Writing research papers is the most fun and important job for graduate students. It takes a while, however, until you know what and how professors expect you to write. Now I enjoy writing papers and constructing new arguments but there was a learning process for me too. It is essential to know what topics and questions are interesting to academic readers, meaningful for the development of the literature, and not too ambitious as a project. In a sense, it is easier for PhD students than for master’s students because of the different degree of exposure to theories, and also because paper assignments should naturally accumulate to contribute to a future dissertation topic.
Anyways, I was discussing with Colm, a fellow PhD student of mine who also did a master’s degree somewhere else, about typical paper topics that we all worked on once, and that master’s students in international affairs schools (especially those who study security issues) universally favor.
- On the genocide in Rwanda: was the source of violence the elite or masses? (and the answer you reach is always the elite)
- On the Taiwan Strait conflict: possible scinarios and future strategy.
- On ASEAN (or ARF): will ASEAN become another EU?
- (Maybe more popular right now) On North Korea’s nuclear crises: madman or rational leader? (and the answer is always a rational leader)
I am not saying these topics are bad. The effort to write something practical is understandable (and should be encouraged in some cases). But it is funny to find out that many of us, in different professional schools, wrote on similar topics and had similar conclusions in our old papers.