Composing Exciting History Topics for a Research Paper

It can be difficult to know where to begin when choosing a topic for your history research paper. Topic selection is the first hurdle you must overcome to begin writing. Sometimes the perfect topic just seems to fall into your lap and other times it takes a lot of work to compose the one you want to use. Here are some strategies you can use to compose an exciting topic for your history paper.

  • Browse through some books, magazines and the internet to find some ideas. Write down a list of possible topics. From that list, choose a few that really capture your attention or you feel passionate about.
  • Start writing down some general thesis questions or statements for each of the interesting topic ideas. Since the thesis statement is usually the most important part of your research paper, you will want it to be really riveting.
  • Make sure you can write down three or more main points or topics for each thesis statement. If this part is difficult for some of the topics, then eliminate them.
  • Start sketching out an outline for the topics still remaining on your list. If you can’t come up with an outline for some topics, eliminate them.

How many topics do you have left? There should be very few or perhaps only one. This remaining topic should be the perfect one for your history research paper. It’s probably still on your list because it poses the most interest for you. When a topic is captivating and interesting and exciting for the writer, it usually is the same way for the reader.

  • Some examples of exciting topics for your history research paper
  • The holistic healing ways of the First Nations peoples
  • The abolition of slavery in America
  • Tent cities in the Great Depression
  • The 1970 Kent State Ohio Shootings
  • The Russian viewpoint of the Cold War
  • How globalization affects the spread of AIDS
  • The Trail of Tears: Repercussions today
  • The assassination of President James Garfield

What makes history exciting is when the writer brings it to life and gives it some new light. Instead of just a topic everyone’s heard of before, add a new twist to your history topic. Bring it out of the shadows; explore a new and interesting angle that hasn’t been done a hundred times before. One example is that many people have done papers on the Assassination of President Kennedy or President Lincoln but very few in comparison have written on the Assassination of President Garfield.

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