach in historical research. Asian history encompasses topics ranging from the influence of Confucianism in China to the impact of colonial rule in India. European history explores events such as the Enlightenment, the French and Russian revolutions, and the formation of the European Union. American history topics can cover everything from Manifest Destiny to the Civil Rights Movement. African history can delve into the effects of the Atlantic Slave Trade, the apartheid era, and decolonization.

Thematic Approaches

In addition to period- and region-based topics, history offers an extensive range of thematic topics. These themes often intersect with other disciplines, leading to exciting interdisciplinary research opportunities.

Social and cultural history, for instance, covers diverse topics such as the influence of the Harlem Renaissance on African American culture, the counterculture movement of the 1960s, the role of film and television in shaping societies, or the impacts of the Internet on global culture.

Military history provides a wide range of topics related to warfare, strategy, technological developments, and the influence of military conflicts on societies and politics. From the use of the English longbow in medieval warfare to the impact of drones on modern warfare, this field offers a variety of fascinating topics.

Making the Right Choice

The choice of a research paper topic in history should ideally be guided by your interest, the available resources, and the requirements of your assignment. With such a wide range of topics, it can be challenging to make a choice. But remember, a good history research paper topic is not just about the past; it should also engage with the present and potentially shed light on the future. The best research paper topics are those that not only delve deep into the annals of history but also resonate with current issues and debates.

The study of history is a gateway into the vast narrative of human civilization. With an extensive range of periods, regions, and themes to choose from, history offers a rich reservoir of research paper topics. As we delve into the past, we discover the forces that have shaped our world, gain insights into the human experience, and glean lessons for our future. This journey of exploration makes history an incredibly exciting field for research papers.

How to Choose Best History Research Paper Topics

Choosing the best history research paper topic can be the first step towards a rewarding intellectual journey. It’s not just about meeting academic requirements; it’s about uncovering facets of the past that intrigue you and may potentially contribute to the broader understanding of history. Here are twenty in-depth tips that will guide you through the process and help you select the best topic for your history research paper.

• Understand the Assignment: Understanding your assignment’s requirements is the primary and most critical step in selecting a topic. Take time to carefully read the guidelines given by your instructor. Are there any specific historical periods, geographical regions, or themes you are required to focus on? Do the instructions indicate the scope or complexity level of the topic? Comprehending the parameters set by your instructor will significantly narrow down your options.
• Choose a Time Period: One way to approach the topic selection is by focusing on a particular time period that sparks your interest. It could be anything from the Bronze Age, to the Renaissance, to World War II. The more interested you are in the chosen time period, the more engaged you will be in the research process.
• Pick a Region: Similar to choosing a time period, selecting a particular region or country can also help narrow down potential topics. Are you fascinated by the history of East Asia, intrigued by ancient Egypt, or drawn to the socio-political history of Europe? Starting with a geographic focus can provide a strong foundation for your research.
• Identify a Theme: In addition to or instead of a time period or region, you might want to choose a theme that you wish to explore. Themes can range from political history, cultural history, history of science and technology, to gender history, among others. A thematic approach can offer a unique perspective and can even allow you to cross over different time periods or regions.
• Conduct Preliminary Research: Even before you have a firm topic in hand, engage in some preliminary research. This could involve reviewing textbooks, scholarly articles, or reputable online resources related to your chosen period, region, or theme. Preliminary research can give you a general sense of the historical context and inspire potential topics.
• Seek Inspiration from Existing Works: As part of your preliminary research, look at other research papers, theses, or dissertations in your area of interest. This can give you a good idea of what has been done, what gaps exist in the research, and where your research could potentially fit in.
• Scope Your Topic: The scope of your topic should be proportionate to the length and depth of your paper. If your paper is relatively short, a narrow, focused topic would be more suitable. For a longer and more complex paper, a broader topic that explores multiple facets or perspectives would be more appropriate.
• Consider the Relevance: Another aspect to consider when selecting a topic is its relevance. Does the topic have any relation to the course you are undertaking? Does it reflect on current historical or social debates? A topic that connects your historical research to broader academic or social issues can make your paper more impactful and engaging.
• Look for Unique Angles: While not every research paper can revolutionize the field, striving for some degree of originality in your work is always a good practice. Look for unique angles, underexplored areas, or new perspectives on a well-trodden topic. Presenting a fresh approach can make your paper more interesting for both you and your readers.
• Assess the Availability of Sources: Your research paper is only as good as your sources. Before finalizing your topic, make sure there are enough primary and secondary sources available to you. This could be in the form of books, academic articles, documentary films, archives, databases, or digital resources.
• Evaluate the Feasibility: Beyond the availability of sources, consider other practical aspects of your chosen topic. Is it feasible to conduct the research within the given time frame? Is the topic too complex or too simplistic for your current academic level? A realistic evaluation of these factors at an early stage can save you a lot of time and effort down the line.
• Reflect on Your Interests: Above all, select a topic that genuinely piques your curiosity. A research paper is a significant undertaking, and your interest in the topic will sustain you through potential challenges. If you are passionate about the topic, it will reflect in your writing and make your paper more compelling.
• Solicit Feedback: Seek advice from your instructor, classmates, or any other knowledgeable individuals. They may be able to provide valuable feedback, point out potential pitfalls, or suggest different perspectives that can enrich your research.
• Be Flexible: Be prepared to tweak, adjust, or even overhaul your topic as you delve deeper into the research process. New information or insights may emerge that shift your focus or challenge your initial assumptions.
• Bridge the Past and Present: Try to find topics that allow you to connect historical events or phenomena with contemporary issues. This can provide additional depth to your paper and may also appeal to a broader audience.
• Consult Specialized Encyclopedias and Guides: These can provide overviews of various topics and can often suggest areas for research. They also offer bibliographies which can serve as a starting point for your research.
• Draft a Preliminary Thesis Statement: Once you have a potential topic, try drafting a preliminary thesis statement. This can help you focus your ideas and give you a clear direction for your research.
• Ensure Your Topic Meets the Assignment Goals: Check back with your assignment guidelines to make sure your chosen topic meets all the requirements. It’s a good idea to do this before you start your in-depth research.
• Be Ready to Invest Time and Effort: Choose a topic that you are ready to spend time on. Remember, you will be working on this topic for an extended period, so choose something that you find interesting and engaging.
• Enjoy the Process: Finally, remember that the process of researching and writing a history paper can be a source of enjoyment and intellectual satisfaction. Choose a topic that not only meets academic requirements but also gives you a sense of accomplishment and discovery.

