If you are given a broad subject from which you are to select a specific topic, choose one that is actually of interest to you. Picking a subject that is captivating or interesting can help you stay focused when it comes to completing hours of research or rewriting drafts of your paper multiple times. Make sure you are aware when creating this topic of your instructor's expectations regarding the paper, including page limits and the range of the material you study.
Use only reliable, relevant, authoritative sources to gather the research for your paper. Avoid peer-written or reviewed Web sites. Search engines may make your information gathering sessions a bit easier, but do not neglect the old-fashioned methods of looking through paper versions of encyclopedias, textbooks and the like. Make sure to first do a literature review so you are not "reinventing the wheel." Find books and articles on similar topics to gain different perspectives on your research.
More than likely, you will not use all of the research that you find. Make an outline to ensure that your paper is organized and includes only the facts most relevant to your topic. From here, write a few drafts of your paper, making sure to put equal energy into the introduction and conclusion as you do between these two sections. Incorporate quotations related to the topic to provide a sense of authority to your research paper.
Chicago, APA and MLA documentation style guides will give you the guidelines to which you should adhere to produce a paper of quality. Format your citations, footnotes and endnotes, references, parenthetical citations and quotations as dictated in one of these guides. List your references in one of the suggested styles, but make sure you follow only one of these style guides. Which one to use may depend on the subject for which you are writing your research paper or your instructor's preferences.