Research Paper Examples for High School Students
by
Indigo Research Team
&
Published:
July 16, 2024
Last Updated:
September 11, 2024
Are you about to write a research paper but staring at a blank page, confused and overwhelmed?
Well, you're not alone. Most students find themselves in this position, especially on their first paper.
You probably have questions like "How exactly should my sections be organized?" or "What should my biology research paper look like?
It's enough to make anyone feel lost.
This article provides a guiding light through the fog. In the next few minutes, we'll provide several research paper examples for high school students you can use as a guide.
Sound good? Then, let's dive right in!
A research paper is an academic paper that answers a specific question.
Writing a quality paper is a big deal in academia. It represents the highest level of academic study - where you dive deep into investigating a topic, analyzing information, and making an original argument supported by extensive research.
The goal is to further the boundaries of knowledge in your field. You challenge existing theories with new perspectives that could reshape the understanding of that topic area. It takes rigorous critical thinking and skills to synthesize mounds of information into meaningful conclusions that contribute new insights.
Writing research helps you grow as a scholar, too. The intense process of engaging deeply with a complex topic builds your research, analytical, and academic writing abilities. By sharing fresh ideas and findings with others, you stimulate the growth of knowledge in your discipline.
There are different types of research papers. It depends on your objective and methodology (how you conduct the research).
Analytical Research Paper
An analytical paper focuses on examining different viewpoints from published works on a topic. You evaluate the information to provide a comprehensive, unbiased understanding.
Argumentative or Persuasive Research Paper
An argumentative or persuasive paper takes a stand on a controversial issue and argues for that position. You try to convince the reader that your viewpoint is correct or best by using evidence and logic.
Experimental Research Paper
Experimental papers document the process and results of experiments the author performed. This details the step-by-step methodology, data collected, analysis done, and conclusions made. It's commonly used in scientific fields.
Survey Research Paper
Survey papers collect data directly from people about their thoughts, behaviors, or traits. The data gets analyzed to make inferences about the broader population sampled.
Comparative Research Paper
Comparative papers highlight similarities and differences between theories, policies, or phenomena. Comparing things leads to deeper understanding.
Cause and Effect Research Paper
Cause and effect papers explore reasons why some events happen, or conditions exist and outcomes that then emerge. The researcher tries to establish causal links between variables.
Review Research Paper
Finally, a review paper synthesizes all existing research on a topic to identify overarching trends, gaps, and consensus in that field or discipline.
As you can see, each research paper type serves unique aims and requires certain perspectives. Understanding these distinctions helps guide your approach when conducting and writing up studies.
The landscape of academia progresses through work recorded in papers like these, driving innovation. They remain vital for spreading knowledge and encouraging a thoughtful culture of exploration.
The key is first to understand the purpose behind the specific research paper you aim to tackle. Get clear on the methodology and outcome goals upfront.
It takes time and skill to compose the best papers that contribute to knowledge.
Writing a quality research paper can feel intimidating at first. However, having solid sample research examples to guide you makes it much more manageable. The type of research paper you write depends on your area of study.
In this section, you’ll find several research examples across different disciplines written by our students here at Indigo Research:
Physics explores the laws around motion, energy, and forces. You could investigate why objects fall at different speeds, how magnets work to attract metal, or how electricity flows through wires. Researching core concepts like gravity, friction, magnetic fields, or light waves reveals insights into the physics of how the world works.
Here is a good research paper example in physics.
Biology delves into the living world of animals, plants, cells, and ecosystems. You might study metamorphosis across a butterfly's life cycle stages, how pollution impacts forest health, or the intricate parts that make up a single cell. Understanding foundational building blocks like ecosystems, plant life cycles, cell anatomy, and more can yield fascinating discoveries.
Here are some well-written research papers on biology for guidance.
Psychology aims to reveal why humans think, feel, and act the way we do through studying emotions, memory, development, and interactions. Investigating what triggers anger responses, factors impacting eye-witness memory, peer pressure effects on teens, or impacts of rap music lyrics on mood represents just a snippet of psychological research possibilities out there to captivate any burgeoning psychologist!
Here is a research essay example in psychology for guidance.
Economics analyzes financial decision-making around supply, demand, trade, and resources. You could explore reasons for inflation, stock market trends, how governments intervene in markets, or why everyday goods' prices fluctuate over time. Real-world applications make economics research intriguing for unraveling modern money matters.
Here is an example of student research paper on economics for guidance.
AI and machine learning study how to engineer computer systems and robots capable of “thinking" intelligently like humans. It's an exciting frontier with innovations like self-driving vehicles, personalized ads served by algorithms analyzing your browsing data, or AI programs winning strategy games against grandmasters.
Evaluation metrics for neural networks, implementing pattern recognition, and analyzing bias in data or code – the options for hands-on testing are vast enough to launch forward machine intelligence that enhances lives.
Here is a sample short research paper example on AI and Machine Learning.
Computer science underlies software, apps, video games, and websites, transforming modern life through coding languages and powering the technology we engage with daily. Possible investigations include modeling a mobile app, evaluating website security vulnerabilities, debugging video game mods you create, comparing software engineering code methods, or prototyping a computational art bot to generate poems.
