A good research topic is a specific accounting issue or problem that can have multiple solutions, and in which there is no right answer. Your final paper should thoroughly describe the accounting issue/problem, including all background information, history of the issue, and key terms that the reader must understand to analyze your research question. Then your paper should critically evaluate all potential solutions, comparing and contrasting the alternatives. Finally, the paper should conclude with a recommended solution, or course of action, that you consider to be best. It is your job to use in-text citations from reputable/compelling sources to build your paper toward, and in support of, your recommendation. This is a persuasive-style paper, so you must try to convince the reader to agree with your recommended solution.

Initially, it can be difficult to develop a research topic that lends itself to this type of paper. Therefore, I encourage you to read over two documents: Tips for Brainstorming Research Topics.docx and Research Topic Checklist.docx . These documents were developed to help guide you during the idea generation phase of the semester research paper.

For the research paper topics, try to think of the ones, which you are interested in and are accounting related.

1. try to find some topics, which are easier to find related articles.

2. try to look for more current issues. A bad example will be a topic about the impact of Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX). SOX is out for almost 20 years, and unless your topic is about the recent development or recent changes in SOX, it will be better that you look for more current issues.

Another bad example is a topic related to ABC costings or FIFO on financial reporting. Both ABC and FIFO method have been developed for many years, and we know the impact very well. Unless you could find some recent changes, this is also a bad topic.

3. Try not to choose a topic, which is too broad. For example, accounting in the Great Depression.