problem solution research paper example

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How to Write a Problem Solution Paper

Last Updated: July 22, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Stephanie Wong Ken, MFA . Stephanie Wong Ken is a writer based in Canada. Stephanie's writing has appeared in Joyland, Catapult, Pithead Chapel, Cosmonaut's Avenue, and other publications. She holds an MFA in Fiction and Creative Writing from Portland State University. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 145,599 times.

A problem solution paper focuses on a particular problem or set of problems. As the essay writer, you will then need to come up with a solution or several solutions to the stated problem. Problem solution papers are common on exams, as they allow you to explore an issue and use critical thinking to respond with a solution. To write a problem solution paper, start by outlining the paper. Then, follow the structure of a problem solution paper and polish the paper so it is at its best when you turn it in.

Starting the Paper

• For example, you may have a main situation like, “obesity and poor fitness,” or “trigger warnings on college campuses.”
• If you get to choose the situation, make a list of groups you belong to, such as “school,” “family,” “race,” “culture”,” or “local community.” Then, identify a situation or issue you have encountered as a member of one of these groups.

• In the situation component, you will paraphrase the prompt of the paper in your own words.
• In the problem component, you will state the problem or problems and explain what they are in your own words.
• In the solution component, you will state your solution or solutions to the problem. You will also explain how it will address the problem.
• In the evaluation component, you will list the main ideas in the paper and offer a prediction or recommendation based on your solution to the problem.
• There will only be one situation presented to you in the prompt for the paper. You can then have multiple problems and multiple solutions that link back to the situation.

• Introduction section, where you discuss the situation
• Transition sentence or paragraph
• Conclusion section, where you discuss the evaluation

• Problem 1 and Solution to Problem 1
• Problem 2 and Solution to Problem 2
• Problem 3 and Solution to Problem 3

Writing the Paper

• For example, if the situation in the paper prompt is “obesity and poor fitness,” you may focus on specific aspects of the situation in the introduction. You may look at how the consumption of unhealthy food and the overuse of cars plays into obesity and poor fitness in society.

• If you cannot find a lot of outside material on the problem, you can collect your own data for the paper. Do this by making a survey that you give to people who are affected by the problem. You can also interview people associated with the problem, or with possible solutions.
• For example, if you were researching the problem “trigger warnings on college campuses,” you may interview college representatives at your university or college. You may also talk to students on campus.
• Most problem solution papers written for exams do not require you to cite any outside sources. You may need to cite your sources if you are writing the problem solution paper for a class.

• For example, if you were writing about the situation “obesity and poor fitness,” you may have the following thesis statement: “Obesity and poor fitness can lead to a decrease in life expectancy, and it is essential that individuals and governments work together to tackle this issue by improving their citizen's diet and fitness.”

• For example, you may come up with a solution that addresses a lack of resources by adding support, money, or more staff. Or you may come up with a solution that addresses the problem by changing an existing practice or habit.

• For example, if one of your solutions to the problem of obesity and poor fitness is to encourage people to cook at home, you may list a few specific ways people can do this. You may suggest that national eating healthy at home campaign is created, offering recipes online that take less than 30 minutes to prepare at home.

• For example, you may end up a call to action like, “With rising levels of obesity in our country, it is essential that we take action now to address this serious issue.”

Polishing the Paper

• You can create a reverse outline using your paper as a guide, where you go through each section and confirm it follows the outline you started with.

• You can also show the paper to a peer, friend, or family member and get them to proofread it for you.

• If you are writing the problem solution paper for a class assignment, you may still have a set word count. Check that your paper falls within this word count.
• ↑ https://www.jccc.edu/student-resources/academic-resource-center/writing-center/files/problem-solution-paper.pdf
• ↑ http://www.eapfoundation.com/writing/essays/problemsolution/
• ↑ https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/grammar/writing/how-to-write-a-problem-solution-essay.html
• ↑ https://www.shsu.edu/centers/academic-success-center/writing/handouts/modes/essays/9.-.Problem.Solution.Essay.pdf
• ↑ https://clt.library.jwu.edu/c.php?g=1028305&p=7459493
• ↑ https://clt.library.jwu.edu/c.php?g=1028305&p=7459493#s-lg-box-wrapper-27749528

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About This Article

A problem solution paper focuses on a particular issue and should include one or more solutions to it. You’ll need to begin the paper by stating the situation in your own words. For example, the situation could be “obesity and core fitness.” Include a thesis statement at the end of your introduction, which could be something like, “Obesity can lead to decreased life expectancy, making it imperative for governments and people to tackle this issue by improving diet and fitness.” The following sections should deal with identifying all of the problems arising from the situation and proposing solutions to them. Try to give examples to explain each solution. For instance, if you say the growth of obesity can be stopped by improving people’s diets, you could propose a national healthy eating campaign. Finally, you should conclude by evaluating the whole paper and making recommendations about how to implement your solutions. For tips from our Writing co-author on how to plan an outline for your problem solving paper, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Problem-solution essays Situation-problem-solution-evaluation

Problem-solution essays are a common essay type, especially for short essays such as subject exams or IELTS . The page gives information on what they are , how to structure this type of essay, and gives an example problem-solution essay on the topic of obesity and fitness levels.

What are problem-solution essays?

Problem-solution essays consider the problems of a particular situation, and give solutions to those problems. They are in some ways similar to cause and effect essays , especially in terms of structure (see below). Problem-solution essays are actually a sub-type of another type of essay, which has the following four components:

The 'situation' may be included in the essay prompt, in which case it will not be needed in the main body. If it is needed, it can often be included in the introduction, especially for short essays, as with the example essay below . The 'evaluation' may be included as part of the conclusion (also as in the example below), or omitted altogether, especially for short essays. For these reasons, problem-solution essays are more common than situation-problem-solution-evaluation essays (or SPSE essays).

There are two main ways to structure a problem-solution essay. These are similar to the ways to structure cause and effect essays , namely using a block or a chain structure. For the block structure, all of the problems are listed first, and all of the solutions are listed afterwards. For the chain structure, each problem is followed immediately by the solution to that problem. Both types of structure have their merits. The former is generally clearer, especially for shorter essays, while the latter ensures that any solutions you present relate directly to the problems you have given.

The two types of structure, block and chain , are shown in the diagram below. This is for a short essay, which includes the 'situation' in the introduction and 'evaluation' in the conclusion. A longer essay, for example one of around 1,000 words, with citations , would probably have these two sections as separate paragraphs in the main body.

Example essay

Below is a problem-solution essay on the topic of obesity and poor fitness . It uses the block structure . Click on the different areas (in the shaded boxes) to highlight the different structural aspects in this essay, i.e. Situation, Problem, Solution, Evaluation. This will highlight not simply the paragraphs, but also (for problems and solutions) the thesis statement and summary , as these repeat the problems and solutions contained in the main body.

Consumption of processed and convenience foods and our dependence on the car have led to an increase in obesity and reduction in the fitness level of the adult population. In some countries, especially industrialized ones, the number of obese people can amount to one third of the population. This is significant as obesity and poor fitness lead to a decrease in life expectancy , and it is therefore important for individuals and governments to work together to tackle this issue and improve their citizens' diet and fitness. Obesity and poor fitness decrease life expectancy. Overweight people are more likely to have serious illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease, which can result in premature death. It is well known that regular exercise can reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke, which means that those with poor fitness levels are at an increased risk of suffering from those problems. Changes by individuals to their diet and their physical activity can increase life expectancy. There is a reliance today on the consumption of processed foods, which have a high fat and sugar content. By preparing their own foods, and consuming more fruit and vegetables, people could ensure that their diets are healthier and more balanced, which could lead to a reduction in obesity levels. In order to improve fitness levels, people could choose to walk or cycle to work or to the shops rather than taking the car. They could also choose to walk up stairs instead of taking the lift. These simple changes could lead to a significant improvement in fitness levels. Governments could also implement initiatives to improve their citizens' eating and exercise habits. This could be done through education, for example by adding classes to the curriculum about healthy diet and lifestyles. Governments could also do more to encourage their citizens to walk or cycle instead of taking the car, for instance by building more cycle lanes or increasing vehicle taxes. While some might argue that increased taxes are a negative way to solve the problem, it is no different from the high taxes imposed on cigarettes to reduce cigarette consumption. In short, obesity and poor fitness are a significant problem in modern life, leading to lower life expectancy . Individuals and governments can work together to tackle this problem and so improve diet and fitness . Of the solutions suggested, those made by individuals themselves are likely to have more impact, though it is clear that a concerted effort with the government is essential for success. With obesity levels in industrialized and industrializing countries continuing to rise, it is essential that we take action now to deal with this problem.

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Author: Sheldon Smith    ‖    Last modified: 22 January 2022.

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Compare & contrast essays examine the similarities of two or more objects, and the differences.

Cause & effect essays consider the reasons (or causes) for something, then discuss the results (or effects).

Discussion essays require you to examine both sides of a situation and to conclude by saying which side you favour.

Problem-solution essays are a sub-type of SPSE essays (Situation, Problem, Solution, Evaluation).

Transition signals are useful in achieving good cohesion and coherence in your writing.

Reporting verbs are used to link your in-text citations to the information cited.

The Definitive Guide to Writing a Problem Solution Essay

06 February, 2021

13 minutes read

Author:  Josh Carlyle

In this article, we cover the basics of problem solution essay writing. We will explain what a problem and solution essay is in academic and straightforward terms. We shall also cover the four essential components that make this essay coherent. With these four components in mind, we will offer guidance on the outline structure and provide some general writing tips on research and problem solving, as well as some topics and essay samples.

What is a Problem Solution Essay?

A problem solution essay is a staple of humanities and social science subjects. These essays cover a pressing issue, examine how it causes problems, and offer solutions to these problems. The topic for problem solution essay papers can be incredibly diverse. The problem could be local, regional, or global. It could affect a wide range of people or be part of the discourse on an arcane and obscure aspect of computing.

If you are wondering how to write a problem solution essay, look no further than its name. The core of a problem solution essay is in the title. In this type of essay, a problem is presented, and a solution is offered. Doing this well requires presenting the issue in an audience-appropriate way and then offering solutions that thoroughly negate any critiques of those solutions. 

4 Components of a Problem Solution Essay

In a problem and solution essay, the following aspects must be included:  

• The Situation: this opening part is where the foundation of the problem lies. It is not an introduction in the sense that you may be familiar with or an abstract that covers the entirety of your thesis. Rather, it is a short and straightforward briefing that will make a layperson familiar with the situation at hand.
• The Problem: this part provides specifics of the problem. Detailed dissections of evidence take place here; we’ll summarise those later in the evaluation section. 
• The Solution: this component covers push-back specific solutions you may encounter. Part of a correct answer is thinking of your opponents’ perspectives and ensuring that they address their assumptions and points.
• The Evaluation: in this section, it is crucial to write with brevity and wit; this will make your position memorable. Readers will often remember the last part of essays they read, so make sure it represents a microcosm of your essay as a whole. 

These components are the essence of the structure required in a problem solution essay. The actual structure you will work with will require a finer granulation of sections. For instance, in the solution section, the critiques will also need to have a review applied, demonstrating their lack of applicability or irrelevance. 

Problem Solution Essay Outline

The best guide for a problem solution essay outline is the four components mentioned above. Cover the situation, the problem, the solution, and then evaluate both or all sides of the story. 

To drill down further into the outline, you should have an introduction that will set out your paper’s structure. Then you should present the situation. Keep this section free from emotive language. Use it to ensure the reader has all the facts, and imagine that you want everyone reading the paper to be on a level playing field in terms of knowledge and framing of the problem.

In the problem section, you must explain why there is a particular issue. At this point in your essay, ensure that you do not leave the door open to other causes of the problem. Find ways to make the problem something that the reader cares about and wants to solve, but beware of assuming the reader is on your side simply because you’ve said some things and made some points. 

