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I have had the chance of being a teacher for almost three decades, and involved in teaching for more than 3 decades. During that time period I have taught grades K-5, teens, college prep and most recently at the college level. For me, it was a constant challenge keeping lessons fun, interactive and rewarding for each student. As my classes focused on older students, making the gradual metamorphosis from young to older, I noticed a constant that each maturity level of kids became immobilized by: how to write a research paper.

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

Worry about the something different, being buried in volumes of pages, and not having a clue how to brainstorm research paper ideas was frequent. college-age students envisioning a mountain to climb, because they didn't know how to write a research paper, rarely truly believed me that in the expanse of time, completing an essay, even one that was ten to thirty pages long, was barely a grain of sand on a beach, compared to much more significant, life impacting events they'd eventually face as mature adults. Those words fell on a non-responsive audience most of the time.

Unable to look towards the larger arena or the long overall result, their immediate reality was a looming time limit that could only be met by participating in an enterprise they weren't interested in, that conflicted with their social calendar or that made them uneasy facing new challenges: how to write a research paper, and do it right - not just to pass or fail, but earn the marks that post-middle-school institutions, hold in high importance.

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) issue of every individual's most passionate pursuit.

Our department head warned me that this would cause me many headaches. He said that even at a university level, simply hearing that you have to write a research paper usually sent many students into a downward spiral.

Determined, I ignored his advice and ventured into research paper neverland. The first session of the course I handed out the syllabus for the course. This included the name of the course textbook, test dates and the requirement that everyone would write a research paper.

I explained that the quizzes as well as the participation in group-think would be two thirds of the grade and the research paper would be the other 33%. I handed out schedules and due dates for the essay. I wanted the topic they chose as well as a rough synopsis completed in the first two weeks and then various progress reports throughout the course.

My agenda and execution of my set calendar dates "forced" the paper to be done in small steps, rather than the typical giant one, when many students, kids or adults, sit down at the last minute and try to accomplish weeks worth of work in one sitting. Unnecessary tension and anxiety in my opinion. And with the fundamentals of how to effectively write a research paper tackled in small sections throughout the class, semester or year depending on subject and / or school, initial terror about even the most simple section, research paper ideas, seemed less and less a big deal.

Whether narrowing down a long catalog of passages formatted neat and succinctly summarizing research paper ideas, writing each necessary element, keeping each research paper properly formatted for an instructor who was known to be a stickler about such fine points, or pacing themselves to guarantee term paper completion by the due date, when deconstructed into smaller pieces, how to write a research paper fears slowly, but surely disappear. Watch for for the next article: Research Paper Ideas, the Easy Way - And avoiding the panic.

In the first of an up and coming series of reports relating to how to write a research paper but omitting the regular uneasiness, teacher Ronald S. Smithers gives a lesson he extracted from his writing days. Stay tuned for, to avoid research paper anxiety, only to be found at the the preparing for school web site that gives free stuff to college students, and helps you tap into more capital with consolidation of federal student loans.