Finding a Topic for the Graduation Project Paper
Since you will be spending so many hours and months on this topic, it is important to select a subject that you are truly interested in. Before picking a topic, ask yourself: What are your career plans? What do you do outside of high school? What interests do you have outside of school? Have you ever seen something on the news that has piqued your interest? Below you will find an Interest Inventory Worksheet that may help you find a topic. There are also links to websites that have topics for you to browse.
Making it Debatable
Once you find a topic, put your idea in the form of a yes/no question to make sure it is a debatable, arguable topic. For the Graduation Project, your thesis must be a pro/con topic that has two sides of the issue, and then you must take a stance for one side. For more assistance on how to write the thesis statement, see this page:
Narrowing your Topic
Let's say you do research and decide you want to write a paper to protest the use of animals for medical research. That's a great topic! However, it is quite possible to write a 20 page paper on this topic. Animals are used for a variety of reasons in labs around the world, and if you don't narrow your topic, you may end up with more research than you need for a 4-8 page paper. It would be wise, therefore, for you to narrow your topic. Perhaps you should focus on the testing of cosmetics, facial creams, and beauty products on animals. Or, perhaps you want to take a different route and explore the benefits of animal testing to find solutions for incurable diseases and ailments. Both of these options would be more focused and produce shorter papers that are more appropriate for this assignment.
One way to narrow a topic is to go to google.com and put your topic idea in the search engine. After that, click search and then "show options" on the left-hand side of the page. Look down the left side and find "wonder wheel" and click that. You should see a "web" of ideas in front of you that link to different word webs. Doing this activity might give you some more ideas about what to write about.
After you have selected your topic, it is time to start writing the research paper. See the guidelines on this website to get started. If you ever have any questions, please ask your teacher for assistance.
The Graduation Project
Cleveland High School
