| How To Choose A Term Paper Topic |
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| Choosing a term paper topic is an important process – it can mean the difference between a passing and failing grade for a course. You must choose a topic that is interesting and relevant to the material, but also one that you will be able to find information on and form into something intelligent and well-researched. |
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| Especially for college papers, teachers expect a high level of planning and organization – so don’t leave everything until the last minute and hope for the best. A good college term paper takes a lot of hard work. You might be tempted to search for custom term papers online, where you give the company your topic and credit card number, and they write you a customized paper on the topic you’ve chosen. This won’t work – it’s simple to check for plagiarizing with online software, and most sites recycle the same papers even though they tell you otherwise. Your teacher can usually tell the difference between your writing and that of a paid professional, and even if not, it’s not worth it to risk your future at college to save a few hours of work. The next time you need to write a term paper you’ll be totally unprepared, and probably broke if your solution is to purchase one each assignment! By following a few basic steps while choosing a topic, you can make the writing process much smoother. |
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| 1. Choose a topic. You might have been given a topic, or you may have the freedom to choose anything related to the course material. Pick an interesting topic and avoid one that is too specific or that you have difficulty understanding. |
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| 2. Start your research. Use books, periodicals, the Internet, and any other place you can think of with information that will be useful to you. Be careful when doing online research that it is accurate and unbiased – many websites state someone’s opinion or lack credibility. |
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| 3. Choose your thesis. Your thesis is the main idea of your essay, which your body paragraphs are centered around. Your thesis sentence comes at the end of your introduction and states the main idea followed by the point you are trying to make in the essay. |
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| 4. Brainstorm. Use pencil so that you can erase or rearrange information later. Write a list of key points, draw a diagram, or anything else that enables you to organize your information. Divide your outline into sections: introduction, number of body paragraphs, and conclusion. Have a main point for each of the body paragraphs, followed by a few sub-points that support the information. |
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| 5. Start the rough draft. Use your outline to start writing a tentative version of your paper. Remember to include sources for any information you use. |
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| 6. Read and revise. Read your rough draft and revise anything that doesn’t make sense or isn’t relevant to your paper. Ensure that you have a clear thesis, logical arguments and points in each paragraph. Correct any spelling and grammatical errors. |
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Sources: www.webster.commnet.edu/apa/
www.aresearchguide.com/1steps.html#step |
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