Once the situation has been explained, and the problem elucidated, present your solution. It  should use evidence, and you should be able to explain how it directly relates to the question.  Don’t use ad hominem attacks or go polemic. Unravel the problem with your solution. Take it to step by step and keep your writing composed.

In the evaluation section, you should find your argument’s weaknesses and the views that find fault with your solution.

How To Find Solutions to Your Problems

You can find solutions to your problems by researching them; someone will have asked the question before, or one very similar to it. You can talk to your peers and even conduct polls on social media to gauge the public’s position on various solutions. 

Another way of finding solutions include flipping your perspective. Take the position of the other side and see the world through their gaze. By putting yourself in the opponent’s shoes, you can see weaknesses in your ideas and perhaps adjust them to take on more relevance to more people or factor in an aspect that you had overlooked.

Ultimately, the best way to find solutions is to read and read some more. Try looking in your library if you prefer books to the internet, but don’t leave Google out of it. Using the search engine correctly, you can dig up all kinds of books, papers, and presentations that will be very useful in your studies.

Problem Solution Essay Topics

The list of problem solution essay topics is very long. As mentioned earlier, the problem can be a local issue, affecting a specific demographic or being universal. Regardless of the topic you choose, there are another million waiting for an answer.

To start you off, the climate crisis is an excellent area for debate. 

• How do we deal with stranded assets in the fossil fuel industry and financial sector? 
• What should the laws be surrounding new cars run on petrol and diesel? 
• How should electrification be carried out in developing nations? Is a carbon tax a viable way to reduce emissions? 

Other problem solution essay ideas might include social media’s effect on dopamine levels, gerrymandering in electoral districts, or the working week’s length. 

Problem Solution Essay Examples

Reading previous papers is a fantastic method to improve your grades. Study essays that get top marks and some of the ones which get lower marks. The difference will be apparent in their vocabulary, logic, and evidence. Read a few problem solution essay sample papers but don’t plagiarize them; always cite your sources. Here are a few examples to help you get started: 

https://www.eapfoundation.com/writing/essays/problemsolution/  

https://www.ieltsbuddy.com/problem-solution-essays.html  

Writing Tips for a Problem Solution Essay

An essay is a complex task to complete. That’s why it’s useful to break down the whole into several steps. 

Step one is to conduct some thorough research and planning. If you have free choice over the problem at hand, then start by brainstorming some groups you belong to and decide whether they’re officially mandated ones like a sports team or a club, or broader, like your sex, gender, nationality, or language grouping.

After this, jot down some issues in the groups. Are you struggling to manage the payment plan for your sports hall? Has there been an instance of bullying or shaming in your school? With the topic in mind, move onto research. 

When researching your topic, it’s always useful to remember that there is nothing new under the sun. It is almost definite that similar problems have arisen before, and most solutions already exist.

Then, conduct and compose a literature review on the topic. A literature review is an excellent addition to your essay as a standalone section. It helps to situate your issue within the world and builds relations to other similar problems. 

You may think you have nothing to say about the problem or find it hard to justify your opinion. Well, in the problem solution essay, your voice matters. Always try to back up what you’re saying through evidence and try not to stray into writing a polemic. Yet, passion and emotion are useful tools for framing the problem. Just try not to make these responses the whole essay.

As far as solving problems goes, you can use some general mechanics to come up with solutions. The following paragraphs will present some of these logical mechanics; feel free to use them in your writing:

• Add something new: this solution works when something is lacking. The problem may be a lack of funding, equipment, or motivation. The assumed problem when using this angle of attack is that there is a lack of resources available. Concrete examples of this could include more teaching assistants in education, longer opening hours at a library, or more significant legislation to protect the environment.
• Remove something: this is the inverse of the previous point. Inversing is a useful strategy for thinking about problems in general. If something is too crowded or too busy, it might be a solution to limit exposure to something and devise a solution. 
• Education: learning is a more specific aspect of ‘adding something’; it presupposes that a lack of information and awareness is the cause of the problem. If people had this knowledge, the theory goes that the issue would disappear or reduce because people could make informed decisions and correct their behavior.
• Enforcement: if something like school rules, or even the law, is being ignored, proper enforcement might be a solution. Enforcement has its own sets of problems. This angle is an excellent way to write an unfolding and varied essay as it requires lots of discussion around proper enforcement. Making people do things they don’t want to do is a tricky situation and is riddled with structural and psychological issues.
• Compromising: proposing compromise through mediation or bi-partisan effort is another complex solution. To work effectively, it has to involve people who possess robust negotiation techniques. But settlements happen all the time, so they’re a powerful solution to many problems. It may be useful to learn about zero-sum and relative issues to argue this case correctly.
• A change in leadership: leaders can become stale and cumbersome; they may get weighed down by responsibility and have a low tolerance for change. Although, many problems require systemic changes, such as the climate crisis. With an established leader in charge, progress could be slow as they may be blinkered by their position. In this case, they are proposing an election or vote of confidence as a solution that can break the deadlock and offer people a chance to voice their concerns through voting.

One could surmise that the problem and solution essay is an incredibly relevant style of writing. By dissecting an issue and coming up with solutions, you learn a skill that is useful in many careers and practices. But writing one effectively requires both passion and perseverance; writing about topics that move us, though letting the fire burn too brightly, can put readers off or lead them to ignore their blind spots. 

Follow the structures set out above and make sure to proofread your essays before submission. Finding a good editor is always a positive step; they can help to rephrase your words so that your argument comes across more fluently. 

Writing drafts is good practice, although not always possible due to time constraints. Ideally, you should work through two drafts before submitting a final piece; if the essay makes up a small part of your overall grade, adjust the drafting process accordingly. 

Write a Problem Solution Essay with HandmadeWriting

Problem solution writing has been speaking truth to power for millennia. HandmadeWriting loves seeking solutions as much as it loves a simple academic essay or lab report. It’s hard to become a good essay writer without getting critical at times. That’s why we pride ourselves on producing some of the most compelling content around. So be the next one to enjoy our writing and get an A+ for it.

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Composition Type: Problem-Solution Essays

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In composition , using a problem-solution format is a method for analyzing and writing about a topic by identifying a problem and proposing one or more solutions. A problem-solution essay is a type of argument. "This sort of essay involves argumentation in that the writer seeks to convince the reader to take a particular course of action. In explaining the problem, it may also need to persuade the reader concerning specific causes" (Dave Kemper et al., "Fusion: Integrated Reading and Writing," 2016).

The Thesis Statement

In many types of report writing, the thesis statement is posed front and center, in one sentence. Author Derek Soles writes about how the thesis statement in a problem-solution paper differs from a straight "report of findings" type of text:

"[One]  expository  mode is the problem-solution essay, topics for which are typically framed in the form of questions. Why did fourth-graders from poor families score low on a nationwide math test, and how can educators improve math education for this group? Why is Iran a threat to our national security, and how can we reduce this threat? Why did it take the Democratic Party so long to select a candidate for the 2008 presidential election, and what can the party do to make the process more efficient in the future? These essays have two parts: a full explanation of the nature of the problem, followed by an analysis of solutions and their likelihood of success."

("The Essentials of Academic Writing," 2nd ed. Wadsworth, Cengage, 2010)

Readers need additional context before you get to your thesis, but that is not to say that the thesis has to be posed as a question in the introduction:  

"In a problem-solution essay, the thesis statement usually proposes the solution. Because readers must first understand the problem, the thesis statement usually comes after a description of the problem. The thesis statement does not have to give details about the solution. Instead, it summarizes the solution. It should also lead naturally to the body of the essay, preparing your reader for a discussion of how your solution would work."

(Dorothy Zemach and Lynn Stafford-Yilmaz, "Writers at Work: The Essay." Cambridge University Press, 2008)

Sample Introductions

It can be helpful to see completed examples before writing in order to examine what makes for an effective piece. See how these introductions give some context before posing the topic and lead naturally into the body paragraphs, where the evidence will be listed. You can imagine how the author has organized the rest of the piece.

"We buried my cousin last summer. He was 32 when he hanged himself from a closet coat rack in the throes of alcoholism, the fourth of my blood relatives to die prematurely from this deadly disease. If America issued drinking licenses, those four men—including my father, who died at 54 of liver failure—might be alive today."

(Mike Brake, "Needed: A License to Drink."  Newsweek , March 13, 1994)

"America is suffering from overwork. Too many of us are too busy, trying to squeeze more into each day while having less to show for it. Although our growing time crunch is often portrayed as a personal dilemma, it is, in fact, a major social problem that has reached crisis proportions over the past twenty years."

(Barbara Brandt, "Whole Life Economics: Revaluing Daily Life." New Society, 1995)

"The modern-day apartment dweller is faced with a most annoying problem: paper-thin walls and sound-amplifying ceilings. To live with this problem is to live with the invasion of privacy. There is nothing more distracting than to hear your neighbors' every function. Although the source of the noise cannot be eliminated, the problem can be solved."

(Maria B. Dunn, "One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor: The Problem of Noise")

Organization

In "Passages: A Writer's Guide, " how to organize a problem-solution paper is explained:  

"Though to some extent [your organization of the paper] depends on your topic, do make sure that you include the following information:

Introduction: Identify the problem in a nutshell. Explain why this is a problem, and mention who should be concerned about it.

Problem Paragraph(s): Explain the problem clearly and specifically. Demonstrate that this is not just a personal complaint, but a genuine problem that affects many people.

"Solution Paragraph(s): Offer a concrete solution to the problem, and explain why this is the best one available. You may want to point out why other possible solutions are inferior to yours. If your solution calls for a series of steps or actions to be followed, present these steps in a logical order.

"Conclusion: Reemphasize the importance of the problem and the value of your solution. Choose a problem that you have experienced and thought about—one that you have solved or are in the process of solving. Then, in the essay itself, you may use your own experience to illustrate the problem. However, don't focus all the attention on yourself and on your troubles. Instead, direct the essay at others who are experiencing a similar problem. In other words, don't write an I essay ('How I Cure the Blues'); write a you essay ('How You Can Cure the Blues')."

(Richard Nordquist, Passages: A Writer's Guide , 3rd ed. St. Martin's Press, 1995)

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• The Ultimate Guide to Write Effective Problem Solution Essay
• Mastering The Art of Academic Essay Writing With Examples

Problem-solution essay is a common type of expository essay in academic writing. These essays are usually assigned to students in higher levels of education because they require effective research on the topic before providing foolproof solutions to the problems.

Table of Contents

• What is a problem-solution essay
• Structure of a problem-solving essay
• Introduction element:hook
• Introduction element:background brief
• Introduction element: thesis statement
• Introduction element: outline
• Body paragraph of a problem-solution essay
• Conclusion of a problem-solution essay

If you are also a student, there are possibilities that you will also get the task of writing an essay for a college/school assessment. Most probably you have gotten one and that’s why you are here we guess.

Besides, we know that researching and writing a problem and solution essay can be a head-scratcher sometimes. Moreover, students often get confused with the structure, thesis statement, and what to write in the body paragraphs of a problem solution essay. Lack of proper knowledge in writing a good problem and solution essay could result in lower credits.

However, before writing a problem solution essay, it is essential to identify the right problem that needs to be discussed in the essay. For this, you need to effectively brainstorm some of the ideas and then choose the right problems to address unless the topic is already assigned by your professors.

Now that you have effectively chosen a good topic for writing, you must go through a stepwise approach for writing an impressive problem solution essay. So, before starting to write an essay, it is essential to know what exactly is a problem-solution essay.

What is a problem-solution essay?

As the name suggests, a problem solution essay offers the solutions to a specific problem discussed in the essay. The problem solution essay intends to present either multiple solutions to a single problem or one ideal solution to the problem discussed in the essay.

