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I have had the opportunity of being a teacher for almost three decades, and involved in teaching for more than 3 dozen years. During those years I have taught the lower grades, grades 9-12, college prep and most recently post high school students. For me, it was a constant battle keeping learning fun, interactive and rewarding for each student. As my classes focused on older kids, making the gradual leap from young to older, I noticed a constant that each age group of students became overwhelmed by: how to write a research paper.

Initially, I thought nothing of the answer 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 take home work. But, what I was dismissing and defining as being disgruntled, actually had much more significance; these pupils were sometimes downright overwhelmed when they heard the word "research paper".

Worry about the unknown, being buried in volumes of pages, and not having any idea how to brainstorm research paper ideas was frequent. college-age students envisioning a barrier to climb, because they didn't know how to write a research paper, rarely truly believed me that in the expanse of time, completing an essay, even one that was ten to thirty pages long, was barely a blip on the radar, compared to much more significant, life impacting challenges they'd eventually face as mature adults. Those consolations fell on a non-responsive audience much of the time.

Unable to look towards the larger arena or the long view, their immediate truth was a looming time limit 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 new challenges: how to write a research paper, and do it right - not just to pass or fail, but earn the marks that institutions of higher learning, hold in high value.

When I first began teaching at the university level I planned to give a semester-long specification to write a research paper on a(n) topic of that particular student's most passionate hobby.

The dean of our department warned me that this would cause me much grief. He said that even at a post high-school level, simply hearing that you have to write a research paper usually sent many students into a tail spin.

Determined, I ignored his wise words and ventured into research paper purgatory. The first class of the term I handed out the outline for the class. This included the title of the course textbook, 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 groupthink would be 66% of the final score and the research paper would be the other 33%. I handed out calendars and deadlines for the paper. I wanted the topic they chose as well as a rough briefing completed in the first 14 days and then various progress reports throughout the term.

My agenda and execution of my set calendar dates "forced" the paper to be done in small chunks, rather than the typical giant one, when many students, kids or adults, sit down at the last minute and try to accomplish weeks worth of work in one all-nighter. Unnecessary worry and nervousness 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 subject and / or school, initial terror about even the most simple part, research paper ideas, seemed less and less a big deal .

Whether narrowing down a long catalog of clauses formatted neat and succinctly summarizing research paper ideas, writing each necessary element, keeping each research paper properly formatted for an instructor who was known to be a stickler about such fine points, or pacing themselves to guarantee paper completion by the turn-in date, when deconstructed into smaller sections, how to write a research paper concerns slowly, but surely disappear. Stay tuned for the next article: Research Paper Ideas, the Easy Way.