Choosing the best history research paper topic is not merely about fulfilling an academic requirement. It’s about setting the stage for a journey into the past, an exploration of humanity’s collective memory. The right topic will not only make this journey enjoyable but also deeply enlightening. By considering these tips, you can select a topic that resonates with you and holds the potential for a meaningful scholarly contribution.

How to Write a Best History Research Paper

Writing a history research paper can be a rewarding experience, providing an opportunity to delve into the past and explore the events, ideas, and personalities that have shaped our world. However, crafting a high-quality paper requires more than just an interest in the subject matter. It involves thorough research, analytical thinking, and clear, persuasive writing. Here are twenty comprehensive tips on how to write a best history research paper.

• Understand the Assignment: Begin by thoroughly understanding the assignment. Ensure you grasp the requirements, the scope of the paper, the format, and the deadline. Clear any doubts with your professor or peers before you start.
• Select a Suitable Topic: As discussed earlier, choosing an appropriate topic is crucial. It should be engaging, manageable, and meet the assignment’s requirements. Consider your interests, the available resources, and the paper’s scope when choosing the topic.
• Conduct In-Depth Research: Once the topic is decided, embark on thorough research. Use a variety of sources, such as books, academic journals, credible online sources, primary sources, and documentaries. Remember to take notes and record the sources for citation purposes.
• Formulate a Thesis Statement: The thesis statement is the central argument or point of your paper. It should be clear, concise, and debatable, providing a roadmap for your entire paper. The thesis statement should guide your research and each main point you make in your paper should support this central idea.
• Create an Outline: An outline helps organize your thoughts and arguments. Typically, it should include an introduction (with the thesis statement), body paragraphs (with topic sentences), and a conclusion. Each point in your outline should be a reflection of your thesis statement.
• Start with a Strong Introduction: The introduction should be engaging, provide some background on the topic, and include the thesis statement. It sets the tone for the rest of your paper, so make it compelling and informative.
• Develop Body Paragraphs: Each body paragraph should focus on one main idea that supports your thesis. Begin with a topic sentence, provide evidence or arguments, and then conclude the paragraph by linking it back to your thesis. Be clear and concise in your arguments.
• Use Evidence Effectively: Support your arguments with evidence from your research. This could include quotations, statistics, or primary source materials. Remember to interpret the evidence and explain its relevance to your argument.
• Maintain a Logical Flow: The ideas in your paper should flow logically from one point to the next. Use transitional words and phrases to maintain continuity and help guide your reader through your paper.
• Write a Compelling Conclusion: Your conclusion should sum up your main points, restate the thesis in light of the evidence provided, and possibly offer areas for further research or a concluding insight. It should leave the reader with something to think about.
• Cite Your Sources: Always cite your sources properly. This not only gives credit where it’s due but also strengthens your argument by indicating the breadth of your research. Ensure you follow the required citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).
• Revise for Clarity and Coherence: After finishing your initial draft, revise your work. Check for clarity, coherence, and consistency of argument. Ensure each paragraph has a clear focus, and that the paragraphs flow smoothly from one idea to the next.
• Proofread: Proofread your paper for grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors. Such errors can distract from the content and undermine your credibility as a writer. Reading your paper aloud or having someone else read it can help catch errors you might have missed.
• Seek Feedback: Before finalizing your paper, consider seeking feedback from your professor, peers, or a writing center tutor. They can provide valuable perspectives and suggestions for improvement that you might not have considered.
• Write in a Formal Academic Style: Your paper should be written in a formal academic style. Avoid slang, colloquialisms, and overly complex language. Be clear, concise, and precise in your expression.
• Avoid Plagiarism: Plagiarism is a serious academic offense. Ensure that all ideas and words that are not your own are properly cited. When in doubt, it’s better to over-cite than to under-cite.
• Stay Objective: A good history paper is objective and does not include personal opinions or biases. It relies on facts and evidence, and presents balanced arguments. Stick to the evidence and avoid emotional language.
• Be Original: Strive for originality in your argument and interpretation. While your topic might not be entirely new, your perspective on it can be. Don’t be afraid to challenge established interpretations if you have evidence to support your argument.
• Use Primary Sources Wisely: Primary sources are invaluable in historical research. However, remember that they should be used to support your argument, not to construct it. Your analysis and interpretation of the sources are what matters.
• Enjoy the Process: Finally, remember to enjoy the process. Writing a research paper is not just an academic exercise, but a journey into the past. It’s a chance to learn, explore, and contribute to our understanding of history.