In the book, Fusion: Integrated Reading and Writing (2016), the author Dave Kemper defined a problem-solving essay, “This sort of essay involves argumentation in that the writer seeks to convince the reader to take a particular course of action. In explaining the problem, it may also need to persuade the reader concerning specific causes”. To understand the problem-solving essay more comprehensively, let’s have a look at some of the example topics of problem-solving essays.

• Elaborate on some of the effective solutions to reduce poverty.
• Describe solutions to the problem of rising drug abuse in adolescents.
• Elucidate the measure that can be taken to prevent human trafficking.

To continue, as seen in the above examples, some critical social problems are addressed and effective solutions need to be presented. Problems can be complex social issues like drug abuse or environmental problems like climate change that concern the entire planet. In most problem-solution essays, the problems are peculiar and have large scale implications.

But in order to effectively present a problem and its foolproof solutions, it is necessary to follow the right structure of writing a good problem solution essay. So, let’s get started with the structure.

How to structure the problem-solving essay?

Giving the right structure to an essay is an important aspect of writing a good essay because the better the structure, the more easily your reader or audience can navigate through your essay. In the case of a problem or solution essay, the structure is even more important because through the right structure only, your audience would be able to understand the given problem and your provided solutions more effectively.

In the problem solution essays, the structure is quite similar to the other essays that start with an essay introduction and is followed by body paragraphs and conclusions. To simplify, the standard structure of a problem solution consists of four paragraphs in which the introduction usually starts with asking a question that reflects the main problem. Along with this, the introduction also consists of the outline and the thesis statement of the essay.

Following the introduction, as per standard structuring, there will be two body paragraphs in which one will talk about the problem while the paragraph will present the solutions. The number of paragraphs containing the problem and solution can be extended as per the desired length of the essay. In the end, the conclusion of the essay will be provided that will sum up the key arguments. Let us delve into the introduction of a problem- solution essay.

How to write the introduction of a problem-solving essay?

An introduction is an important aspect of an essay because through an impressive introduction only, you will be able to convince your readers to read your essay till the end. In the case of a problem-solving essay, your introduction should be engaging enough to give a clear idea to the readers about the given problem/situation and whom the problem majorly impacts.

However, while writing an introduction there are a few other important aspects that need to be taken into consideration.

The crucial aspect is that your introduction should always contain

• Background information
• Thesis statement

That being said, the further sections will deliberately explain all the elements one by one to give you a clear picture of writing essays. Besides, every section will contain a sample element of the essay topic: Elaborate on some of the effective solutions to reduce poverty.

Explanation through an example will assist you in better understanding how to write each element meticulously. So, let’s move ahead without further ado.

Introduction element: Hook of a problem-solving essay

A hook is a very first and crucial element of writing an engaging essay introduction. Its presence in the introduction of the essay will assist you in intriguing the curiosity of the reader that will encourage them to read till the end.

Besides, the hook in the introduction of a problem-solving essay could be of various types. It can be a fun fact/claim or an astonishing statistic that directly points toward the problem which will assist in grabbing the attention of the reader from the very beginning.

Besides, in the case of a problem solution essay, you can also create a hook by asking valid questions related to the problem discussed in the essay to involve your reader in your essay as well. As per our example, the sample hook is given below.

Sample hook

Approximately 85% of the world is currently living on less than $30 per day. More than two-thirds of the same lives on less than $10 per day. Moreover, every 10th person survives on less than $1.90 per day (Roser & Ortiz-Ospina, 2022).

After hooking the readers on interesting information, it is time to give background information about the problem.

Introduction element: Background brief of a problem-solving essay

The background information will be provided to make your readers understand the context of the essay. In the case of a problem solution essay, you will provide background information about the problem that will clearly answer a few of the given questions below.

• What is the problem?
• How big is the problem?
• Whom does the problem majorly affect?

Background information will assist the readers in understanding the urgency of the problem and will also highlight the major reason behind the need for highlighting the problem. In accordance with our example, the sample background information is given below.

Sample background brief

Poverty is becoming a global issue and every coming day; the rich are becoming richer and the poor are becoming poorer. Hence making progress against poverty is becoming one of the most urgent goals of the globe today. People lying in the poor category often face challenges like hunger, less access to education, sanitation issues, and much poorer health.

After giving the readers the background information, it is now time to give the thesis statement of the problem solution essay.

Introduction element: The thesis statement of a problem-solving essay

The thesis statement refers to the brief summary of the central idea of the essay that is usually included at the end of the introduction before the outline of an essay. A thesis statement in a problem solution essay can be of two to three lines but irrespective of the length of the thesis statement, your thesis statement needs to clearly include,

• Why is it a problem?
• How does this problem impact the readers?
• Why does this problem need to be solved?

Moreover, the thesis statement should naturally highlight a brief summary of the solutions that would be highlighted later in the discussion. However, the thesis statement does not need to present detailed solutions. In the case of our example of the sample essay, the thesis statement in the problem solution essay is given below.

Sample thesis statement

Poverty is still a problem because it brings other problems such as malnutrition, and sanitation issues along. It also hinders the growth of developed and developing nations which directly impacts the lives of other people as well. Alleviation of poverty will ensure enhanced living standards for the people and will provide them with better growth opportunities.

Following the thesis statement, the last paragraph highlights the outline of the essay.

Introduction element: Outline of a problem-solving essay

The outline of the essay is the last paragraph of the introduction that will deliberately guide your readers toward the main body paragraphs of the essay. In the case of a problem solution essay, it is a kind of roadmap that will further guide your readers on the given problem and solutions they will encounter in the body paragraphs of the essay respectively.

However, it is essential to note that the outline should always summarize the solutions rather than discuss them in detail.

Sample outline

In this essay, firstly different problems that occur from poverty will be discussed in the essay, along with some of the statistics validating the issue. Secondly, the essay will possess some of the main causes of the problem. Lastly, different solutions will be discussed in the essay that can assist in reducing global poverty.

After the meticulous explanation, comes the body paragraphs of the essay.

How to write the body paragraph of a problem solution essay?

Body paragraphs are the cornerstone of the essay that requires the utmost research and attention to detail. There can be multiple paragraphs or even more depending upon the overall length requirement of the essay. You can choose to present the body paragraphs in two ways, block or point-by-point.

The block method in a problem solution essay refers to describing the problem first and then presenting all the required solutions. Whereas the point-by-point method in a problem-solution essay refers to presenting all the problems and solutions simultaneously rather than going through all problems and all solutions separately. In writing the body paragraph of the problem solution essay, you need to keep the 3 Es in mind which stands for explain, expand, and example.

To elaborate, in each paragraph you will start by explaining the topic sentence. This topic sentence will underline the problem or the solution that will be discussed in the paragraph. After explaining the topic sentence, you will elaborate your point by validly expanding the topic sentence and supporting the topic sentence by giving evidence (if possible).

For example, if you are describing the problem, you will use some statistics or research to validate the problem. Other than that, if you are providing a solution, you will use stats or research to validate how your given solution is the most effective remedy. Lastly, you can provide examples in the cases to explain the topic sentence more effectively.

Besides, the last line of the paragraph will be the transition sentence forming cohesion between the current paragraph and the next paragraph describing whether your next paragraph will present another aspect of the problem or will discuss the solution.

Following the example of our topic, below given is the example of a body paragraph using the chain method explaining poverty as a problem, first.Following the example of our topic, below given is the example of a body paragraph using the chain method explaining poverty as a problem, first.

Sample body paragraph

Poverty is a concept that is more than about lack of income and productive resources to ensure that are required to ensure good and sustainable livelihoods. Poverty also brings along poor mental and physical effects like hunger, malnutrition, and limited access to education. Along with this, poverty also brings ensures humans depriving of basic services access which has also resulted in social, political, and economic discrimination. This burden of poverty has excluded many people and deprived them of participating in various decision-making processes. Hence, it is essential to discuss the various possible solutions and act upon them to eradicate poverty effectively.

How to write the conclusion of a problem solution essay?

Lastly, the conclusion is the last paragraph that will wind up your whole essay in the end. While writing the conclusion, firstly, you will restate the thesis statement. Further than that, in a problem solution essay, it is always better to conclude with an intriguing statement that leaves your reader thinking more about the problem further and makes an impactful ending.

Sample conclusion

To conclude, sometimes all it takes is a small effort from external factors to kickstart the alleviation of poverty by giving some cashflow maintenance to the people living under the poverty line. Hence, the need is to effectively understand the problem and make small changes to implement the solutions and make the world free of poverty.

To encapsulate, if you keep all the above-given tips and tricks given in the guide in mind before writing the problem-solving essay, we are sure that you will be able to write a problem-solving essay like a pro.

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The Research Trajectory/Proposal

Picking a topic.

Think about what problem would you like to see solved. You should pick something that will be motivating to you, something that you are passionate about. Why? For one, it will make it easier for you to research and to keep yourself motivated to do the research. For another, it will make it easier for you to write on and make your paper more engaging for others to read. Your paper and the research it documents should be impactful to those who read it.

Important: make sure that you pick a problem that really has possible solutions. The same considerations apply to picking a topic for this paper as for any other -- the topic can't be too broad or too narrow, and it has to be something that can actually be researched. For more information on choosing a topic, check out this webpage on finding problem topics and useful ways to approach finding solutions to those problems .

Forming research questions

Not sure what to research for your topic? Take the topic you have selected and turn it into a research question. For instance, if your topic is "obesity in America," you could frame that into research questions like "What are measures that prevent weight gain?" or "What are the most sustainable diets for weight loss?" (Tip: Avoid search terms like "best" or "worst" because they are very vague and subjective. Choose terms that are more specific and quantifiable in meaning.)

Still stuck on how to create a research question? Check out this video for more help:

Researching your topic

Now that you have a research question, do some preliminary research to give you direction on breaking your problem down in to feasible solutions. Choose more specific Browse the library's databases, skim through a book, or search the web for possible information.

Keep these questions in mind as you search:

• What type of information is available on your topic?
• Where did you find this information?
• Who are the experts, and what do they have to say about your topic?

Creating a thesis and presenting your proposal

Using the research you gathered from your research question(s), create a claim indicating what solutions you plan to propose in your paper. What three solutions are you proposing to the problem? The topic you submit in your proposal cannot be changed, but the research process is still ongoing, so your solutions may change if you find better ones in your ongoing research. This is a tentative thesis; you can make some changes to it later if you need to.

Now that you have taken some time to seriously think about and research your topic, you are ready to present your trajectory/proposal (intentions) for the research project. The proposal must contain your final subject/topic for the research project.

Not sure how to put together a thesis? Watch this helpful video that breaks it down for you:

Outlining a Problem-Solution Paper

A problem-solution paper is exactly what it sounds like. First, an issue or obstacle is posed, then a solution or series of solutions is suggested to resolve that issue or obstacle.

Problem-solution essays can be structured differently depending on the nature of the topic. (For instance, if there is important historical information to your problem that is a bit too long for your intro, then you might want to spend a paragraph between your intro and your solution body paragraphs to give your audience that history.) Most essays, however, follow this basic formula:

I. Introduction: Communicating the Problem

• Paint a vivid picture of the problem. Focus on the how and why: how did this become a problem? why is it (still) a problem? why is it important / why does it need to be fixed? 
• End your intro with a thesis statement recapping the problem and providing a preview of the solution(s) you will offer in the rest of your paper.

II. Body: Communicating the Solution(s)

• Cover each potential solution to the problem in its own paragraph, or cover each step of a multi-step solution with each step having its own paragraph.
• Each body paragraph should have a clearly stated claim that is distinct from, though connected to, the other paragraphs.
• Support each solution or solution step with several pieces of evidence from authoritative sources of information. (Best to go to the library catalog and article databases for these.)
• Cite each source used to support your claims correctly according to MLA citation format , using an in-text citation that corresponds to an entry in your works cited page.

