How To Pick The Best Topic For A Research Paper in Biology

Selecting a great research project topic is not exactly an easy task. How do great writers find the perfect subject, while you sit around and struggle? Today, we are going to discuss some tricks for selecting a fantastic topic for your biology topic for your research paper as well as provide some helpful advice for students who are writing about biology for the first time.

Decide What You Want To Write About

First thing of all you want to choose a subject that you are authentically interested in learning more about. The best student research papers are written on topics that the author is genuinely passionate about. Don’t write to please your professors. Instead select a topic that interests you and then spin it to suit the assignments criteria.

Consider The Medawar Zone

What is the Medawar Zone you may ask? The Medawar Zone is the middle ground between creativity and research. It is all about asking a specific question that is moderately difficult to explain, but also has appeal to the reader.

This was a theory about research and academic writing that was proposed by Sir Peter Medawar. He suggested that the level of complexity of a question would determine the pay off of the research. Think about the Medawar zone as being the perfect balance between difficulty and success. When you write a research paper the more specific and difficult your question is the more important the resulting research will be.

Keep this in mind when selecting a topic for your biology paper. A very specific topic with a complex thesis will be harder to complete, however the resulting discovery will have more merit.

What is “Good Science”?

At the end of the day the main goal of your research paper should be to discover something new about biology and present your findings in an academic document. Before you start writing, reflect on the qualities of a good research paper that is both scientific and relevant to the questions of today. Remember, good science answers a question and serves a purpose. Your biology research topic should do both.

If you are still having a hard time figuring out what you should research, think about some of the most relevant biology problems being looked at today. There is plenty of modern science being explored in the area of biology that may provide you with some inspiration for your own paper.

 
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