In conclusion, writing a best history research paper requires careful planning, thorough research, clear writing, and detailed revision. However, the process can be highly rewarding, leading to new insights and a deeper understanding of history. These tips provide a comprehensive guide to help you craft a top-notch history research paper. Remember, history is a continually evolving dialogue, and your paper is your chance to join the conversation.

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Stanford Prison Experiment Ethical Issues

This essay about the Stanford Prison Experiment scrutinizes the ethical dilemmas surrounding the study. It explores issues such as informed consent, researcher bias, and the decision not to intervene in the face of escalating harm. The summary emphasizes the blurred line between scientific inquiry and ethical misconduct, as well as the broader implications of the study’s findings. Ultimately, it underscores the importance of upholding ethical principles and prioritizing the well-being of participants in psychological research.

How it works

Delving into the annals of psychological research, one cannot bypass the notorious Stanford Prison Experiment, a venture orchestrated by the esteemed Dr. Philip Zimbardo in the early 1970s. Intended to unravel the intricate dynamics of power and authority within a simulated prison setting, the study instead unfurled a tapestry of ethical quandaries, inviting a probing analysis of the researcher’s obligations and the boundaries of scientific inquiry.

At the heart of the ethical maelstrom swirling around the Stanford Prison Experiment lies the issue of informed consent.

While participants willingly entered the realm of the study, they were not fully apprised of the potential psychological toll that awaited them. This omission shrouded the experiment in a cloak of ethical ambiguity, as individuals were unwittingly thrust into distressing circumstances without a complete understanding of the risks involved. The foundational principles of autonomy and respect for persons were thus undermined, casting a shadow over the ethical integrity of the study.

Moreover, the conduct exhibited by both guards and prisoners within the simulated prison environment raises profound ethical concerns. The blurring of boundaries between research and reality gave rise to a crucible of abuse and mistreatment, where participants endured humiliation, coercion, and even physical violence. The ethical compass of the experiment appeared to falter as the line between scientific inquiry and ethical transgression became increasingly blurred. The ramifications of subjecting individuals to such distressing conditions in the name of academic pursuit resonate far beyond the confines of the laboratory.

Central to the ethical discourse surrounding the Stanford Prison Experiment is the role of the researcher and the influence wielded therein. Dr. Zimbardo’s dual role as both the principal investigator and the overseer of the simulated prison bestowed upon him a mantle of authority that extended beyond the confines of academic inquiry. This imbalance of power raises questions about the potential for coercion and undue influence, as participants may have felt compelled to conform to the expectations set forth by the experimenter. The ethical fabric of the study thus becomes entangled in a web of researcher bias and influence, challenging the integrity of the findings and the validity of the conclusions drawn.

Furthermore, the decision not to intervene in the face of escalating harm and abuse among participants casts a pall over the ethical landscape of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Despite bearing witness to distressing acts of aggression and suffering, the researchers opted to prioritize the observation of natural behavior over the well-being of the individuals involved. This ethical calculus, or lack thereof, raises fundamental questions about the researcher’s duty to protect human subjects from harm and the ethical boundaries that delineate acceptable research practices from ethical transgression.

Additionally, the broader implications and generalizability of the study’s findings have come under scrutiny in the wake of ethical scrutiny. The highly artificial nature of the simulated prison environment raises doubts about the applicability of the results to real-world contexts, casting a shadow of doubt over the validity and relevance of the findings. The ethical imperative to conduct research that yields meaningful insights while safeguarding the well-being of participants is thus called into question, as the ethical complexities of the Stanford Prison Experiment continue to reverberate through the corridors of academic discourse.

