To choose your own essay topic from a list of persuasive research essay topics, make sure you know your focus of research. You should pick something that you enjoy researching, or an area of research that you will find rewarding. Otherwise, you will not feel motivated to do research and your paper will not stand out amongst other papers. Topics for research papers often come up when you are reading through a research paper written by another scholar, or perhaps a research essay paper that you found online through a search engine. Also, you can ask your mentors or professors for topics for research papers, as they are usually happy to help.

Once you choose a general area of study, pick amongst the more persuasive research essay topics to find one that stands out to you. It has to be something that you can argue well. If you find an essay topic that is sufficiently challenging, but you cannot argue it well or find substantial evidence for it, then it is not worth arguing. Once you find a topic that will be sufficient for your research paper, think about the subdivisions of your paper and how this topic will allow your paper to be organized in a reasonable manner. Once again, if you cannot think of a way to organize your paper with the given topic, find another topic.

In addition to finding a topic, you should refine your topic so that it fits your expertise. Many topics offer a good framework, but they are presented in a form so general that it would take more than just an essay to describe all of the necessary components of the argument presented by the topic. This is not what you want for your essay.  For advanced essays, depth is always better than breadth. That should be your main guiding principle.