III. Conclusion: Reiterating Importance

• Recap your thesis statement (problem + brief overview of solution)
• Close out your paper by emphasizing the importance of solving the problem you have covered.
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How to Write a Problem Solution Paper

Problem Solution Paper: How to Write

In adult life, every day people face various problems and conflicts at work or in the lives of their friends, relatives, or their own. It’s crucial to learn and be able to solve problems and to have troubleshooting skills to ease situations. Tutors in universities or colleges try to teach students how to do that by asking them to complete problem-solution research papers as a great way to boost their problem-solving and writing skills. Proposing a solution essay as a type of paper is common on exams to check student’s critical thinking and ability to respond with a solution. To reach a solution you need to learn to work through details and find ways to solve problems quickly and effectively. To make the writing of problem-solving papers simple follow the next steps.

Step One: Defining the Problem and Choosing a Problem Solution Research Topic

When asked to write a problem and solution essay you might be assigned to a situation to write about or be allowed to choose one. If the second happens – try to think about someone or something that bothers, annoys, or irritates you, and in case you thought about a solution for that before it could be a topic for your essay; as an alternative – make a list of groups you think you belong to (such as family, school, sports teams, hobby buddies, etc.) and identify issues you have faced as a member, choose one that needs to be and can be solved practically and create a community problem-solving paper. You can also choose the topic for your essay from this list.

Step Two: Brainstorming and Research

Think about the problem or the issue you have chosen and ask yourself: why it matters, why it’s a problem, and how it can be solved. Try to understand and clarify what you know about the problem and what a potential solution could be. To ease your research or writing create questions. Try to find answers by looking for some information in scholarly journals online, academic texts, or, perhaps, in your own library, ask for help from people that you think might help you with the answers to your questions. Try to spot facts and statistics to make the problem more vivid to the readers. You can make a survey and interview the people that you think faced similar problems. In this type of paper, the point of view of the second person is efficient to be used. Read as much as possible about the topic you are going to write. In case of using outside sources, you may need to cite them. Good research will benefit you with a solid solution to the problem.

Step Three: Understanding the Complexity and Deciding on the Best Solution

If a problem is simple a solution is obvious. In case of a difficult problem, it takes some work to find a solution. It’s a good idea to create a sort of mind map or outline to understand all possible causes of the problem. Describe the factors that may be a part of the problem as many as possible. Study all potential causes of the problem that may be relevant to the factors. Create a diagram of the factors and causes, how they are connected and analyze it. Depending on the complexity of the problem you can do an investigation by analyzing causes and also surveys you’ve done before. Use specific examples and facts to support your solution and mention that you have taken to concerns the solutions of others if it happens to find them while you do your research. Try to convince your target audience that your solution is cost-effective doable, and the most effective.

Step Four: Writing an Essay

Being able to organize yourself is a very important part when writing a problem and solution essay. The structure of a problem-solving essay is the same as the structure of an ordinary academic paper.

• Introduction

Develop a strong thesis for your paper, that will appear in the introduction and the conclusion of your essay, the statement that will outline the problem and problem solution paper ideas that your essay will cover in one or two sentences. When the thesis is ready it’s time to start an introduction. The paragraph that includes a reader’s attention grabber. Interest your reader in the problem by giving a frame of the story and explaining how the problem developed and why it’s important and needs to be solved. The tone of your paper should be reasonable, rational, logical, and thoughtful.

Contain at least two or three paragraphs in the body of your paper proposing possible solutions and explaining those that wouldn’t work. Offer the solution that you think is the best. Explain your solution clearly with details. Use evidence that your solution will work by providing supporting details: statistics, studies, arguments, and all the notes you have from your previous research. Show your troubleshooting skills and why your solution is reasonable. Describe how you will implement your solution.

The conclusion should briefly emphasize the importance of the problem and sum up the proposed solution in one or more paragraphs. Explain how the situation will change if your solution is adopted. An effective way to convince your audience is to talk about the results of the problem if it remains unresolved. End your essay with a strong call to action, agitate, and motivate the reader to become involved.

Finally, write your first draft, leave your paper for some time, and get back to it later, review your work and make sure it has all the components of a problem-solution paper and follows the structure. It should identify the problem and the solution, a thesis shall appear in the introduction and the conclusion. Check for spelling, punctuation, and grammar mistakes by reading aloud to yourself or it’s a good idea to ask a friend to proofread it for you to avoid missing out on anything that needs editing. Stay focused, creative, and original, follow the steps above, and your writing process will be smooth, simple, and flow freely.

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Problem Solution Essay

Problem-Solution Essay - Writing Guide, Topics, & Examples!

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Feeling stuck when it comes to writing a solid problem-solution essay?

You're not alone—many students find it challenging. This essay type requires careful consideration and skillful execution, which isn’t always easy.

But fret not! This guide is your go-to solution. We've got all the crucial steps, structures, and examples to make essay writing a breeze for you.

So, keep reading!

• 1. What is a Problem-Solution Essay?
• 2. Problem Solution Essay Structure
• 3. How to Write a Problem-Solution Essay?
• 4. Problem-Solution Essay Example 
• 5. Problem Solution Essay Topics
• 6. Problem Solution Essay Checklist

What is a Problem-Solution Essay?

A problem-solution essay is a form of persuasive writing that delves into a specific issue, providing a detailed examination of the problem and proposing effective solutions. 

Unlike other essay types, it places a strong emphasis on presenting practical remedies to real-world problems. 

The main aim is not just to explain the problem but to get readers interested in practical solutions. This makes it a unique and impactful type of academic writing.

Why Write a Problem Solution Essay 

There are significant reasons to write a problem solution essay. First and foremost, this type of writing encourages the practical application of knowledge . You are required to address real-world issues and propose practical solutions. This helps develop a deeper sense of the problems around you.

Additionally, this process refines analytical skills , encourages you to approach problems with a solution-oriented mindset.

Also, working on a problem-solution essay helps you become better at communicating . You have to explain complicated problems and solutions in a way that's clear and easy to understand.

Writing problem solution essays is more than just an academic essay exercise. It serves as a platform for intellectual growth, developing a practical and impactful approach to societal challenges.

Problem Solution Essay Structure

In crafting a problem-solution essay, the structure plays a pivotal role in presenting ideas coherently and persuasively. 

Two commonly used structures for this type of essay are the block structure and the chain structure. Each has its unique approach to organizing information, offering writers flexibility in presenting their analysis and proposed solutions.

Block Structure

The block structure, also known as the whole-to-whole or one-side-at-a-time structure, is a straightforward organizational method. 

In this type of structure, the writer dedicates separate blocks of text to first presenting the problem comprehensively. The solutions to the problems are presented in the next sections subsequently. 

This structure allows for a clear separation between the problem and solution sections, providing a systematic and easy-to-follow presentation.

Here is an outline for block structure problem-solution essay:

Chain Structure

Contrasting the block structure, the chain structure takes an interconnected approach. 

In this format, the essay addresses a specific problem and promptly proposes a solution. 

The pattern repeats as each problem is introduced, followed immediately by its corresponding solution. This structure aims to maintain a continuous and engaging flow, presenting a transition between problems and solutions. 

Here is a chain structure template:

How to Write a Problem-Solution Essay?

A problem solution essay requires taking a systematic approach. Here are the basic steps for writing this type of essay:

Step 1 - Topic Selection

Choosing the right topic is the first crucial step in writing a problem-solution essay. Pick a real-world issue that genuinely interests you. 

Consider problems that have personal significance or affect your community. The goal is to engage with a problem that allows for meaningful discussion and exploration.

Step 2 - Understanding the Problem

Before diving into solutions, take the time to fully grasp the intricacies of the problem at hand. 

Research the issue thoroughly, aiming to comprehend its various aspects and implications. This step is essential for presenting a well-informed analysis in your essay, ensuring a solid foundation for proposing solutions.

Step 3 - Explore Viable Solutions

Once you've identified and understood the problem, brainstorm possible solutions. 

Think about practical, achievable, and effective ways to address the issue. Consider different angles and perspectives, aiming for solutions that are not only feasible but also have the potential to make a positive impact in real-world scenarios.

Step 4 - Create an Outline

Organize your thoughts and structure your essay by creating a clear outline. 

Allocate specific sections for introducing the problem, proposing solutions, and crafting a conclusion. A well-organized outline serves as a roadmap, guiding you through each step of the writing process.

Step 5 - Write the Introduction

Begin your essay with a captivating introduction . Start with an attention-grabbing hook that draws your reader in. 

Clearly state the problem, emphasizing its significance. Conclude the introduction with a concise thesis statement that outlines the solutions you will explore in the essay.

Step 6 - Craft Body Paragraph

Dedicate individual paragraphs to each problem and its corresponding solution. Elaborate on the details of the problem and present practical solutions. 

Support your ideas with examples, evidence, or real-life scenarios. This section forms the core of your essay, providing a comprehensive exploration of the issues at hand.

Step 7 - Address Possible Objections

Acknowledge and address potential counterarguments to your proposed solutions. 

Anticipating objections adds depth to your essay, showcasing a thorough consideration of alternative viewpoints. By addressing possible objections, you strengthen the overall persuasiveness of your solutions.

Step 8 - Conclude The Essay

Conclude your essay by summarizing the main points without introducing new information. Reinforce the importance of the proposed solutions and leave a lasting impression. 

Consider ending with a call to action or a thought-provoking statement that resonates with your reader. The conclusion should provide a sense of closure to your essay.

Problem-Solution Essay Example 

We know that writing this kind of essay could be a challenge. Here are some problem solution essay samples:

Problem Solution Essay Sample PDF

Financial Problem Solution Essay

Garbage Problem Solution Essay

Problem Solution Essay IELTS

Problem Solution Essay Topics

When picking a topic for your problem-solution essay, think about a few important things. 

Choose something that matters to your audience and is important in society right now. Pick issues that really affect people or communities and need attention. 

Make sure the problem can be realistically solved with practical solutions. Here is a list of problem solution essay topics you can use:

• Tobacco should be banned to control lung cancer. Discuss.
• Obesity is caused by genetically modified and processed food. Discuss the solution.
• Movie scripts should be censored to control violence in youth. Discuss.
• How to tackle the lack of resources in urban homeless shelters?
• Government should propose some policies to deal with illegal immigration. Discuss.
• How can we use social media to improve awareness?
• Propose some ways to keep your friends and family safe.
• College students in the United States are overburdened with homework.
• How to improve the quality of education in high school?
• Providing equal opportunities to under-privileged children is important. Discuss.

These are some good problem-solution topics that you can tweak to use as your own. 

Problem Solution Essay Checklist

Use this checklist to ensure your problem solution essay is well-crafted and effective:

So, wrapping up, with this guide and checklist, you can now write a problem-solution essay that fulfills its purpose. Just remember to be clear, practical, and interesting. 

But if you still feel unsure or want extra help, our essay writing service is here for you. 

Our experts know how to handle any type of essay, making sure it's top-notch. If you need that extra boost, don't hesitate to get in touch with us. We're here to make sure your essay shines and gets the job done.

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120 Problem Solution Essay Topics for College Students

Selecting a topic for a problem solution essay:.