In summation, the Stanford Prison Experiment serves as a cautionary tale about the ethical complexities inherent in psychological research involving human subjects. From issues of informed consent and researcher bias to the failure to intervene in the face of escalating harm, the study underscores the importance of upholding ethical principles and prioritizing the well-being of participants above all else. As scholars and practitioners, it is our responsibility to navigate these ethical waters with care and diligence, ensuring that our research practices uphold the dignity and rights of all individuals involved.

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Researchers detect a new molecule in space

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New research from the group of MIT Professor Brett McGuire has revealed the presence of a previously unknown molecule in space. The team's open-access paper, “ Rotational Spectrum and First Interstellar Detection of 2-Methoxyethanol Using ALMA Observations of NGC 6334I ,” appears in April 12 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters .

Zachary T.P. Fried , a graduate student in the McGuire group and the lead author of the publication, worked to assemble a puzzle comprised of pieces collected from across the globe, extending beyond MIT to France, Florida, Virginia, and Copenhagen, to achieve this exciting discovery. 

“Our group tries to understand what molecules are present in regions of space where stars and solar systems will eventually take shape,” explains Fried. “This allows us to piece together how chemistry evolves alongside the process of star and planet formation. We do this by looking at the rotational spectra of molecules, the unique patterns of light they give off as they tumble end-over-end in space. These patterns are fingerprints (barcodes) for molecules. To detect new molecules in space, we first must have an idea of what molecule we want to look for, then we can record its spectrum in the lab here on Earth, and then finally we look for that spectrum in space using telescopes.”

Searching for molecules in space

The McGuire Group has recently begun to utilize machine learning to suggest good target molecules to search for. In 2023, one of these machine learning models suggested the researchers target a molecule known as 2-methoxyethanol. 

“There are a number of 'methoxy' molecules in space, like dimethyl ether, methoxymethanol, ethyl methyl ether, and methyl formate, but 2-methoxyethanol would be the largest and most complex ever seen,” says Fried. To detect this molecule using radiotelescope observations, the group first needed to measure and analyze its rotational spectrum on Earth. The researchers combined experiments from the University of Lille (Lille, France), the New College of Florida (Sarasota, Florida), and the McGuire lab at MIT to measure this spectrum over a broadband region of frequencies ranging from the microwave to sub-millimeter wave regimes (approximately 8 to 500 gigahertz). 

The data gleaned from these measurements permitted a search for the molecule using Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations toward two separate star-forming regions: NGC 6334I and IRAS 16293-2422B. Members of the McGuire group analyzed these telescope observations alongside researchers at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (Charlottesville, Virginia) and the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. 

“Ultimately, we observed 25 rotational lines of 2-methoxyethanol that lined up with the molecular signal observed toward NGC 6334I (the barcode matched!), thus resulting in a secure detection of 2-methoxyethanol in this source,” says Fried. “This allowed us to then derive physical parameters of the molecule toward NGC 6334I, such as its abundance and excitation temperature. It also enabled an investigation of the possible chemical formation pathways from known interstellar precursors.”

Looking forward

Molecular discoveries like this one help the researchers to better understand the development of molecular complexity in space during the star formation process. 2-methoxyethanol, which contains 13 atoms, is quite large for interstellar standards — as of 2021, only six species larger than 13 atoms were detected outside the solar system , many by McGuire’s group, and all of them existing as ringed structures.  

“Continued observations of large molecules and subsequent derivations of their abundances allows us to advance our knowledge of how efficiently large molecules can form and by which specific reactions they may be produced,” says Fried. “Additionally, since we detected this molecule in NGC 6334I but not in IRAS 16293-2422B, we were presented with a unique opportunity to look into how the differing physical conditions of these two sources may be affecting the chemistry that can occur.”

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MIT researchers have “discovered hitherto unknown space molecule while investigating a relatively nearby region of intense star birth,” reports Robert Lea for Space.com . This discovery “revealed the presence of a complex molecule known as 2-methoxyethanol, which had never been seen before in the natural world, though its properties had been simulated in labs on Earth,” writes Lea.

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• Published: 25 April 2024

The research trends and future prospects of nanomaterials in breast cancer

• Yue Li 1 , 3 ,
• Xiaoqing Li 1 , 2 ,
• Aoqun Li 1 , 2 ,
• Jingyan Zhu 1 , 2 ,
• Zhenhua Lin 1 , 2 &
• Yang Yang 1 , 2  

Cancer Nanotechnology volume  15 , Article number:  24 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Breast cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related deaths among women globally and the most deadly illness for them. New advances in nanotechnology have led to the development of strategies intended to target breast cancer cells more precisely while causing the least amount of damage to healthy cells. We retrieved articles about nanomaterials for the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) database between 2008 and 2023. Our research aims to assess publications on the use of nanomaterials for breast cancer treatment and diagnosis to predict future research directions.

A total of 457 papers on nanomaterials in breast cancer were discovered from various nations, with China being the primary source and the United States having the highest H index. The number of papers in this discipline is increasing on an annual basis. The Egyptian Knowledge Bank is an important research center in this sector. The International Journal of Nanomedicine has the most papers, and Kesharwani P is the most frequently referenced author. The most quoted article was written by Miele, Evelina of India in 2009. Topics such as drug delivery may be emerging areas of research.

