Reseach Paper Season

Amber Perry, Desk Writer
April 20, 2012
Filed under Student Life, Top Stories

It’s that time of the year again, that time that every student dreads. Research papers, anyone? We go through the process every year and put our skilled procrastination into play. When the student actually gets around to writing, he sits in front of a blank screen, waiting for a word, fragment, or sentence to pop into his head, but writer’s block has him. A depressing, doomed sensation overcomes any type of hope on writing a successful paper.

Usually there are standards involved with writing a research paper. It has to have this, this, and this. It has to be persuasive or argumentative. It’s all part of the game and the game is long, boring, and hard.

Junior Mark Outlaw was given a choice in subject matter but he says that, “I don’t like choosing the topic because I can’t figure out one but I am looking at writing about the immorality of zoos.” It’s understandable that students can’t handle the freedom. They are used to teachers just dishing out assignments with every restriction and standard attached.

Some teachers don’t give as much leniency. Taylor Lunde, a junior, says that, “The hardest part about my research paper is writing it on a book. She made us choose from five questions and using the book, we answer the chosen one. Mine’s on Gatsby and how he represents the American dream.”

Lupita Brito, also a junior, must write a research paper related to The Great Gatsby. “I’m writing about 1920’s flappers. The worst part about it is that there aren’t many books on it therefore it’s harder to get information.” Bad thing about writing something you enjoy is the possibility of having a small amount of scholarly information and research on the topic. If the source is scant, the student must turn her back on the dead end and ponder on a new subject.

The researching, the citing, the actual writing- all of it isn’t fun to do unless you’re psychotic. But teachers must prove to themselves and maybe to you, that in some way, you can take what you learned in class and apply to a giant research paper at the end of the year.

Good luck in writing them.