Problem Solution Health Essay Topics:

• The rising obesity epidemic: Implementing effective strategies for promoting healthy eating and physical activity
• Access to healthcare in rural areas: Improving healthcare infrastructure and telemedicine services
• Mental health stigma: Raising awareness and promoting acceptance to reduce discrimination
• Substance abuse among teenagers: Enhancing prevention programs and providing accessible treatment options
• Lack of sex education in schools: Implementing comprehensive and evidence-based sexual education curriculum
• The impact of air pollution on respiratory health: Implementing stricter regulations on industrial emissions
• Insufficient access to clean drinking water: Developing sustainable solutions for water purification and distribution
• The rise of antibiotic resistance: Promoting responsible use of antibiotics and investing in alternative treatments
• Inadequate support for caregivers of elderly individuals: Establishing support programs and respite care services
• The impact of social media on mental health: Promoting digital well-being and responsible online behavior
• Food insecurity and malnutrition: Implementing policies to ensure access to nutritious food for all
• Lack of physical activity among children: Enhancing physical education programs and creating safe recreational spaces
• The impact of sleep deprivation on overall health: Promoting healthy sleep habits and raising awareness about its importance
• Limited access to affordable healthcare for low-income individuals: Expanding Medicaid and increasing funding for community health centers
• The stigma surrounding mental health in minority communities: Promoting culturally sensitive mental health services and education

Problem Solution Education Essay Topics:

• Addressing the achievement gap: Strategies to bridge the educational disparities among students from different socioeconomic backgrounds
• Enhancing teacher training programs: Improving the quality of education by providing teachers with effective professional development opportunities
• Reducing school dropout rates: Implementing interventions to prevent students from leaving school prematurely
• Promoting inclusive education: Strategies to ensure equal access to education for students with disabilities
• Combating bullying in schools: Implementing comprehensive anti-bullying programs to create a safe and supportive learning environment
• Improving digital literacy: Enhancing students’ skills to effectively navigate and utilize technology for educational purposes
• Enhancing parental involvement: Strategies to encourage parents to actively participate in their children’s education
• Addressing the shortage of qualified teachers: Implementing initiatives to attract and retain highly qualified educators
• Reducing the emphasis on standardized testing: Exploring alternative assessment methods to promote a more holistic approach to education
• Promoting cultural diversity in schools: Strategies to create inclusive learning environments that celebrate and respect different cultures
• Addressing the lack of resources in underfunded schools: Implementing measures to provide adequate funding and resources for schools in disadvantaged areas
• Preventing academic cheating: Implementing integrity programs to promote academic honesty among students
• Enhancing career guidance programs: Providing students with comprehensive career guidance to help them make informed decisions about their future
• Addressing the mental health crisis in schools: Implementing mental health support services to address the increasing prevalence of mental health issues among students
• Promoting critical thinking skills: Incorporating critical thinking into the curriculum to foster independent and analytical thinking among students

Problem Solution Psychology Essay Topics:

• The impact of social media on mental health: Addressing cyberbullying and online addiction
• Reducing the stigma surrounding mental illness: Promoting understanding and empathy in society
• Enhancing psychological support in schools: Strategies to improve student well-being and academic performance
• Overcoming the challenges of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): Effective therapeutic interventions and support systems
• Addressing the rise of anxiety disorders in young adults: Identifying causes and implementing preventive measures
• Combating the negative effects of body image dissatisfaction: Promoting self-acceptance and positive body image
• Reducing the prevalence of eating disorders: Implementing comprehensive prevention and treatment programs
• Enhancing mental health services in rural areas: Overcoming barriers to access and improving outreach efforts
• Addressing the psychological impact of unemployment: Strategies for coping and reintegration into the workforce
• Promoting positive parenting techniques: Reducing the risk of child abuse and fostering healthy child development
• Overcoming the challenges of addiction: Effective treatment approaches and relapse prevention strategies
• Addressing the psychological impact of discrimination: Promoting equality and inclusivity in society
• Enhancing mental health support for veterans: Addressing the unique challenges faced by military personnel
• Reducing the prevalence of self-harm and suicide: Implementing early intervention and support programs
• Overcoming the psychological impact of natural disasters: Building resilience and providing post-disaster mental health support

Problem Solution Environment Essay Topics:

• Deforestation: Implementing sustainable logging practices to protect forests
• Air pollution: Promoting the use of electric vehicles to reduce emissions
• Plastic pollution: Encouraging the adoption of reusable alternatives to single-use plastics
• Water scarcity: Implementing efficient irrigation systems to conserve water in agriculture
• Climate change: Promoting renewable energy sources to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
• Loss of biodiversity: Establishing protected areas and wildlife corridors to preserve ecosystems
• Soil erosion: Promoting sustainable farming practices to prevent soil degradation
• Overfishing: Implementing stricter regulations and sustainable fishing practices
• Urbanization: Designing green cities with more parks and green spaces to improve air quality
• Waste management: Encouraging recycling and composting programs to reduce landfill waste
• Deficient waste disposal: Implementing proper waste disposal systems in developing countries
• Acid rain: Reducing industrial emissions and promoting cleaner energy production
• Ozone depletion: Phasing out the use of ozone-depleting substances in manufacturing
• Noise pollution: Implementing noise reduction measures in urban areas to improve quality of life
• Industrial pollution: Enforcing stricter regulations and penalties for polluting industries

Problem Solution Technology Essay Topics:

• Cyberbullying: Implementing stricter regulations and educational programs to combat online harassment
• Digital divide: Bridging the gap between individuals with limited access to technology and those with advanced technological resources
• Online privacy: Developing effective measures to protect personal information and prevent data breaches
• Fake news: Promoting media literacy and critical thinking skills to combat the spread of misinformation
• E-waste management: Implementing recycling programs and encouraging responsible disposal of electronic devices
• Internet addiction: Raising awareness and providing resources for individuals struggling with excessive internet usage
• Online security: Enhancing cybersecurity measures to protect against hacking and identity theft
• Digital literacy: Promoting education and training programs to ensure individuals have the necessary skills to navigate the digital world
• Online harassment: Implementing stricter laws and policies to address and prevent online harassment and cyberstalking
• Technology addiction in children: Educating parents and caregivers on healthy technology usage for children and promoting alternative activities
• Data privacy in social media: Strengthening regulations and user control over personal data shared on social media platforms
• Digital piracy: Developing effective strategies to combat copyright infringement and protect intellectual property rights
• Technological unemployment: Implementing retraining programs and promoting entrepreneurship to address job displacement caused by automation
• Online scams: Raising awareness and providing resources to prevent individuals from falling victim to online scams and fraud
• Digital divide in education: Providing equal access to technology and internet resources for students in underserved communities

Problem Solution Philosophy Essay Topics:

• The problem of free will and determinism: Finding a solution to the debate between human agency and predestination
• The problem of evil: Exploring philosophical solutions to the existence of evil in a world created by a benevolent God
• The problem of personal identity: Examining philosophical theories that address the question of what constitutes personal identity over time
• The problem of skepticism: Proposing philosophical solutions to the challenge of skepticism and the possibility of knowledge
• The problem of moral relativism: Analyzing philosophical approaches to resolving the conflict between moral relativism and moral objectivity
• The problem of consciousness: Investigating philosophical theories that offer solutions to the mind-body problem and the nature of consciousness
• The problem of induction: Evaluating philosophical responses to the problem of induction and the reliability of empirical knowledge
• The problem of universals: Discussing philosophical solutions to the debate over the existence and nature of universals
• The problem of personal responsibility: Examining philosophical perspectives on the concept of personal responsibility and its implications for moral accountability
• The problem of theodicy: Exploring philosophical responses to the problem of reconciling the existence of God with the presence of evil and suffering
• The problem of identity politics: Analyzing philosophical approaches to addressing the challenges and controversies surrounding identity politics
• The problem of moral luck: Investigating philosophical theories that attempt to reconcile the role of luck in moral judgments and moral responsibility
• The problem of the self: Discussing philosophical solutions to the question of the self and its relationship to consciousness and personal identity
• The problem of relativism in ethics: Evaluating philosophical responses to the challenges posed by ethical relativism and the possibility of moral objectivity
• The problem of the nature of reality: Examining philosophical theories that offer solutions to the question of the nature of reality and the limits of human perception

Problem Solution History Essay Topics:

• The impact of colonization on indigenous cultures: Strategies for cultural preservation and revitalization
• The causes and consequences of the Great Depression: Implementing economic reforms to prevent future economic crises
• The rise of totalitarian regimes in the 20th century: Strategies for promoting democracy and safeguarding human rights
• The causes and consequences of the Cold War: Finding diplomatic solutions to reduce tensions and promote global cooperation
• The challenges faced by women suffragettes in the fight for voting rights: Strategies for achieving gender equality in politics
• The effects of the Industrial Revolution on working conditions: Implementing labor reforms to protect workers’ rights
• The causes and consequences of the Civil Rights Movement: Strategies for combating racial discrimination and promoting equality
• The impact of imperialism on African nations: Strategies for decolonization and nation-building
• The causes and consequences of the French Revolution: Implementing political reforms to address social inequality and promote democracy
• The challenges faced by Native American tribes during westward expansion: Strategies for preserving tribal sovereignty and cultural heritage
• The causes and consequences of the Holocaust: Strategies for preventing genocide and promoting tolerance
• The impact of the Cuban Missile Crisis on the Cold War: Strategies for nuclear disarmament and peaceful coexistence
• The challenges faced by African Americans during the Jim Crow era: Strategies for achieving racial integration and equal rights
• The causes and consequences of the Russian Revolution: Implementing economic reforms to address social inequality and promote stability
• The impact of the Vietnam War on American society: Strategies for healing and reconciliation after a divisive conflict

Problem Solution Sociology Essay Topics:

• The impact of income inequality on social mobility: Exploring solutions for a more equitable society
• Addressing racial discrimination in the criminal justice system: Strategies for promoting fairness and equality
• Combating gender inequality in the workplace: Implementing policies to ensure equal opportunities and pay
• Tackling the rise of hate crimes: Promoting tolerance and understanding in diverse communities
• Overcoming the challenges of urban poverty: Developing comprehensive strategies for poverty alleviation
• Addressing the digital divide: Bridging the gap in access to technology and internet connectivity
• Promoting mental health awareness and support: Strategies for reducing stigma and improving access to mental health services
• Combating the opioid crisis: Implementing effective prevention and treatment programs
• Addressing the challenges of aging population: Developing policies to support the elderly and ensure their well-being
• Promoting inclusive education: Strategies for providing equal educational opportunities for students with disabilities
• Tackling food insecurity: Implementing sustainable solutions to ensure access to nutritious food for all
• Addressing the challenges of immigration: Developing comprehensive policies for integration and inclusion
• Combating domestic violence: Implementing effective prevention programs and support services for victims
• Promoting environmental sustainability: Strategies for reducing pollution and mitigating the effects of climate change
• Addressing the challenges of substance abuse: Developing comprehensive prevention and treatment programs

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How to Write a Problem and Solution Essay With Tips and Examples

22 December 2023

last updated

When students face issues on how to write a problem and solution essay, they need clear guidelines. The key insights in the text include a definition of a problem and solution essay, its unique structure, and organizational pattern. Other essential details include the possible easy topics students can choose when writing their paper, the technical steps, and tips for creating a high-standard document. A sample outline and example of a problem and solution essay give readers a practical paper of how the text should appear after its completion. Therefore, this guideline is a must-read for every student who hopes to write a good problem and solution essay that meets the instructor’s quality expectations.

General Aspects of How to Write an Outstanding Problem and Solution Essay & Examples

Academic texts are an excellent place to build critical writing skills and develop the intellectual capacity to create different types of essays that others can use as sources of ideas. Since most types of papers are technical, students must continuously expose themselves to ideas and knowledge about how to write good essays. This guideline on how to write a problem and solution essay includes vital insights for students and anyone interested in writing this kind of text for academic or intellectual reasons. By reading this article, people can learn the meaning of a problem and solution essay, its unique structure, distinctive features, tips for a high-standard piece, and possible topics, among other essential details. A sample outline and practical example of a problem and solution essay offer readers a good paper of this type of text.

Definition of What Is a Problem and Solution Essay and Its Meaning

As the name suggests, this kind of academic essay addresses a specific problem and its solution. In other words, someone writing this paper should identify a particular problem and explain how to solve it. This text mainly applies where instructors want to assess students’ writing skills and ability to investigate matters and find relevant information that enhances one’s understanding of them. In this respect, a problem and solution essay differs from other types of scholarly texts, including a research paper or a research proposal , and some essays, like an argumentative essay , a cause and effect essay , or a compare and contrast essay . While these texts require writers to examine issues and use evidence to construct and defend arguments and observations, a problem and solution essay means that one must state a problem and explain its solution.

