Research Paper Topics for Students in India -

You will probably have to write a ton of research papers in college. So, it is important to learn and understand how to refine your search for a topic. However, more often than not, you may find that not all the topics you are interested in are easy to write about. It may also be the case that the topic you pick does not have enough research material on it for you to use. In a way, this could mean that your topic is somewhat untapped, as it were. At the same time, however, it makes your life a little bit harder. So before I begin with giving you a few research topic ideas, let’s look at some overarching tips that could help you during the whole process.

Overarching Guidelines

Think Broad Then Narrow

The first step is always the hardest. You may either feel overwhelmed or absolutely dejected in terms of options. One thing that helps is to start thinking broadly about what interests you. For example, when I was in my fourth year of college I had to write a thesis. I was interested in irrationality, and I arrived at this broad concept through mere observation of daily life around me. From there, I slowly broke down my topic and found the key issues that needed to be addressed. Not until I had finished my thesis, at the end of the year, did I actually give my project a concrete title.

Begin with what you like thinking about by asking yourself what intrigues you. Of course, write these ideas down. Maybe you’re interested in food and psychology, or business and philosophy, it could literally be anything. Don’t, at first, denounce any thoughts. You’d be surprised at how many interesting research papers result from mere musings.

So, once you’ve gotten a good number of thoughts down on paper, begin to analyze each one. You want to look for a problem, or an inconsistency, within these topics that you would like to talk about. Look to see if your topic is controversial, and if it is, think about what position your paper will take.

Check for Resources

Now that you’ve narrowed it down to maybe one or two topics, and you’ve broken those topics down as well, start reading some literature. Look for what has already been said about what you’re interested in. In other words, do some quick research to see whether your topic has been written about substantially, and not on blogs or websites. You should look for journal articles, books, and other published papers. One of the ways that I found a lot of my sources was through The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. I started with reading the actual webpage to get a general idea of the discussion and then checked where Stanford got its information from. Those are the references I followed up with and ended up using a ton in my thesis.

Please do find reputable sources, preferably primary sources. So, you can start with a basic google search. But once you figure out who in the field is reputable and worth reading, start digging deeper.

You should also make sure to also read some literature on what is said against your tentative position. You need to know what you’re up against, and this will only make your paper stronger. It may also help bring out issues that you might have previously over looked.

Find and Use Library References

Once you have chosen your topic, looked at references from the internet, go digging into your school’s library database. As a student, you should be able to get any book, periodical, paper, article, or journal that you need for your paper. This is also a great time to make use of the people around you. Talk to your professors, ask the librarian for help, bounce ideas off of your friends, and so forth.

Cite as You Go

I think that this step is super important. By the end of the process, you should have a fair amount of sources. Scanning through your paper from start to end, especially if it’s a long one, and attempting to remember what source you used where is just a headache. Needless to say, you will end up wasting more time this way.

The best way to cite a source is to cite it the second you use it. Do it right then, even if it isn’t in the accurate format needed. You can always come back to fix the citation format. But you must at least put in a preliminary citation at the time of use. If you’re using a direct quote, put in the page number immediately.

Just Start Writing

I fail to take my own advice on this quite often. If you’re anything like me, you probably obsess about your first paragraph, thinking that it has to be perfect right away. Or at least close to perfect, well written perhaps. Usually, this ends up in frustration and lost time. Just start writing. Good writing is in editing, no first draft is ever going to be as good as you want it to be. Or at least mine wasn’t.

You should ideally write the final version of your introduction last. Your introduction sets the pace for your whole paper or thesis. There is no way you could possibly know the exact flow your paper will take at the very start. I always write a temporary introduction just to help clear my thoughts and set a tentative outline. More often than not, I go back after I’ve written my conclusion and either tweak or completely change my introduction.

Edit, Edit, Edit…

Leave plenty of time for editing. I’ll say it again, good writing is in editing. I find editing to be the most fun part actually. But it is important that you spend time reviewing your paper, checking for grammatical errors, citations, and of course, the overall flow. Is your argument clear? Are you rambling in some parts? Could you make your conclusion stronger? If so, how? Have you backed up all your claims? Have you made sure to address opposing points of view? How well have you refuted other arguments?

You must edit. For shorter papers, I always left a full day for editing. So I would finish a paper, sleep on it, and edit the next day with a fresh mind. Truly, my papers improved significantly once I started making a habit out of this.