Our findings predict that the use of nanomaterials in medication delivery will become a significant research area in the future, and provide valuable references for scholars investigating the role of nanotechnology in breast cancer.

Introduction

Breast cancer is the most common malignant tumor among women, with the highest incidence rate (Thomas et al. 2024 ; Siegel et al. 2023 ). According to the GLOBACON database, there were 22,968,840 new cases and 666,103 deaths of breast cancer between 2022 and 2024 (8th February). Early diagnosis of breast cancer is challenging due to the limited sensitivity of existing methods in detecting small lesions (Ha et al. 2018 ). Various therapeutic modalities have been used to treat breast cancer, including the combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy to inhibit tumor progression and recurrence. However, the low therapeutic efficacy of these drugs is due to their poor target and affinity (Liu et al. 2023 ; Zhang et al. 2022 ). Therefore, new and effective methods for diagnosing and treating breast cancer are needed.

Nanoparticles can interact with a variety of organelles and biomolecules and range in size from 1 to 100 nm (Nikalje 2015 ). These properties make them suitable for various applications, from chemical reactions to biomedicine (Mujahid et al. 2022 ). Quantum dots (QDs) and gold nanoparticles are used at the molecular level for cancer diagnosis (Kher and Kumar 2022 ). Molecular diagnostic techniques based on nanoparticles can be used for biomarker discovery and rapid tumor diagnosis (Yan et al. 2019 ). The rapid growth of tumors results in the epidermal cell gap of intra-tumor blood vessels being larger than that of normal blood vessels, and the lack of a lymphatic system within the tumor makes it easy for nanoparticles to “leak” into the tumor from the gap in the tumor blood vessels and accumulate in the tumor. Some investigations have shown that nanomaterials can be targeted against the endothelial cells of tumor blood vessels, releasing anti-angiogenic medicines, successfully suppressing tumor blood vessel growth and reducing the oxygen supply. (Chakraborty et al. 2019 ). The high surface-to-volume ratio of magnetic nanoparticles allows them to assemble with biomolecules or residues, which can enhance the specificity of chemical drug complexes in targeted therapy (Moloudi et al. 2023 ; Londhe et al. 2023 ). In addition, nanotechnology-enhanced photodynamic therapy and immunotherapy are emerging as exciting cancer therapeutic methods with significant potential for improving patient outcomes (Jia et al. 2023 ). The addition of nanomaterials enhances the responsive release, depth of tissue penetration and precise targeting of phototherapy, enabling precise treatment of specific cancer tissues and cells through photodynamic therapy, photothermal therapy and combination therapy (Mosleh-Shirazi et al. 2022 ). Some studies have indicated that immune checkpoint blockade therapy does not become noticeably more effective when drugs are delivered using nanoparticles. On the other hand, when paired with chemotherapy and other treatments, nanoparticles can enhance anti-cancer immune responses as well as improve medication transport and usage efficiency. However, no bibliometric analysis has been published on the use of nanomaterials in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.

Hence, this study aims to analyze the use of nanoparticles in breast cancer therapy through quantitative methods. Scientometric analyses aid academics in comprehending the effectiveness of nanomaterials in treating breast cancer, familiarising themselves with published research results, and understanding collaborations and links between countries, institutions, and authors. Additionally, we objectively reveal the current status and future directions of nanotechnology in breast cancer; review current research hotspots; and anticipate research trends and future prospects in this field.

Browse and search

Web of Science is a crucial database for accessing global academic information (Pei et al. 2022 ). It can rapidly identify high-impact papers, reveal research directions that domestic and foreign authorities focus on, and expose the trend of subject development (Wang and Maniruzzaman 2022 ). A search was conducted in the WOSCC database for literature related to the use of nanomaterials in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment from 1 January 2008 to 31 December 2023. The search formula used was as follows: TS = (“nanostructured materials” OR “nanomaterials” OR “nanotechnology”) AND TS = (“breast” OR “breast cancer”) AND TS = (“treatment” OR “diagnosis” OR “cure” OR “therapy”).

Screening procedures

The inclusion criteria are as follows: (1) the full text of the available papers focused on the diagnosis and treatment of nanomaterials in breast cancer; (2) the papers were written in English; (3) only articles and reviews were permitted; (4) the papers were sourced from the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E) databases; and (5) the timeframe was from 2008 to 2023. The study’s inclusion criteria were as follows: The following criteria were excluded: (1) This paper will focus on nanomaterials that are not related to breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. (2) This study will consider all types of publications, including reports, theses, and conference abstracts.

Data analytics

The publications and citations were exported as plain text for bibliometric analysis and visualization. VOSviewer (version 1.6.19) and CiteSpace (version 6.2) were used to create visualizations. Line graphs were generated using GraphPad Prism (version 9.5.1) to display the number of publications, citations, and h-index per year. To analyze the most prolific/collaborative countries, institutions, authors, co-cited journals, and co-occurring keywords, VOSviewer was used.