Unique Structure of a Problem and Solution Essay

Like other academic texts, a problem and solution essay has a unique essay structure that writers should adopt to ensure their work meets the instructor’s expectations. The design features certain elements, including a description of the problem in a way that attracts the reader’s interest, an explanation of the solution, a plan for implementing the answer, and a procedure for evaluating the outcome. In short, students should approach the task more carefully when writing a problem and solution essay. For example, a mistake writers make is to assume expectations and rely on their knowledge of other papers in writing assignments. While there are areas of similarities, most types of academic texts have distinct features that form part of expectations. An essay structure is one of these features and determines whether writers score highly or poorly in the eyes of readers.

🔹 Problem Description

Defining a specific problem is a writer’s first task when generating ideas about a problem and solution essay. This definition should form part of a thesis statement to inform readers early about the paper’s aim. While using many words to describe the problem in a college essay introduction is not advisable, writers should use the paper’s body to comprehensively address the issue, including its causes and who or what is affected. Essentially, the description part of an essay should make readers care about the situation and be curious about the solution.

After describing a defined problem, writers should explain a logical solution in the body of a problem and solution essay. Typically, they should tell readers something about the solution in the thesis statement because it mentions the problem. Ideally, a good thesis statement should focus on the most critical aspects of the paper, in this case, the problem and the solution. However, the body paragraphs should tell readers more about the solution, including who or what provides it and how it will impact the situation. A problem and solution essay should be rich with information that enables readers to understand everything without outside input. In this respect, all solutions should not leave readers confused or unimpressed because of simplicity or unreasonableness.

🔹 Implementation Plan

A good solution for writing an essay should have an implementation plan because it takes time to happen. Since most problems are complex and multifaceted, solutions take time to develop because of the dynamics involved, including the need to consult and budget-making. Therefore, writers should discuss implementation by addressing who or what would provide the solution, how, and the time it will take to get results. These details are essential to readers because they provide a roadmap for dealing with the problem when going through an essay. The most critical element of an implementation plan is the timeline, meaning when the solution will be available to when expected outcomes will manifest.

🔹 Evaluation of Outcome

The most effective strategy for assessing whether a particular solution described in an essay has solved a specific problem is to evaluate the outcome. Some solutions may be futile if they do not address the issue. Therefore, when writing a problem and solution essay, students should explain who or what would evaluate the outcome and the features they would assess to determine whether it is the right outcome.

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Organizing a Problem and Solution Essay

The most notable feature of scholarly documents is the content organization from the introduction to the conclusion . For example, students can adopt block or chain structures when writing a problem and solution essay depending on whether the instructor has specified the pattern. Ideally, different patterns determine how writers describe the problem and the solution.

🔸 Block Structure

The block structure is where writers divide the body of a problem and solution essay into two sections. The first element of an essay addresses the problem(s) and all the crucial details, like the causes and effects. The second section outlines the solution(s) to the problem and essential elements, like who or what would provide and the expected outcome. Therefore, when adopting the block structure in an essay, students should deal with the issue entirely before proceeding to the solution. Then, they should have another section in an essay for the implementation plan and another for evaluating outcomes. The format should be as follows:

• Section 1: problem 1, problem 2;
• Section 2: solution to problem 1, solution to problem 2;
• Section 3: implementation plan;
• Section 4: evaluation of outcomes.

🔸 Chain Structure

The chain structure divides the body of a problem and solution essay into several sections depending on the number of problems. In this case, students use each section to describe a problem, addressing the cause and effects and its solution, and essential details, like who or what would offer it and how long it would take to solve. Depending on essay instructions, students can use subheadings to identify the sections or use body paragraphs, each for one problem and its solution. Then, writers should have another section in an essay for the implementation plan and another for evaluating outcomes. As a result, the format should appear as follows:

• Section 1: problem 1, solution 1;
• Section 2: problem 2, solution 2;

Table Representing 12 Types of a Problem

Examples of 12 Problems, Their Solution(s), Implementation, and Evaluation for Writing an Essay

Topic Examples for Writing a Problem and Solution Essay

Choosing good essay topics is the first task when writing an academic paper, and it determines whether students have an easy or hard time generating ideas and putting them together coherently. Therefore, they should know that selecting problem and solution essay topics can mean the difference between a below-average and an excellent document. Before deciding on the topic, one should read widely to seek knowledge on what topics are easy and which can complicate producing a high-standard paper. The following list comprises easy topics that students can choose from when writing a problem and solution essay because they require writers to describe a problem, state a solution and how to implement it, and evaluate the outcomes.

• Reducing Plastic Waste in the Ocean: An Innovative Approach
• Discussing the Effects of Internet Addiction on Students and What Parents and School Administrators Can Do to Protect Learners
• What Are the Side Effects of Prolonged Use of Painkillers, and How Can Governments Intervene?
• Discussing Student Loan Debt as a Burden to Graduates and How the Government Can Lighten It
• Exploring How Illegal Immigration Affects Natural Citizens and the Solutions to the Problem
• Evaluating the Impact of Substance Abuse on Pregnant Women and What Health Professionals Can Do to Protect Mothers and the Unborn From Harm
• What Causes Teen Pregnancy, and How Can Communities Prevent It?

Sample Outline Template for Writing a Good Problem and Solution Essay

I. Introduction

• Hook : A statement starting with a quotation , striking example, or brief anecdote to capture the reader’s attention and stir their interest to know more about the topic.
• Context: State the background of the problem and its development, including when and how it started, the cause, and who or what it affects.
• Thesis : State the idea(s) that guide the rest of the paper, pointing to the problem and the possible solution for an essay.

II. Body of an Essay

A. The problem:

• Describe the problem in depth, focusing on the causes and statistical evidence.
• Explain the effects of the problem, including the people or other entities it affects and how.

B. Solution(s):

• Explore the possible logical solution(s) that exist and their weaknesses.
• State an ideal solution(s) to the problem.

III. Conclusion

• Make deductions about the problem and solution(s).
• Summarize the main points of a problem and solution essay.
• Reinforce the thesis.
• Make a call to action that enlightens readers about the problem and possible solution(s).

Example of a Problem and Solution Essay

Topic: Discuss Student Loan Debt as a Burden to Graduates and How the Government Can Lighten It

I. Example of an Introduction in a Problem and Solution Essay

The high cost of college education is historically out of reach for the majority. Officials in America enacted legislation to facilitate loans to individuals who see a college education as the pathway to economic mobility. Although student loan has helped millions to come closer to experiencing the American Dream, repaying it is burdensome to graduates, and some stakeholders believe loan forgiveness is the best solution.

II. Example of Body Paragraphs in a Problem and Solution Essay

A. problem sample paragraph.

Student loan debt results from the government’s effort to assist millions of Americans in attaining a college education despite their socioeconomic status. Any day of the week, a review of the mass media will reveal sentiments from various quarters about student loan debt and how it has made graduates’ lives a nightmare. For example, multiple reports show that most people graduating from higher education enter the job market yearly with a loan burden. These reports indicate the adverse effects of this condition, including sinking individuals into financial slavery and making a high standard of living a mirage. Arguably, people can conclude that a college education is no longer a pathway to the American Dream but one to economic slavery.

B. Solution Sample Paragraph

Since Joe Biden assumed the presidency, a section of congressional members has called for the federal government to adopt loan forgiveness to make life bearable for many graduates. Ideally, this intervention means the federal government owning up the student loans in the market to free graduates from loan repayment, which has proven to be a significant barrier to financial independence and a high living standard. While this solution is commendable, it has several weaknesses. Firstly, it does not solve the problem but transfers it from the individual to the government. Since the government gets money through taxation, student loan forgiveness will become a problem for taxpayers. Secondly, it does not address why people seek student loans, meaning the problem will continue manifesting. Another solution to the problem, which most people believe is ideal, is making the necessary arrangements, including legal, to make student loan repayment part of employment benefits. This solution recognizes that almost every graduate entering the job market has a student loan repayment obligation. Therefore, employers should make loan repayment an employment benefit and kill two birds with one stone, which means attracting the best candidates and retaining them because of improved life satisfaction. Companies are constantly losing their best employees because most skilled workers are always searching for an employer with the best compensation package. Making student loan repayment an employment benefit, like health insurance, will make an employer the dream workplace for most graduates because everyone wants the burden off their shoulders.

III. Example of a Conclusion in a Problem and Solution Essay

Student loan debt is a burden to most graduates that the federal government and employers can help lighten for millions of Americans. The media shows how loan repayment has sunk a majority of graduates into financial slavery and made the American Dream just that, a dream. Loan forgiveness by the federal government can help to lighten the burden. However, making loan repayment an employment benefit is the best solution because it does not transfer the obligation to the taxpayer. Therefore, legislators should refocus their efforts on loan forgiveness and consider how loan repayment can become part of employment benefits.

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4 Easy Steps for Writing a Problem and Solution Essay

Writing scholarly papers or essays is a technical process that requires an in-depth understanding of certain conventions. These conventions include following a prescribed essay outline ; formatting in APA , MLA , Harvard , or Chicago/Turabian ; using the active voice; adopting a formal tone; writing papers without grammar or format errors; and producing essays with a logical order of ideas and thought. Students should capture these details in various sections of their problem and solution essays. Ideally, the writing process happens in steps, each with its demands that form the instructor’s assessment criteria. Thus, the main steps for writing a great problem and solution essay are preparation, stage setup, document writing, and wrap-up.

Step 1: Preparation

Preparation is the first step of writing a problem and solution essay, requiring writers to focus on several details. The first aspect is defining the topic if the instructions do not specify it. The secret to a good topic is to identify a problem one cares about deeply that has practical solutions. Writing about a specific problem that cannot be solved would be frustrating because it would defeat the purpose of a problem and solution essay. Moreover, when defining the topic and generating ideas, writers should consider the audience to determine whether to use simple or technical language. The most effective strategy for writing essays is for students to incubate ideas during learning habitually. Course content is rich in ideas one can use to construct topics usable when professors issue instructions to write a paper for assessment.

Step 2: Stage Setup

Setting the stage is the second step of writing a problem and solution essay. The first task for students is to find credible sources . In this task, writers should research widely and identify materials relating to the topic to generate ideas for their essays. The best approach is to read several reliable sources while making notes. Besides, students should focus on materials that help them to construct a specific topic that addresses a problem with possible solutions. The next task is to create a clear outline according to the one above. However, someone may decide to follow block or chain structures in the paper’s body. The choice will depend on the number of problems and solutions, but a chain structure is best suited for an essay addressing several problems and solutions because it provides a logical flow.

Step 3: The Writing Process of Starting a Problem and Solution Essay

The third step in writing a problem and solution essay is to begin typing words, focusing on producing an initial draft. This first draft allows students to organize all ideas into a coherent paper. After completing the document, students should read it and confirm if the ideas are sufficient. If they are not, they should add more academic sources . However, if they are too many, one should delete some irrelevant sources. Writers should also alter their essay outlines after adding or deleting sources to fit the ideas. For example, people may switch from a block format to a chain structure in their essays if they find more problems and solutions and vice versa if the problems and solutions reduce significantly. The last task in this step is to create a well-organized thesis summarizing the paper’s objective, mentioning the problem(s) and solution(s).

Writing an Introduction for a Problem and Solution Essay

In the first paragraph, students should focus on a hook, background information, and a thesis when writing an introduction paragraph for a problem and solution essay. The hook is a statement that grabs the reader’s attention and stirs their interest in reading the entire text. Background information tells the context of the topic by stating why the problem is a matter of concern to a writer, a reader, and a broader society. The thesis tells the audience the reason for writing a problem and solution essay. As the last sentence in the introduction, the thesis gives readers a sneak peek into the argument that is the focus of body paragraphs.