Here is a free example of a research paper as a guide on computer science research.
History research connects past and present events, social movements, and influential leaders' lasting impacts on modern life. Deeply exploring WWII's complex catalysts, how the civil rights movement unfolded through key milestones, the rippling influences of Ada Lovelace's innovations, or lessons we can learn from the Space Race era now in a renewed age of interstellar exploration can anchor history's meaningful life teachings in our memory.
Below is an example of a sample undergraduate research paper to write for history research.
Math research elucidates the world through numeracy, geometry, algebra, statistics, calculus, and more. You can consider comparing statistical methods, implementing probability theory, discovering patterns in prime numbers, demonstrating geometry theorems, or modeling applications of derivatives/integrals. The pure science of mathematics interlinks with every other domain, opening cross-disciplinary opportunities!
Here is an example of a math research paper to use as a guide.
Law research examines legal principles, court precedents, and regulations upholding rights plus justice in societies. Analyzing Supreme Court decisions validating rights, evaluating the effectiveness of criminal procedures, or studying juvenile law complexities represents just a small sample of legal avenues to bolster understanding of ethical codes steering modern civilization.
Here is an example of a law research paper you can use as a guide.
Medical research aims to improve healthcare through clinical treatment insights, pharmaceutical advances, diagnostic technologies, vaccination developments, or surgical innovations against prevalent diseases and global epidemics. Choose burning topics like cancer immunotherapies, coronavirus variants analysis, anesthesiology during operations, the efficacy of antidepressants, post-stroke rehabilitation, or maternal health policies to drive life-saving medical revelations!
Here are examples of medical research papers for high school students.
Ever wonder what's happening beyond Earth? In astronomy, you can dive into the vast universe! Write about planets, stars, galaxies, black holes, or even the Big Bang. Explain how stars are born, what planets contain, and how telescopes help us see faraway space objects. Imagine the mysteries you can uncover.
Here is an example of a written research paper on astronomy.
Movies, TV shows, social media – media is everywhere! Media research looks at how it influences us. Explore how advertisements try to persuade us, how social media impacts relationships, or how news channels shape world understandings. You could research on nearly everything. Like how special effects excite moviegoers, how influencers gain followers, or how to spot fake news online. The insights are endless.
Here is an example of a scholarly paper sample on Media for high school students.
Abstract
Honeybees fill the vital ecological roles of pollinating diverse wild and agricultural plant species globally. However, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) poses escalating threats by inflicting sudden population crashes where adult worker bees inexplicably abandon hives. While researchers have identified likely culprits, including pesticides, habitat loss, viruses, and mites, fully elucidating CCD’s triggers remains challenging. Recently, attention shifted to better understanding the links between honeybee digestive tract microbial communities and CCD susceptibility. Studies reveal alterations within gut microorganism populations of collapse-prone bee colonies. These discoveries inspired promising yet still emerging microbiome-focused interventions aiming to improve hive resilience like probiotics, prebiotics, and fecal transplants. If efficacious and scalable solutions emerge through further research, microbial amendments in apiculture could help mitigate CCD while benefiting ecosystems, agriculture, and food security worldwide.
Introduction
Bees’ extraordinary pollination services enable sexual reproduction for nearly 90% of wild plant species and over 70% of global food crops. This linchpin role of managed honeybees upholding ecosystem biodiversity and supporting agricultural productivity explains rising concerns over Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). First reported in 2006, CCD describes mysterious honeybee hive abandonments where adult worker bees inexplicably disappear, leaving behind the queen, some nurses, and lingering honey and pollen reserves. Their unexplained failures to return disabled colonies cascaded into population crashes.
While global apiculture continually sustains some attrition, the accelerating rates and enigmatic characteristics of CCD-afflicted declines have alarmed farmers, conservationists and policy makers alike due to our interdependence with bees propagating crops, orchards, and botanical abundance. Investigations of the disorder’s erratic outbreaks gradually compiled causes ranging from pesticide exposures to inadequate nutrition. One relative newcomer on the list of contributing stress factors - alterations within bees’ digestive tract microbial communities – shows particular promise for explaining susceptibilities while offering potential mitigation opportunities through microbiome manipulation techniques.
Discussion
Like humans and most creatures, bees rely on densely populated gut microbial communities aiding digestion, nourishing development, calibrating immunity, and mediating toxins. Swarming with bacteria, fungi and other microorganisms, a bee’s microbiome exhibits its own ecological equilibrium where different species carve distinct metabolic niches while also interacting cooperatively or competitively to stabilize overall population dynamics and hive functionality.
Research reveals that much like other mammals, individual bees initially acquire gut microbes through environmental transmission from adults, then continue inoculating colony members throughout their lives via ongoing physical contact and shared food. Colonies maintain somewhat consistent core microbial signatures across seasons and geographies. However, when examining CCD-decimated hives, scientists noticed stark microbiome composition deviations from the established baseline of healthy colonies with reduced bacterial diversity and framed the shifts as either potential causes or results of collapse events. Ongoing studies parse details, but abundant evidence already shows microbiome status correlates with disease susceptibility generally.