CiteSpace can be used to construct keyword timeline charts and keyword bursts. The visualization chart displays dots representing countries, institutions, authors, or journals, which are clustered into different groups based on their collaboration (Liu et al. 2022 ). The size of the dots corresponds to the number of publications. The thickness of the lines connecting the nodes represents the link strength (LS) and reflects the strength of collaboration between them (Xia et al. 2022 ). The Total Link Strength (TLS) metric measures the level of collaboration between nodes (Jin et al. 2023 ). We improved the keyword analysis by excluding irrelevant keywords and merging those with similar meanings to provide a better perspective. The graph generated by CiteSpace shows significant and reasonable clustering, with a modularity value greater than 0.3 and an average silhouette value greater than 0.7.

Selection and characterization of literature

A search for keywords related to breast cancer and nanomaterials in the Web of Science database retrieved a total of 463 papers. In the first stage of selection, 6 articles were excluded due to type restriction. Next, we screened 457 publications published during the decade from 2008 to 2023 to do the study (Fig.  1 ). The results show an overall increasing trend in the number of annual publications (Fig.  2 A), indicating an increased interest in the field of breast cancer and its treatment and nanomaterials. The number of publications peaked in 2022 with 72 publications, which accounted for 16.74% of the total publications (Fig.  2 B). The year with the highest number of citations was 2020, with a total of 1269 citations (Fig.  2 C). The number of publications has steadily increased from 2008 to 2024. The annual H-index increased from 2 in 2008 to 20 in 2020 (Fig.  2 D).

Flowchart of the literature screening proces

Publication trends in breast cancer and nanomaterials research. A . The number of the publications; B .The number of cumulative publications; 15-year publication rate with an exponential trend line, 2008 to 2023. C . The total citations of the publications; D . The H‑index values of the publications

Country/region and institutional analysis of publications

VOSviewer analysis shows that a total of 59 countries/regions have cooperated in this area (Fig.  3 A, B ). India had the most robust international cooperation network (TLS = 84) and cooperated most closely with Saudi Arabia (TLS = 65). The country with the highest centrality is Iran (0.53), followed by USA (0.34) and India (0.32). The USA (5.9) has the highest burst strength next to Spain (2.85) and South Korea (2.42). Next, we analyzed the top 10 productive countries/regions in terms of number of publications, total citations, and H-index. China published the most papers (109, 22.61%), followed by India (85, 18.53%) and USA (79, 40.14%). In addition, the USA has the highest number of citations (3171) and the highest H-index (30).

Diagram of the Nanomaterials and Breast Cancer Collaboration Network. A-B . The coauthorship network map of countries; C-D . The coauthorship network map of authors; E . The coauthorship network map of institutions; F . The cocitation network map of journals

The institutional collaboration network diagram is shown in Fig.  3 E, which contains 99 institutions. Jamia Hamdard has the strongest total connectivity strength (TLS = 51). Statistically, the institution with the highest centrality is the Egyptian Knowledge Bank (EKB) (0.14) followed by Islamiv Azda University (IAU) (0.07). Table 1 shows the top 10 most productive institutions. The highest number of published papers was from EKB (20), next to IAU (16). EKB had the highest total number of citations (393) and the highest h-index (10).

Analyzing the authors of publications

The network of inter-authors and collaborative relationships is shown in Fig.  3 C, D . In this study, we examined the top ten contributors in terms of posting volume. Kesharwani P (TLS = 60) works most closely with other authors. The highest number of posts is Kesharwani P (11, 25.09%), followed by Chorilli M (7, 5.71%). Kesharwani P has not only the highest number of citations (276), but also has the highest H-index (9).

Analysis of the publication journal

For this study, we selected the top ten most productive journals from the communication network diagram (Fig.  3 F, Table  2 ). The most partnerships with other journals are the Biomaterials (TLS = 108,995). The top three journals with the most published research in the field are the International Journal of Nanomedicine , the Journal of Controlled Release , and the Journal of Drug Delivery Science and Technology . The most cited is the International Journal of Nanomedicine , which has the highest H-index. Furthermore, the Impact Factor (IF) of journal is a crucial parameter for assessing its worth and that of its published works. Journal of Controlled Release has the highest IF (10.8) and JCR category (Q1).

