Controversial Research Paper Topics: How Do You Find Them?

Every college student is given the same order from his or her professor, make your research paper controversial! The only question is, how the heck do you do that? College professors, as we all know, have been doing this job since Romeo was Juliet's crush, so how do you present something to that type of person that is new and controversial? Where do you come up with an idea that is controversial in a world where controversy abounds and the only thing non-controversial is controversy itself? The idea of finding a controversial topic may be intimidating and frustrating, but it may actually be easier than you think. Consider the following when looking for controversial research paper topics.

Remember that controversy comes from somebody saying, "Hey, that's not right" or something to that effect, so that is what we are trying to get with our topic. People won't be interested in you bringing up a tired old topic that has passed controversial and now just resides at being merely "disagreeable". If people aren't interested and aren't interested in trying to argue the opposite side then you have passed controversy and arrived at "somewhat interesting".

Controversy comes from taking to similar things and arguing the unpopular side. In other words, you don't take two things that are exactly the opposite and attempt to argue them to stir up controversy. For instance, if you are trying to argue that Michael Jordan was the greatest basketball player of all time you don't compare his statistics to Richard Hamilton. While Hamilton is a good player who has had success, nobody would want to even listen to your argument. However, if you argued that Kobe Bryant is better than Michael Jordan people would read to see what you have to say.

You won't likely ever be writing a college research paper on Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, but you get the gist. Compare two things that are extremely similar and take the side that may not have as much ammunition. Don't say Shakespeare was better than Dan Brown, we'd all agree with you, but is Geoffrey Chaucer better than Shakespeare? Now you have a paper that could have a degree of controversy and be extremely interesting to those that have an interest in the topic at hand. Even better, it may interest those who don't have much of a take on the topic anyway!

It's this simple, when you jot down a few controversial research paper topics take them to a friend or family member and take a few moments to argue. If the argument is too one sided towards one or the other of you then just eliminate it immediately and move on. This is essentially what you are going to be doing with your professor in written form, so just do it in person. Argue with someone or get together and try to come up with some arguments on both sides, if you create controversy, you've achieved your topic!