Forget Anxiety Attacks: How To Write A Research Paper - New Series?

Having had the opportunity of being an educator for almost thirty years, and involved in education for more than 36 years. During that time I have taught younger students, teens, college preparatory and most recently college and university aged students. For me, it was a constant struggle keeping educational activities fun, interactive and rewarding for each student. As my lessons focused on older students, making the gradual leap from young to older, I noticed a common concern that each generation of kids became panic stricken by: how to write a research paper.

Initially, I thought nothing of the response I received when asking for nonfiction essays to be completed. At first, I simply defined the usual groaning as a student's opposition of my love for take home work. But, what I was dismissing and defining as being disgruntled, actually had much more depth; these groaners were sometimes downright overwhelmed when they heard of an assigned "research paper".

Worry about the something different, being buried in dusty books, and not having a clue how to brainstorm research paper ideas was frequent. college-age students envisioning a brick wall to climb, because they didn't know how to write a research paper, rarely truly believed me that in life's big picture, completing a dissertation, even one that was longer than they were accustomed to, was barely a grain of sand on a beach, compared to much more significant, life impacting events they'd eventually face as mature adults. Those ideas fell on a non-responsive audience usually.

Unable to look towards the larger arena or the long term, their immediate challenge was a looming turn-in date that could only be met by participating in an enterprise they weren't interested in, that conflicted with their social life or that made them uneasy facing unexplored territory: how to write a research paper, and do it right - not just to pass or fail, but score the grades that institutions of higher learning, hold in high importance.

When I first began teaching at the college level I planned to give a full term assignment to write a research paper on a(n) subject of every individual's most passionate hobby.

Our department head warned me that this would cause me many headaches. He said that even at a university level, simply hearing that you have to write a research paper usually sent many students into a downward spiral.

Determined, I ignored his advice and ventured into research paper purgatory. The first session of the term I handed out the syllabus for the class. This included the title of the selected text, the dates of the tests and the requirement that everyone would write a research paper.

I explained that the tests as well as the participation in classroom discussions would be 66% of the semester grade and the research paper would be the other 33%. I handed out schedules and due dates for the dissertation. I wanted the focus they chose as well as a rough briefing completed in the first 14 days and then various updates on progress throughout the term.

My plan and execution of my set calendar dates "forced" the paper to be done in small increments, rather than the typical giant one, when many students, kids or adults, sit down the night before and try to accomplish a mammoth amount worth of work in one sitting. Unnecessary worry and anxiety in my mind. And with the basics of how to effectively write a research paper tackled in small manageable pieces throughout the class, semester or year depending on curriculum and / or school, initial terror about even the most simple undertaking, research paper ideas, seemed less and less a big deal.

Whether narrowing down a long catalog of paragraphs formatted neat and succinctly summarizing research paper ideas, writing each necessary component, keeping each research paper properly formatted for an instructor who was known to be extremely precise about such particulars, or pacing themselves to guarantee paper completion by the turn-in date, when deconstructed into smaller pieces, how to write a research paper concerns slowly, but surely go away. Stay tuned for the next article: Research Paper Ideas, the Easy Way - And avoiding the panic.