Make Sure Your Persuasive Research Paper Has a Good Topic
A persuasive research is a form of research paper that endeavors to make its readers change their viewpoint about a certain topic. It can also be written to make its audiences recognize and agree to take the researcher’s point of view on the topic. Most people have strong attachments towards their beliefs. Therefore, writing a persuasive paper and making its readers hooked onto the research may seem challenging. In order to successfully persuade people, the first thing a researcher needs to focus on is finding a good or a debatable topic.
A good or debatable topic means that a researcher has been able to come up with as many arguments as he or she can for both sides of the topic. This topic can be about something that a researcher is familiar of, or a topic that he or she is interested in. In order for one to come up with a good topic, he or she must:
- Get oriented. A researcher must pick a topic that he or she has a strong background of. This can be a topic commonly discussed by colleagues and friends. A researcher must think of at least 3 topics to choose from.
- Identify arguments. Write each topic on a piece of paper. Below each topic writes as many arguments as possible. Arguments written must be for both the affirmative and negative side. This is done to help a researcher weigh and decided which side is he or she doing to defend.
- Choose a topic. It is best to select the topic with the most number of arguments, both affirmative and negative sides.
- Choose a side. Pick the side that has the most convincing information. However, do not put away the other side of the topic. This is because a researcher might change his or her mind along the way while discovering facts that he or she was not aware of in the beginning. On the other hand, he or she can also use the arguments on the other side in preparation of his or her defense. This is because, those topics may be the arguments that the readers believe in.
- Consider the Audience. Consider the audiences’ or readers’ beliefs. A researcher must make sure that he or she can provide substantial evidences to support his or her arguments and disprove the readers’ beliefs if possible. Facts, statistics, and reports from reputable sources are good resources to prove one’s claim.
These are some of the steps a researcher can take to make sure that a topic is a good one. Once a researcher is already sure about the chosen topic and his or her arguments, he or she can by this time begin writing his research paper.