Choosing a topic for a research paper can be tricky, but there are some features that can help an author avoid bad research topics. However, a topic must be interesting to the writer/author and useful to the audience; there are topics that should be absolutely avoided. For example, personal information and personal histories, topics with a lack of information that are easy to address, topics that are too narrow, topics that are too broad, and controversial/political topics, same-sex marriage, religion/ethnicity, etc.
A useful list of things not to do
- Period generally has no place in a title (even a declarative sentence can work without a period)
- Also as any kind of color to separate title parts (links are good with link words though)
- Chemical formula, like H2O, CH4, etc. (use their common or generic names instead)
- Avoid Roman numerals (eg III, IX, etc.)
- Semicolons, as in “;” (however, both points are very useful for making two-part titles)
- No taxonomic hierarchy of species of plants, animals, fungi, etc. there’s no need.
- Abbreviations (except RNA), currently standard and widely known DNA)
- Origins and acronyms (eg, “Ca” can be associated with CA, indicating cancer)
- Avoid question marks (this tends to reduce citations, but is useful for asking questions in articles on economics and philosophy or when the results are not as clear as expected)
- Unusual words (some are good, but too many) can affect altmetric notation)
- Numeric displays or units (eg km-1 or km/h)
- Unclear terms (eg, “with” could be rewritten with a more specific verb; “between” corrected with simpler word order)
- Cryptic/complex drug names (use general name if allowed)
- Obvious or unspecific openings with conjunction: for example, “Report on”, “Stud io on”, “Results”, “Experimental study on”, etc. (no, that doesn’t add any sense!).
Aim for 50-100 characters, but no more (shorter titles are more frequently cited) or fewer than 13 words
Related: Finished preparing your manuscript? Check out this article now for additional points to consider when submitting your manuscript!
Step 4: Create a working title for a research paper
To create a working title, remove the elements that make it a complete “sentence,” but keep everything that is important for the subject of The Study. Remove all unnecessary and unnecessary words that are not the focus of the study or that researchers would not be inclined to use in the database search.
“We used a case study of 60 liver transplant patients in the United States between the ages of 20 and 50 years to assess how the size of the waiting list affects the liver transplant outcomes of The results show a positive correlation between a larger waiting list size and a negative prognosis after a transplant procedure”
Topics with a lack of accessible information
As with the topics about you, you cannot write a topic without material available.
If you choose something too specific (like the color of Albert Einstein’s socks or what he ate for breakfast), you’re likely to get stuck for lack of information, or even lack of information.
As always and too many things have been worked on by others
There are some subjects that make them special because many students have already worked on them. An overworked topic may be interesting to you, but it will be more interesting to the audience, especially your teacher.
Controversial topics can generate debate inside or outside the class and make things difficult for you. They can also be a reason to hurt someone’s feelings.