Last Minute Topics for Term Paper Procrastinators

Your laptop is fired up, you’ve got a sleeve of Fig Newtons for emergency brain fuel, and your cell ringtone is set to a jaunty new tune called “Deafening Silence.” You are totally prepared to compose the living daylights out of your big final term paper, except for one minor snag: You have no clue what to write about.

Call it writer’s block, a creative impasse, or pre-summer mental paralysis--it can strike the best of us at the most inopportune times. And the end of the school year is a really inopportune time, as anywhere from 30%-50% of your grade may depend on how well you can turn 180 days of learning into 20 or so pages of coherent prose.

If your teacher has his or her act together, you may have submitted a topic for approval back in March, because doesn’t it take several months of research to write a good term paper? Um, don’t answer that. But if you’re reading this post, you’re probably on your own, and that's where we come in. Our list of SparkNotes-approved Last Minute Topics for Term Paper Procrastinators does the hard work for you, so you can get busy turning those 26 letters into artful turns of phrase that don't involve T9 abbreviations. No matter the class, we’ve got you covered, so pop a Fig Newton into your gullet and let’s get topical:

English
The Ketchup on the Rye: Culinary Symbolism in the work of J.D. Salinger
This Is Where the Magic Happens: Jay Gatsby on MTV’s Cribs
Hamlet Needed Prozac, ASAP
Qoof and Deflimpcheroo: Words That Lewis Carroll Left Out of “Jabberwocky”
The Sexy Vampire Cliché and Why We Keep Falling For It

U.S. History
From “George Washingmachine” to “Solid as Barack”: A Survey of President Name Jokes
2003: The Golden Age of the McMansion
Manifest Destiny’s Child: How Westward Expansionism Presaged the Rise of the All-Girl R&B Group
The Monroe Doctrine: How America Laid the Smack Down
Lewis & Clark: Bro-ing Down on the Oregon Trail

World History
Peace Treaty Typos That Shaped the World
Jesus Christ: Dude or Idea?
Badass Viking Tactics
Liveblogging the Magna Carta
The Crazy Helmets of Major Conflicts

Health
Gardasil or Garda-silly? The Uproar Over the HPV Vaccine
Embarrassing Tales of the Endocrine System
If Smoking Is Bad, Why Does It Make People Look So Cool?
The Leafy Vegetable: Forever a Friend to Your Digestive Tract
The Drug Trade: What We Can Learn from Watching HBO

French
Jean Valjean vs. Wyclef Jean: Rap Battle
Nobody’s Parfait: A Brief History of the Faux Pas
French Swear Words and How to Use Them
Recent Lingual Developments in Intransitive Verb Conjugation
French Fries, French Toast, French Bread Pizza: One Country’s Contributions to American Obesity

What term paper have you saved for the last minute?