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I have had the privilege of being an educator for almost three decades, and involved in teaching for more than 36 years. During that time I have taught the lower grades, grades 9-12, college prep and most recently post high school students. For me, it was a constant struggle keeping educational activities fun, interactive and rewarding for each pupil. As my classes focused on older learners, making the gradual change from young to older, I noticed a constant that each maturity level of kids became overwhelmed by: how to write a research paper.

Initially, I thought nothing of the response I received when asking for research papers to be completed. At first, I simply defined the usual groaning as a student's dislike of my love for outside assignments. But, what I was dismissing and defining as being disgruntled, actually had much more significance; these pupils were sometimes downright unnerved when they heard the word "research paper".

Worry about the something different, being buried in dusty books, and not having any idea how to brainstorm research paper ideas was frequent. older teens envisioning a brick wall to climb, because they were clueless about how to write a research paper, rarely truly believed me that in life's big picture, completing an essay, even one that was very lengthy, was barely a grain of sand on a beach, compared to much more significant, life impacting challenges they'd eventually face as grownups. Those words fell on deaf ears usually.

Unable to look towards the whole essence or the long view, their immediate truth was a looming deadline that could only be met by participating in an activity they weren't interested in, that conflicted with their extracurricular activities or that made them uneasy facing the unknown: how to write a research paper, and do it right - not just to pass or fail, but score the grades that high schools, universities, colleges and graduate schools, both public and private, 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) topic of that particular student's most passionate interest.

Our department head warned me that this would cause me more trouble than it was worth. 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 counter-productive funk.

Determined, I ignored his advice and ventured into research paper purgatory. The first session of the term I handed out the outline for the class. This included the name 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 two thirds of the grade and the research paper would be the other 33%. In the same breath that learning the researching insight seriously would better their chances to earn a scholarship. I handed out schedules and deadlines for the essay. I wanted the topic they chose as well as a rough outline completed in the first fortnight and then various progress reports throughout the term.

My outline and execution of my set schedule "forced" the paper to be done in small increments, rather than the typical giant one, when many students, kids or adults, sit down at the last minute and try to accomplish a semester's worth of work in one marathon of study. Unnecessary stress and anxiety in my opinion. And with the basics of how to effectively write a research paper accomplished in small chunks throughout the class, semester or year depending on subject and / or institution, initial terror about even the most simple part: not knowing what a good research paper exampleeven looked like, seemed less and less a major undertaking.

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 a teacher who was known to be a stickler about such details, or pacing themselves to guarantee paper completion by the due date, when deconstructed into smaller sections, how to write a research paper concerns slowly, but surely go away. Follow along for the up and coming report in this series: Research Paper Ideas, the Easy Way - Finding Subject Matter That Wins Scholarships.