Writing Body Paragraphs for a Problem and Solution Essay

The body is the most comprehensive section of a problem and solution essay because it comprehensively describes the problem(s) and solution(s). For example, students can adopt block or chain structures depending on the number of problems and solutions. An important detail for students to consider is ensuring each paragraph writing has a topic sentence that identifies an idea relating to a central thesis statement. The rest of the paragraph in an essay should focus on supporting the idea through evidence-based writing. In short, writers should use evidence from various sources, such as government websites and research materials. Moreover, one should cite such evidence in the applicable format: APA, MLA, Harvard, or Chicago/Turabian. The end of each paragraph should have a transition that allows for a logical flow to the next paragraph or section. Depending on the college essay length, writers can use headings and sub-headings to organize the body.

Writing a Conclusion for a Problem and Solution Essay

As the term suggests, the conclusion paragraph is the last part of a problem and solution essay. In this section, writers should end their papers by reminding readers of the thesis with a summary of the main points. Essentially, the conclusion of an essay should restate the problem(s) and solution(s) and make a call to action that allows readers to formulate ideas of what society should do to make the problem(s) less severe and the solution(s) sustainable.

Step 4: Wrap-Up

The wrap-up is the last step of writing a problem and solution essay, and it is all about perfecting an initial draft document to make it final. The first task for students is to read and reread a problem and solution essay to identify and revise mistakes. Revision of an essay should involve rearranging words and sentences to eliminate an illogical flow of ideas and thoughts. The next task is to edit essays by fixing grammatical and formatting errors, including missing punctuation or wrong citations. As for formatting, students should adopt one style, like APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago/Turabian, or others, in the whole essay since each one is unique.

For example, when citing a book, citations should read as follows for each type:

📕 APA Citation for a Book

• References entry:

Author’s surname, initials of first and second names. Publication year in brackets. The title in the sentence case . The publisher’s name.

• In-text citation:

(Author’s surname, publication year, page number)

📕 MLA Citation for a Book

• Works Cited entry:

Author’s surname, complete first and second names. Title in the title case . The publisher’s name, the publication year.

(Author’s surname and page number).

📕 Harvard Citation for a Book

• Reference List entry:

Author’s surname, initials of first and second names with date of publication. Title in the sentence case . The publisher, the publisher’s location.

(Author’s surname, publication year, page number).

📕 Chicago/Turabian Citation for a Book

• Bibliography entry:

Author’s surname, complete first and second names. Title in the title case . The publisher’s location, the publisher.

• Footnote entry:

Author’s first, second, and third names. The title in the title case . The publisher’s location, name, and publication year are in brackets. The page number from where writers got the information they are citing.

20 Tips for Writing a Problem and Solution Essay

A high-standard scholarly essay is a product of enough preparation and focused intellectual engagement. This condition makes it essential for writers to learn to accomplish their tasks flawlessly. The tips for students and anyone writing a problem and solution essay include identifying vulnerable groups in society; brainstorming about the problems they face; thinking about the possible solutions; generating ideas about the problems and solutions, creating an essay outline; considering whether to adopt the block or chain structure; writing the introduction with a hook, background information, and a thesis; describing the problems and the possible solutions comprehensively in the body; ensuring the body paragraphs have topic sentences, evidence, transitions, and citations; and writing a conclusion that restates the thesis, summarizes the main points, and makes call to action in an essay.

10 things to do when writing a problem and solution essay include:

• identifying the situation to address in an essay, such as a political, economic, social, or cultural problem;
• thinking about the solutions to the problem;
• creating an outline that considers the paper’s content, including the problem, solution, implementation, and evaluation;
• researching to find evidence about the problem for starting an essay;
• evaluating the weaknesses of the existing interventions; adopting one formatting style for the entire paper;
• creating a thesis that emphasizes the problem and possible solution;
• constructing body paragraphs that satisfy all academic writing conventions, including topic sentences, transitions, and citations;
• creating an initial essay draft;
• reading and rereading a final draft essay to identify and fix mistakes;
• proofreading a final version of a problem and solution essay.

10 things not to do:

• defining an essay topic that does not address a problem or solution;
• addressing a problem without a practical solution;
• providing an introduction without a hook, context, or thesis statement;
• adopting an essay outline that does not consider the four components of problem, solution, implementation, and evaluation;
• using both block and chain structures;
• failing to support arguments with evidence in an essay;
• citing evidence wrongly;
• mixing different formats (APA, MLA, Harvard, or Chicago/Turabian) in the same or different paragraphs;
• writing a problem and solution essay with numerous grammatical and formatting errors;
• failing to conclude a paper.

Summing Up on How to Write a Perfect Problem and Solution Essay

• Define a problem afflicting vulnerable groups, like children, senior citizens, and persons with disabilities, for an essay.
• Consider if there are existing solutions to the problem and their weaknesses.
• Brainstorm to generate ideas about possible solutions to the problem.
• Create an outline and populate each section with ideas, considering the hook, background information, topic sentences, transitions, evidence, citations, and a call to action.
• Ensure a problem and solution essay adopts block or chain structures, not both.
• Provide an in-depth description of the problem, its causes, and the people or other entities it affects.
• Explain the possible solutions and who or what should provide them.
• Make a call to action to leave readers with a lasting impression about the importance of the problem and why it is necessary to sustain the solution.

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A problem-solution essay is a type of academic essay that explores a particular issue or challenge, and presents a potential course of action to address it. The purpose of a problem-and-solution essay is to identify a problem or issue, and to provide a practical solution or strategy for resolving it.

With so many unsolved issues, it’s easy to find some good questions for consideration. All you need is to look around or read the news.  Writing a problem and solution essay won’t take much time and effort if you know what details to cover and what order you should follow. By using our ultimate guide, you will be able to compose an excellent and convincing essay with minimal effort. Close social networks and YouTube, spend 5 minutes reading our article to take to any problem solution essay topics like a duck to water. Have a tough deadline? Consider paying someone to write your essay . StudyCrumb experts will deliver a perfect problem and solution essay tailored to your requirements.

What Is a Problem Solution Essay: Definition

A problem and solution essay is a type of academic writing that defines some specific issue and provides steps to solve it. This kind of essay is aimed at assessing a student's ability to find some controversial problem and offer a clear problem-solving strategy.  Your topic should be relatively simple to write about. It’s good if it meets the general public's interests. Some popular topics for this essay include such issues:

• Environmental pollution
• Internet addiction
• Infrastructure
• Religious issues
• Social movements.

No matter what topic you choose, it should motivate you to think and look for ways of solving the problem. You should analyze it, study various strategies, and choose which one fits best.  In a problem and solution essay, you can write about more than one problem. However, your solution is only efficient when several subjects in question fall into the same field. Otherwise, it will be difficult to focus on the right solution.

Problem Solution Essay Outline

One of the most important steps of your writing process is creating a problem solution essay outline . Without it, your paper will be unstructured and poorly organized. This is not the case when there is an efficient well-thought-out plan. Writing an outline is crucial on the way to composing a brilliant essay. It will help you stay on point without deviating from the issue. This way, you can save time and effort.  Unlike any other type of writing, a problem and solution essay provides some room for flexibility. You can create an outline using two different methods:

• Block method
• Chain method.

Each of these methods have their advantages and can be applied depending on the situation that will be covered. Let’s look at each of these approaches more in detail.  The block outline has the following structure:

Introduction – presents the topic and contains 4-5 short sentences. 

Main body – contains 2-3 paragraphs, each of them beginning with a topic sentence.

Body paragraph  

Body paragraph 

Conclusion – sums up all main points. 

Block method allows you to look at multiple problems or solutions using separate paragraphs. However, mastering this approach at first may be somewhat difficult.    The chain method is more appropriate if you want to focus on some unified idea within one body paragraph. Here’s an example of chain outline:

Introduction

Body paragraph 1

Body paragraph 2

This approach helps you explore an issue step-by-step. For this reason, it may be easier for beginners. 

How to Write a Problem Solution Essay

Now, it’s time that we learn how to write a problem and solution essay. Further, we will tell you about the best way of doing it. Below, you will find detailed information on perfecting each section of your essay. We will specifically shed more light on:

• Acquaintance with the problem’s background
• Description of the issue’s specifics
• Explanation why it should be solved
• Suggested solution and assessment
• Call to action .

Let’s learn the secrets of writing a successful essay firsthand! 

How to Start a Problem Solution Essay: Introduction

The first section is a problem solution essay introduction. It should include such components:

• Thesis statement.

Your opening paragraph should specify an issue, as well as provide some background information. Think over the first sentence that will captivate your readers. Everything must be clear from the very first lines. If one gets your idea at once, it’s almost in the bag. It may take some time to come up with a catchy hook, but you will be rewarded with an A+. Consider rare statistics, any little-known fact, or some hype information.  Remember that your second and third sentences should naturally flow into further discussion. Develop your idea by introducing some context. By the way, you can write an introduction after the rest of your essay is complete. Just make sure you have a thesis statement. After all, it’s the ground of your essay. All main points should be related to your thesis.

How to Write an Outstanding Problem Solution Essay Body

The next part in the problem and solution essay is the main body. Here, you should suggest ways of solving the issue. It would be great if you analyzed probable consequences of problem-solving actions. You should support why you think the specific measures are necessary and what they will result in.  Usually, the main body of a problem and solution essay includes 3 paragraphs. Every body paragraph focuses on different aspects:

• Discuss an issue and offer your solution
• Explain why your strategy will work
• Provide some counter argument and refute it.

Argumentation is essential. By using it, you can convince readers that your strategy is correct. There is a good way to make powerful arguments. You should start with a statement, followed by an explanation. Back up your point of view with supportive examples. Then comes your final judgment. You can create transitions between paragraphs to make it easier for readers to follow a train of thought.

How to Write a Conclusion for a Problem Solution Essay

Congratulations! You’ve reached the last stage – a problem and solution essay conclusion. It usually contains 4-5 sentences summarizing your reasoning. In this part, you can make a general conclusion. It should include strong statements about what has been written.  You can rephrase your thesis statement and share your final thoughts. The goal of the last part is to draw a complete picture and make readers think. Your last paragraph shouldn’t contain any fundamentally new facts – only a general summary of points mentioned above. Try StudyCrumb’s summarizer tool if you have challenges ending your problem and solution writing. Your writing style in conclusion must always correspond to the style of your entire essay. Don’t try to stay on the safe side by using such phrases as “in my humble opinion”, “I am not an expert, but”. Readers will see them as excuses and uncertainty, which you definitely don’t want. What they should understand is that your essay is over and there is a logical conclusion.

Problem Solution Essays Examples

It is important to study a problem solution essay example before writing your own work. This way, you will be able to assess all the aspects and see how other authors coped with a similar task. You can borrow an exact structure or method of handling the situation.  Our examples won’t replace your essay. You shouldn’t copy or assign them to yourself. Focus on creating unique and useful content.

Problem and Solution Essay: Writing and Proofreading Tips

You will be able to become a master of writing a problem and solution essay by following these great tips:

• After finishing your work, leave your paper for a while. Later, you will be able to return to it and assess it with a fresh approach.
• Check whether you’ve used all the above-mentioned components.
• Make sure that your thesis clearly states your paper’s topic.
• Perform in-depth research on your issue and explore existing resolutions.
• Ensure that your solutions are realistic and can be implemented.
• Use special tools to “grade my essay” and check whether your spelling and punctuation are correct.
• Ask your relative, family member, or friend to proofread your work. A couple of extra eyes will ensure that there are no logical and grammatical errors.

You should also pay attention to the paper formatting style. Use the same font and text style throughout your essay.

