Detailed research papers on the economy can focus on unemployment, retail and investments. Topics about unemployment can give detailed information such as jobless numbers from a specific state, a specific county or target a certain demographic; researchers can do a break-out by age or race and also show trends over a period of time. Retail topics can focus on sectors of the retail market that do well and those that don't, trends in certain product markets and habits of consumers. Research papers about investments can address stocks that perform well, portfolio management and trends such as investing in real estate, gold and overseas markets.
Health and health care affect just about every American because of healthy living, hospitals and patient care. In detailed research topics about healthy living, students can analyze statistics and data regarding losing weight, eating organic foods and using exercise to improve their lifestyle. Research topics on hospitals can address issues such as funding, ethics and types of care, as well as hospitals run by the government, religious organizations or private companies. Patient care topics can focus on physician-assisted suicide, abortion and bioethics. To get a more detailed health topic, researchers can focus on male/female, racial/ethnic backgrounds and even socio-economic demographics.
Research in the mass media can address issues in several fields such as television, advertising and the Internet. In television, students can do research on the decline of television news, the upswing in cable reality television shows and the education of children thanks to children's programming. Advertising research topics can focus on the effects of advertising to children, using testimonials and changing behaviors of people because of an advertising or public relations campaign. Research topics regarding the Internet can cover topics such as ethics, legislation and regulation; details can include using the Internet to cheat, creating laws to curb free speech and enacting legislation to provide bandwidth.
Environmental topics for research can cover environmental disasters (both natural and man-made), legal issues and hot button topics. Students doing research on environmental disasters can pick a specific incident (from hurricanes to oil spills) and calculate property damage, clean-up costs and overall damage to the environment itself such as animals killed, species wiped out, beaches damaged or trees destroyed. In detailed research surrounding legal issues, students can look into the latest legal challenges to an ongoing issue or laws passed to protect the environment. Research topics can also include the debate over global warming, population pollution or offshore oil drilling.