These revelations spurred inquiries into whether purposefully altering bee microbiomes through probiotics, prebiotics or fecal microbial transplants could boost hive hardiness and prevent the disorder's destructive outcomes. If such microbiome-focused solutions prove efficacious, they could offer more sustainable management practices curtailing CCD pandemics to safeguard ecological integrity and agricultural outputs.
Results/Cues
Probiotics provide targeted ingestible doses of live supplemental microbes conjectured to benefit organismal and even emotional health. Researchers demonstrated that administering certain Lactobacilli strains orally enhances honeybee cognitive capacities while increasing gut microbiome diversity. Monitoring energetically costly probiotic production and field application feasibility at commercial scales will fall to agriculture experts. But thus far, studies report colony productivity improvements, supporting further probiotic development to improve resistance to colony decline.
Prebiotics refer to fibrous nutritional compounds fed to animals to stimulate growth and reproduction among their naturally occurring microbial gut inhabitants. Studies confirm prebiotic supplementation bolsters digestive tract microbial density and diversity in managed bee colonies while appearing to reduce susceptibility to pathogenic infiltration. Confirming efficiency across seasons and geographies remains necessary before producers adopt the practice en masse. Additionally, scientists must rule out unintended side effects from systematically nurturing certain untargeted microorganisms alongside beneficial commensals before deeming the method safe.
Finally, fecal microbial transplantation, an approach more commonly applied to recalibrate human digestion, has recently provided promising proof of concepts for stabilizing honeybee colony health as well. Experiments demonstrated transplanting microbiota from healthy donor colonies to disturbed recipient hives caused the recipients’ microbial composition to shift toward donor equilibrium. This also corresponded with reduced indications of immunological distress and pathogenic infiltration while promoting colony growth. Refining techniques and safety profiles could further make bee-to-bee probiotic transfers part of common practice pending field studies at true operational scales.
Challenges
Despite promising early results from these microbiome-based interventions, researchers still face challenges translating laboratory success into optimized therapeutic techniques for industry-level beekeeping operations. Significant knowledge gaps remain regarding how to identify which core microbes comprise healthy bee microbiomes for different environments and genotypes.
Controlling for inadvertent contamination introduction also demands continued vigilance. Field studies spanning multiple seasons and geographies will help gauge the true costs, scalability, and efficacy of rolling out given interventions. Lastly, perhaps the greatest challenge entails convincing traditionally minded beekeepers to adopt progressive microbiome-minded practices through further demonstration of reliable returns on investment.
Conclusion
A growing body of research links honeybee microbiome status with colony health and functionality, lending credence to the idea that microbiome disruption intensifies Colony Collapse Disorder’s compounding stress factors to trigger sudden yet devastating hive failure.
These revelations propelled recent initiatives testing targeted microbiome modifications like probiotics, prebiotics, and microbe-based transplantation methods to try inoculating resilience within delicate bee colonies against collapse. Developing these techniques to balance efficacy, safety, and scalability, which persist across diverse real-world scenarios, remains an ongoing work.
But early results bolster hopes that microbial amendments could soon emerge as viable tools for sustainably managing honeybee health to preserve these species’ ecological contributions while also protecting global agriculture’s productive potential it relies upon. Perhaps harnessing the microbiome’s power will illuminate pathways toward securing food and habitat for all species, including our own.
References
Anderson, K. E., et al. (2013). Gut microbial communities of honey bees are linked to hive health and nesting ecology. PLoS ONE, 8(6), e64046.
Engel, P., & Moran, N. A. (2013). The gut microbiota of bees: potential impacts on individual and colony health. Current Opinion in Insect Science, 2(1), 30-34.
Kwong, W. K., & Moran, N. A. (2016). Gut microbial symbiosis in honey bees: the potential role of selected lactobacilli in colony health. PLoS One, 11(3), e0151028.
Raymann, K., Moran, N. A., & Reuter, M. (2017). Ecological drivers of gut microbiota composition in social bees. FEMS Microbiology Letters, 362(14), fnw254.
Mao, W., et al. (2017). RNA-seq reveals impact of glyphosate-induced gut microbiome dysbiosis on honey bee health. Gut Microbes, 8(3), 245-255.
Vásquez, A., et al. (2017). Gut microbiome modulation as a potential approach to enhance bee health. Microbial Ecology, 74(2), 407-420.
Kakutani, T., et al. (2016). Effects of prebiotics on gut Lactobacillus flora and fructosyltransferase activity in the honeybee (Apis mellifera L.). Journal of Veterinary Medical Science, 78(2), 219-225.
Zheng, H., et al. (2020). Fecal microbiota transplantation restores gut microbiota and promotes honey bee worker longevity. Apidologie, 51(3), 807-817.
The key when writing a research paper in any field is to convey clearly your entire research process. It's ethical to refer to examples on the paper you're to write on. That's why we've taken the time to show you several examples of student research papers across various disciplines so you'll know how to proceed with your paper.
If you still find it really difficult to write your own research paper, even with the examples we've provided, start your research journey with Indigo Research! Not only we will show you how to write a publishable research paper, you will also learn the necessary skills that will benefit you in the future.
