<p>Ok so as a senior, my classmates and I will begin the research paper. The reason being is that they want us to prepare for college... So here it is. I don't understand the point of the research paper. I never even heard any of my family members mentioning "research paper" outside of high school and/or college. So what's the point? Did this something the schools simply made up? Or does it serve a deeper purpose beyond college?</p>
<p>Well, you’ll definitely be writing more and more papers when you’re in college…</p>
<p>Research papers are good preparation for college. You will have to write tons of them in college, so get practice now will help you in the long run.</p>
<p>So in what college classes will I be writing research paper?</p>
<p>Um…English…and the like…in some if your science classes…the theory part of a lab can get lengthy like a short research paper…eh…yeah</p>
<p>Your first research paper is in senior year. Lucky…</p>
<p>I’ve only had one research paper and that was in 9th grade Pre-AP English. Never had one since :)</p>
<p>Actually I had one Research paper in Honor English 9th grade too lmao. But it was only 3 pages at least and it was easy.
I’m taking AP Lang. Research paper (teacher also call it term paper) that is now about 10-12 pages long (double spaced). Never typed that long before.</p>
<p>@Niquii: You just prove my point, if english is the only real class/course that does this then what’s the point. I can imagine science doing this but not some ridiclous 10+ pages of a results of an experiment.</p>
<p>I have done several research papers in high school. We do them every year in honors/AP English classes, same with are honors/AP social studies classes, wrote one research paper for honors chemistry and a few every year for various art classes, they are rather common at our school.</p>
<p>@Descuff for science it is common that you will write papers about various scientists, major scientific innovations and so on. It is possible that you would write similar things in math classes (I have a friend who wrote a 15 page math oriented paper freshman year of high school) and for English and social studies they are extremely common. I am shocked that you have not written one before, but be sure that this will not be your last.</p>
<p>So sad. This thread just makes me want to cry. I hope, OP, that you are not applying to any LACs and are pre-professional.</p>
<p>This is the difference between kids who get into competitive schools and do well and kids who are really better off at state flagships. Students at my high school have to write a thesis - most are 75+ pages; many are published. This is IN ADDITION to a full AP load with at least one wasatch paper per class per semester. It is what you will be expected to do at any serious institution of higher learning, over and over again.</p>
<p>
Why so srs??</p>
<p>yeah it’s really dumb. especially for students who have a really difficult time writing long things (like me). writing long papers is valued quite a lot in academia (the place really smart people inhabit), and somehow this value is transmuted down to undergrad education (and even some high schools apparently) where the kids (who are pretty dumb these days) have no business trying to emulate the peculiar activities of the really smart people and write these long papers.</p>
<p>Whether you’ll be writing lots of papers in college depends on your major/school/professor/etc. In my experience (I’m a biology major), I have written far less papers in college than in high school (for example, it’s been 7 weeks into the quarter for me already and I’ve only written one 2 page paper (and it wasn’t a research paper, but simply “here are a bunch of questions; answer them”)). The only time I’ve written a research paper in college was when I took a class about research papers.</p>
<p>At my school, we are required to write papers for every class for every semester. However, our research paper this year for English, since our teacher is a hippie, is actually more of a project. This was totally a transition from middle school when my research paper was a nine page fiasco :)</p>
<p>-------------------------------------------If it is to be, it is up to me…</p>
<p>I had to write a 15 page argumentative paper in sophomore year of HS.</p>
<p>Also, if you go into a math/science research field, you’ll likely be writing papers on your own findings (e.g. experimental data on hexose transport rates, ultra-cold atoms, Riemann hypothesis). The page limit doesn’t matter, but most papers I’ve read range anywhere from 5-6 pages to over 50. The proof of Fermat’s last theorem was over 100 pages long!</p>
<p>^ Those theories!</p>
<p>For my AP Physics B labs, we have to do everything. The thing I dread everytime we do a lab (which is about every week) are the theories. Even though they’re nowhere near college level, my theories take up anywhere from 2-4 pages on notebook paper.</p>
<p>Math?? Research? Daf-???
Ok I guess I’m just really lucky then. I barely remember the research paper for 9H english by the time 10 grade start. That was about it. Now here it is again. </p>
<p>Funny thing is I feel more ready for English than I’ve ever been in High School.
I’m so gonna get an A on this paper. Let’s go!!! <em>Mortal Kombat theme plays</em></p>
<p>Let me respond to each person:
@Artsy: I strongly believe there is no purpose to write a 15 pages paper for math. That is just absurd. We are not Einstien.</p>
<p>@sakacar: No LAC or pre-prefessional here. Just simple 4 years engineering school.
75 pages?? I don’t like that instituion at all. </p>
<p>@enfield: I really don’t understand the purpose of a legthly essay. I understand so far that it is to teach us in high school but like they just hit us with 10-12 pages research paper with basically no pratice for 3 years + 2 years of writing simple 1-2 pages essays. That math does not add up.</p>
<p>@ald: I’m sure an engineering major would be alot of researches but not until the later years to be honest. but you’re giving some hope. I so hate writing.</p>
<p>@typeakid:a paper for every class? Even math and say like Band or Orchestra???</p>
<p>@rspence: I did that in Regular Physis class. It wasn’t really much tbh just at least a page. At least. We did like two lab report that I really enjoyed though. Even got A on both of them. I’m expecting college science classes to be a bit longer but not like 5+ pages of writing for one experiment.</p>
<p>@Descuff you will still have to take prerequisites which will probably include research papers. As for long papers we work up to them (my school puts a strong focus on writing/even has us write our common app essays as part of English junior year), freshman year I think my longest paper was five pages, around ten pages last year and I will be writing a 20-25 page paper this year. The friend that wrote the math paper chose to, honors students have to do long-term projects each year, many write research papers, he just chose to focus on math (also it ended up being a really good paper).</p>
<p>@Descuff, math research papers are not that uncommon…I wrote a six page paper on odd perfect numbers once, which isn’t really that much compared to other mathematical literature.</p>
<p>Once you see the research that people have done, you will see that a five page paper isn’t all that much, let alone one to two pages. I took a research methods class in HS, most students were writing 10-20 page papers on their work.</p>
<p>Right now at MIT, I’m currently not taking a writing course (“CI-H”) but even the weekly problem sets for calculus, physics, chemistry, typically take me about 4-8 pages each to write the solutions.</p>