Analysis of the most cited articles

The nanomaterials analyzed in the most cited publications of each year during the study period are shown in Fig.  4 (Karathanasis et al. 2008 ; Eghtedari et al. 2009 ; Chen et al. 2010 ; Deng et al. 2011 ; Dreaden et al. 2012 ; You et al. 2013 ; Lee et al. 2014 ; Gurunathan et al. 2015 ; Kumar et al. 2017 ; Mu et al. 2017 ; Zhang et al. 2018 ; Gao et al. 2019 ; Wang et al. 2020 ; Dubey et al. 2021 ; Fatima et al. 2022 ; Ashrafizadeh et al. 2023 ). Gold nanoparticles were commonly used in these studies. Table 3 shows the top 10 most cited articles as of 18 November 2023, along with the information associated with them, which we will examine in the next section. Four of the ten studies are from the USA, two are from India, and the remaining four are from Singapore, China, South Korea, and Italy. The study titled “Albumin-bound formulation of paclitaxel (Abraxane ® ABI-007) in the treatment of breast cancer” by Miele E, published in the International Journal of Nanomedicine in Italy in 2009, which was cited 652 times, making it the most cited publication in the field. (Miele et al. 2009 ).

The timeline of nanomaterials and breast cancer research

For the study of keywords and research hotspots

In a paper, keywords can help us get the topic and theme of the research more accurately and quickly (Tang et al. 2023 ). The division of all keywords into six clusters in Fig.  5 A. As shown in Fig.  5 B, terms in purple indicate that their average publication year is in 2018 and earlier, while terms in bright yellow indicate that their average publication year is after 2021. “quantum dots”, “resistance” and “therapeutics” were the main focus in the early days. Keywords such as “immunotherapy”, “nanomaterials” and “anticancer activity” will not start to attract widespread attention until after 2021. The largest clusters are in red and include keywords like “diagnosis” and “metastasis” in breast cancer. The second cluster is in purple and contains keywords such as “nanotechnology”, “nanoparticles” and “cells”. The third cluster is in yellow and includes keywords such as “drug delivery”, “in vitro” and “co-delivery”. The fourth cluster, in blue, contains keywords like “doxorubicin”, “apoptosis” and “gold nanoparticles”. The fifth cluster in pink contains the keywords “delivery” and “immunotherapy”.

Keyword analysis of research hotspots. A-B . The network A and overlay B of keyword co-occurring; C . The timeline map of keyword co-occurring; D . The Top 25 keywords with the strongest citation bursts

In addition, we have used CiteSpace to analyze the similarities and differences in the keywords over time. Until 2014, the main areas of research were breast cancer, metastasis, antitumor therapy, anti-tumour agents and chemotherapy. Breast cancer, photodynamic therapy, resistance and gold nanoparticles continue to be topics of high interest in 2023. The strength of the keyword bursts is another important indicator of the frontiers and hotspots of the study over time. The top ten keywords with the highest outbreak values are iron oxide nanoparticles (5.47), nanotechnology (3.62), quantum dots (3.5), metastatic breast cancer (3.44), transmission electron microscopy (3.2), reactive oxygen species (3.11), scanning electron microscopy (3,04), metastasis (3.04), chemotherapy (2.85), gold nanoparticles (2.84).

In recent years, there has been a surge in the bibliometric analysis of articles across various fields (Tang et al. 2023 ). Tools such as CiteSpace and the VOSviewer enable raw data visualization, offering comprehensive and intuitive data representation (Zhou et al. 2020 ). Our findings demonstrate an overall increased trend in the number of annual publications in the discipline. 2020 was the most significant year in the field, with the most citations and the highest H-index.

China leads in the number of publications per nation with 109 publications, accounting for 25.35% of the total. It also has the highest number of international partnerships, publications, and citations, as well as the highest h-index. China has a large population base and a large number of researchers and institutions in related fields, resulting in higher literature production. In particular, the efficacy of nanomedicines in breast cancer has been a hot topic of research in recent years. The International Journal of Nanomedicine , Journal of Controlled Release , and Journal of Drug Delivery Science and Technology are widely regarded as the most influential publications in this field. International Journal of Nanomedicine has the highest number of published papers, the highest h-index, the highest number of citations and the highest average number of citations of the papers, while Biomaterials has the highest JCR category and IF.

Subsequently, we found that one of the most cited papers used nanocarriers to improve the solubility of paclitaxel in water to increase the solubility and stability of the drug, thereby enhancing its efficacy against breast cancer. Furthermore, we have mapped the mechanism of nanomedicine therapy for breast cancer based on this article (Fig.  6 ). The study points to the development of so-called “third generation” nanocarriers and is based on a multi-stage strategy that addressing all the possible therapies in a more specific manner. The article states that human serum albumin stabilizes the drug particle at an average size of 130 nm (Stinchcombe 2007 ). This prevents any risk of capillary obstruction and eliminates the need for any particular infusion systems or steroid/antihistamine premedication before the infusion (Okuyama et al. 2021 ). Preclinical studies have shown that Abraxane® ABI-007 has higher tumor cell penetration and anti-tumor activity compared to equivalent doses of standard paclitaxel (Miele et al. 2009 ). The most highly cited article published in 2023 focuses on the therapeutic effects of Superparamagnetic Iron-Oxide Nanoparticles (SPIONs) on breast cancer (Dongsar et al. 2023 ). Controlled drug release from SPIONs can also aid in overcoming non-specific targeting and reducing the need for large therapeutic doses. This is because drug-loaded SPIONs can specifically target certain cells, tissues, or organs, minimizing damage to healthy tissues and improving therapeutic efficacy. (Fakayode et al. 2018 ). Hoekman et al. demonstrated that liposomes have a stable and robust closed membrane that can carry hydrophilic small molecule drugs, as well as protein, RNA, and DNA drugs within aqueous chambers. This membrane protects the drugs from plasma scavenging and degrading enzymes, prolonging their retention time in the circulation of the body (Xinchen et al. 2023 ). Overall, by increasing treatment efficacy and lowering harmful side effects, nanocarriers can be a useful drug delivery method.

