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I have had the chance of being a teacher for almost three decades, and involved in pedagogy for more than 3 decades. During that time I have taught younger students, teens, college prep 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 classes focused on older students, making the gradual metamorphosis from young to older, I noticed a constant 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 dislike of my love for homework. But, what I was dismissing and defining as being disgruntled, actually had much more significance; these students were sometimes downright unnerved when they heard of an assigned "research paper".

Worry about the something different, being buried in heavy tomes, and not having any idea how to brainstorm research paper ideas was frequent. Young adults envisioning a brick wall to climb, because they were clueless about how to write a research paper, rarely truly believed me that in the expanse of time, completing an essay, even one that was very lengthy, was barely a zit on the face of history, compared to much more significant, life impacting events they'd eventually face as grownups. Those ideas fell on deaf ears most of the time.

Unable to look towards the larger arena or the long view, their immediate reality was a looming time limit that could only be met by participating in something they weren't interested in, that conflicted with their social calendar 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 measure up to the criteria that institutions of higher learning, hold in high value.

When I first began teaching at the university level I planned to give a full term assignment to write a research paper on a(n) subject of each student's most passionate concern.

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 tail spin.

Determined, I ignored his advice and ventured into research paper purgatory. The first session of the semester I handed out the curriculum for the semester. 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 quizzes as well as the participation in class confabs would be two thirds of the semester grade and the research paper would be the other 33%. I also mentioned that having those skills definitely would better their chances to get a grant or scholarship. I handed out calendars and deadlines for the dissertation. I wanted the topic they chose as well as a rough outline completed in the first 14 days and then various updates on progress throughout the semester.

My agenda and execution of my set schedule "forced" things 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 semester's worth of work in one sitting. Unnecessary stress and nervousness in my way of thinking. And with the framework of how to effectively write a research paper tackled in small chunks throughout the class, semester or year depending on curriculum and / or school, initial stress about even the most simple undertaking: the research paper format, seemed less and less a major undertaking.

Whether narrowing down a long series of passages formatted neat and succinctly summarizing research paper ideas, writing each necessary part, keeping each research paper properly formatted for an instructor who was known to be a stickler about such particulars, or pacing themselves to guarantee term paper completion by the turn-in date, when deconstructed into smaller parts, how to write a research paper woes slowly, but surely disappear. Watch for for the next article: Research Paper Ideas, the Easy Way - Finding Subject Matter That Wins Scholarships.