Reflection on Research Paper

I wrote my research paper on whether college athletes should be paid or not. I chose this topic because it’s something I’m interested in and I wanted to learn more about it. And since it has to deal with sports, the topic is relevant to my major of Exercise Science.

Challenges I faced while writing this research paper were finding credible academic sources. It was easy to find nonacademic sources because this is a much discussed issue among the sports world, but finding scholarly articles on this was difficult. I ended up finding a few academic articles on whether college athletes should be paid or not on a database.

Writing a research paper was not an easy task and it taught me many things. I learned how to argue a topic by explaining points from both perspectives. Instead of saying why one side is good and the other is bad, I had to show both sides advantages. This is different because I’ve never written a paper like this. Usually I make a stance for my argument and say why it should happen or why it’s beneficial. But I learned how to write from multiple viewpoints so my argument isn’t opinionated.

This research paper has similarities and differences with the first major assignment. The first paper was an informational paper about how writing is used in our major, and getting academic and nonacademic sources and two interviews. This paper I didn’t need to get interviews, only sources. The structures of both papers needed a thesis and conclusion. The research paper was argumentative so in the body paragraphs, you would include both perspectives instead of one.