Mechanistic map of nanochemical combination therapy in breast cancer (represented by the combination of paclitaxel and nanomaterials)

Moreover, keyword analysis has reviewed the development of nanomaterials in breast cancer. Before 2018, the main focus of research was still on the mechanisms of treatment resistance in people with breast cancer. Loading curcumin into solid lipid nanoparticles promotes the Bax/Bcl-2 ratio but reduces the expression of the cell cycle proteins CyclinD1 and cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4), which in turn improves the therapeutic outcome of breast cancer (Mitra and Dash 2018 ). It shows that research on nanomaterials and breast cancer was at a more macroscopic and superficial stage. In the medium term (2018–2021), the research focus gradually expands to the level of magnetic nanoparticles and gold nanoparticles, which have important applications in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Magnetic nanoparticles can be used in magnetic resonance imaging to help doctors diagnose tumors more accurately (Boosz et al. 2021 ). On the other hand, gold nanoparticles as the drug carriers can be used to deliver drugs precisely to the tumor site, improving therapeutic effects and reducing side effects (Javan Nikkhah and Thompson 2021 ). From here, the significance of nanomaterials in detecting and treating breast cancer will become clearer. Nanomaterials will play an important role in the immunotherapy of breast cancer between 2021 and 2024. They can act as carriers for immunomodulators or anticancer drugs, which contribute to increasing the concentration of the drug locally and reducing damage to healthy tissue (Vincenzo et al. 2023 ). Furthermore, nanomaterials can be designed the specific immunogenic properties that activate the immune system to identify and attack breast cancer cells. Tailored Nano-immunotherapy is expected to enhance therapeutic efficacy and decrease adverse effects in patients with breast cancer.

While there is no denying the importance that nanomaterials play in the detection and management of breast cancer, we think that there are still certain limitations to them. The selectivity and specificity of nanomaterials might have negative effects on cells other than cancer. The usefulness of nanomaterials in therapy and diagnosis may be impacted by their unknown biodistribution and metabolic pathways in vivo (Park et al. 2017 ). At the same time, not all nanomaterials can be effectively translated into clinical applications, and the process of translating nanomaterials into clinical applications involves extensive clinical trials that demand time and money (Shirwaiker et al. 2013 ). Additionally, there is still some literature that was not included, such as grey literature and relevant literature that was not included in the WoSCC database. Some recently published articles may receive more citations in the future, which may have led to the exclusion of some high-quality studies from this analysis. And the number of citations does not fully reflect the importance of an article, as some important articles may have few citations and self-citations may introduce bias (Brown et al. 2021 ).

The findings indicate that the number of publications on this subject increased significantly starting in 2015, with China and the USA exhibiting the highest productivity levels. In the treatment of breast cancer, nanomedicines have demonstrated improved drug uptake and retention, resulting in more effective targeting of the tumor tissue and reduced systemic toxicity. The treatment of metastatic breast cancer may benefit greatly from the use of multifunctional nanotherapeutic medications. Nanotechnology holds the significant potential in improving drug transport, releasing, and targeting, which could lead to higher treatment efficacy and fewer side effects. Targeting nanomaterial-based drugs could have a beneficial effect on breast cancer patients and could be a milestone in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.

Availability of data and materials

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this article and additional data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Web of science core collection

Quantum dots

Social science citation index

Science citation index expanded

Link strength

The total link strength

Egyptian knowledge bank

Islamiv Azda University

Albumin-bound formulation of paclitaxel

Superparamagnetic iron-oxide nanoparticles

Cyclin-dependent kinase 4

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Acknowledgements

We thank Professor Zhenhua Lin [Key Laboratory of Pathobiology (Yanbian University), State Ethnic Affairs Commission] for revising this manuscript.

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.82160552), the National Natural Science Foundation of Jilin Province (YDZJ202201ZYTS245).

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LY and LXQ performed the literature search and collected the data. LY performed the statistical analysis and wrote the manuscript, and prepared Figs.  1 , 2 , 3 . LAQ and ZJY prepared Figs.  4 , 5 . LZH revised the manuscript. LY and YY designed the study and conceived and revised the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the final manuscript.

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Li, Y., Li, X., Li, A. et al. The research trends and future prospects of nanomaterials in breast cancer. Cancer Nano 15 , 24 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12645-024-00261-7

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