Problem/ Solution Essay: Bottom Line

As you can see, there is nothing super hard about writing a problems and solution essay. Hopefully, our detailed guide will help you complete your assignment. Of course, you should be ready to test which approach works best for you. After all, you should strive for continuous improvement. 

You can always rely on our top-notch academic writing service. We guarantee high quality, efficiency, affordable prices, and timely delivery. Order your paper now to succeed tomorrow!

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45 Research Problem Examples & Inspiration

A research problem is an issue of concern that is the catalyst for your research. It demonstrates why the research problem needs to take place in the first place.

Generally, you will write your research problem as a clear, concise, and focused statement that identifies an issue or gap in current knowledge that requires investigation.

The problem will likely also guide the direction and purpose of a study. Depending on the problem, you will identify a suitable methodology that will help address the problem and bring solutions to light.

Research Problem Examples

In the following examples, I’ll present some problems worth addressing, and some suggested theoretical frameworks and research methodologies that might fit with the study. Note, however, that these aren’t the only ways to approach the problems. Keep an open mind and consult with your dissertation supervisor!

Psychology Problems

1. Social Media and Self-Esteem: “How does prolonged exposure to social media platforms influence the self-esteem of adolescents?”

• Theoretical Framework : Social Comparison Theory
• Methodology : Longitudinal study tracking adolescents’ social media usage and self-esteem measures over time, combined with qualitative interviews.

2. Sleep and Cognitive Performance: “How does sleep quality and duration impact cognitive performance in adults?”

• Theoretical Framework : Cognitive Psychology
• Methodology : Experimental design with controlled sleep conditions, followed by cognitive tests. Participant sleep patterns can also be monitored using actigraphy.

3. Childhood Trauma and Adult Relationships: “How does unresolved childhood trauma influence attachment styles and relationship dynamics in adulthood?

• Theoretical Framework : Attachment Theory
• Methodology : Mixed methods, combining quantitative measures of attachment styles with qualitative in-depth interviews exploring past trauma and current relationship dynamics.

4. Mindfulness and Stress Reduction: “How effective is mindfulness meditation in reducing perceived stress and physiological markers of stress in working professionals?”

• Theoretical Framework : Humanist Psychology
• Methodology : Randomized controlled trial comparing a group practicing mindfulness meditation to a control group, measuring both self-reported stress and physiological markers (e.g., cortisol levels).

5. Implicit Bias and Decision Making: “To what extent do implicit biases influence decision-making processes in hiring practices?

• Theoretical Framework : Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• Methodology : Experimental design using Implicit Association Tests (IAT) to measure implicit biases, followed by simulated hiring tasks to observe decision-making behaviors.

6. Emotional Regulation and Academic Performance: “How does the ability to regulate emotions impact academic performance in college students?”

• Theoretical Framework : Cognitive Theory of Emotion
• Methodology : Quantitative surveys measuring emotional regulation strategies, combined with academic performance metrics (e.g., GPA).

7. Nature Exposure and Mental Well-being: “Does regular exposure to natural environments improve mental well-being and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression?”

• Theoretical Framework : Biophilia Hypothesis
• Methodology : Longitudinal study comparing mental health measures of individuals with regular nature exposure to those without, possibly using ecological momentary assessment for real-time data collection.

8. Video Games and Cognitive Skills: “How do action video games influence cognitive skills such as attention, spatial reasoning, and problem-solving?”

• Theoretical Framework : Cognitive Load Theory
• Methodology : Experimental design with pre- and post-tests, comparing cognitive skills of participants before and after a period of action video game play.

9. Parenting Styles and Child Resilience: “How do different parenting styles influence the development of resilience in children facing adversities?”

• Theoretical Framework : Baumrind’s Parenting Styles Inventory
• Methodology : Mixed methods, combining quantitative measures of resilience and parenting styles with qualitative interviews exploring children’s experiences and perceptions.

10. Memory and Aging: “How does the aging process impact episodic memory , and what strategies can mitigate age-related memory decline?

• Theoretical Framework : Information Processing Theory
• Methodology : Cross-sectional study comparing episodic memory performance across different age groups, combined with interventions like memory training or mnemonic strategies to assess potential improvements.

Education Problems

11. Equity and Access : “How do socioeconomic factors influence students’ access to quality education, and what interventions can bridge the gap?

• Theoretical Framework : Critical Pedagogy
• Methodology : Mixed methods, combining quantitative data on student outcomes with qualitative interviews and focus groups with students, parents, and educators.

12. Digital Divide : How does the lack of access to technology and the internet affect remote learning outcomes, and how can this divide be addressed?

• Theoretical Framework : Social Construction of Technology Theory
• Methodology : Survey research to gather data on access to technology, followed by case studies in selected areas.

13. Teacher Efficacy : “What factors contribute to teacher self-efficacy, and how does it impact student achievement?”

• Theoretical Framework : Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory
• Methodology : Quantitative surveys to measure teacher self-efficacy, combined with qualitative interviews to explore factors affecting it.

14. Curriculum Relevance : “How can curricula be made more relevant to diverse student populations, incorporating cultural and local contexts?”

• Theoretical Framework : Sociocultural Theory
• Methodology : Content analysis of curricula, combined with focus groups with students and teachers.

15. Special Education : “What are the most effective instructional strategies for students with specific learning disabilities?

• Theoretical Framework : Social Learning Theory
• Methodology : Experimental design comparing different instructional strategies, with pre- and post-tests to measure student achievement.

16. Dropout Rates : “What factors contribute to high school dropout rates, and what interventions can help retain students?”

• Methodology : Longitudinal study tracking students over time, combined with interviews with dropouts.

17. Bilingual Education : “How does bilingual education impact cognitive development and academic achievement?

• Methodology : Comparative study of students in bilingual vs. monolingual programs, using standardized tests and qualitative interviews.

18. Classroom Management: “What reward strategies are most effective in managing diverse classrooms and promoting a positive learning environment?

• Theoretical Framework : Behaviorism (e.g., Skinner’s Operant Conditioning)
• Methodology : Observational research in classrooms , combined with teacher interviews.

19. Standardized Testing : “How do standardized tests affect student motivation, learning, and curriculum design?”

• Theoretical Framework : Critical Theory
• Methodology : Quantitative analysis of test scores and student outcomes, combined with qualitative interviews with educators and students.

20. STEM Education : “What methods can be employed to increase interest and proficiency in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields among underrepresented student groups?”

• Theoretical Framework : Constructivist Learning Theory
• Methodology : Experimental design comparing different instructional methods, with pre- and post-tests.

21. Social-Emotional Learning : “How can social-emotional learning be effectively integrated into the curriculum, and what are its impacts on student well-being and academic outcomes?”

• Theoretical Framework : Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence Theory
• Methodology : Mixed methods, combining quantitative measures of student well-being with qualitative interviews.

22. Parental Involvement : “How does parental involvement influence student achievement, and what strategies can schools use to increase it?”

• Theoretical Framework : Reggio Emilia’s Model (Community Engagement Focus)
• Methodology : Survey research with parents and teachers, combined with case studies in selected schools.

23. Early Childhood Education : “What are the long-term impacts of quality early childhood education on academic and life outcomes?”

• Theoretical Framework : Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development
• Methodology : Longitudinal study comparing students with and without early childhood education, combined with observational research.

24. Teacher Training and Professional Development : “How can teacher training programs be improved to address the evolving needs of the 21st-century classroom?”

• Theoretical Framework : Adult Learning Theory (Andragogy)
• Methodology : Pre- and post-assessments of teacher competencies, combined with focus groups.

25. Educational Technology : “How can technology be effectively integrated into the classroom to enhance learning, and what are the potential drawbacks or challenges?”

• Theoretical Framework : Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK)
• Methodology : Experimental design comparing classrooms with and without specific technologies, combined with teacher and student interviews.

Sociology Problems

26. Urbanization and Social Ties: “How does rapid urbanization impact the strength and nature of social ties in communities?”

• Theoretical Framework : Structural Functionalism
• Methodology : Mixed methods, combining quantitative surveys on social ties with qualitative interviews in urbanizing areas.

27. Gender Roles in Modern Families: “How have traditional gender roles evolved in families with dual-income households?”

• Theoretical Framework : Gender Schema Theory
• Methodology : Qualitative interviews with dual-income families, combined with historical data analysis.

28. Social Media and Collective Behavior: “How does social media influence collective behaviors and the formation of social movements?”

• Theoretical Framework : Emergent Norm Theory
• Methodology : Content analysis of social media platforms, combined with quantitative surveys on participation in social movements.

29. Education and Social Mobility: “To what extent does access to quality education influence social mobility in socioeconomically diverse settings?”

• Methodology : Longitudinal study tracking educational access and subsequent socioeconomic status, combined with qualitative interviews.

30. Religion and Social Cohesion: “How do religious beliefs and practices contribute to social cohesion in multicultural societies?”

• Methodology : Quantitative surveys on religious beliefs and perceptions of social cohesion, combined with ethnographic studies.

31. Consumer Culture and Identity Formation: “How does consumer culture influence individual identity formation and personal values?”

• Theoretical Framework : Social Identity Theory
• Methodology : Mixed methods, combining content analysis of advertising with qualitative interviews on identity and values.

32. Migration and Cultural Assimilation: “How do migrants negotiate cultural assimilation and preservation of their original cultural identities in their host countries?”

• Theoretical Framework : Post-Structuralism
• Methodology : Qualitative interviews with migrants, combined with observational studies in multicultural communities.

33. Social Networks and Mental Health: “How do social networks, both online and offline, impact mental health and well-being?”

• Theoretical Framework : Social Network Theory
• Methodology : Quantitative surveys assessing social network characteristics and mental health metrics, combined with qualitative interviews.

34. Crime, Deviance, and Social Control: “How do societal norms and values shape definitions of crime and deviance, and how are these definitions enforced?”

• Theoretical Framework : Labeling Theory
• Methodology : Content analysis of legal documents and media, combined with ethnographic studies in diverse communities.

35. Technology and Social Interaction: “How has the proliferation of digital technology influenced face-to-face social interactions and community building?”

• Theoretical Framework : Technological Determinism
• Methodology : Mixed methods, combining quantitative surveys on technology use with qualitative observations of social interactions in various settings.

Nursing Problems

36. Patient Communication and Recovery: “How does effective nurse-patient communication influence patient recovery rates and overall satisfaction with care?”

• Methodology : Quantitative surveys assessing patient satisfaction and recovery metrics, combined with observational studies on nurse-patient interactions.

37. Stress Management in Nursing: “What are the primary sources of occupational stress for nurses, and how can they be effectively managed to prevent burnout?”

• Methodology : Mixed methods, combining quantitative measures of stress and burnout with qualitative interviews exploring personal experiences and coping mechanisms.

38. Hand Hygiene Compliance: “How effective are different interventions in improving hand hygiene compliance among nursing staff, and what are the barriers to consistent hand hygiene?”

• Methodology : Experimental design comparing hand hygiene rates before and after specific interventions, combined with focus groups to understand barriers.

39. Nurse-Patient Ratios and Patient Outcomes: “How do nurse-patient ratios impact patient outcomes, including recovery rates, complications, and hospital readmissions?”

• Methodology : Quantitative study analyzing patient outcomes in relation to staffing levels, possibly using retrospective chart reviews.

40. Continuing Education and Clinical Competence: “How does regular continuing education influence clinical competence and confidence among nurses?”

• Methodology : Longitudinal study tracking nurses’ clinical skills and confidence over time as they engage in continuing education, combined with patient outcome measures to assess potential impacts on care quality.

Communication Studies Problems

41. Media Representation and Public Perception: “How does media representation of minority groups influence public perceptions and biases?”

• Theoretical Framework : Cultivation Theory
• Methodology : Content analysis of media representations combined with quantitative surveys assessing public perceptions and attitudes.

42. Digital Communication and Relationship Building: “How has the rise of digital communication platforms impacted the way individuals build and maintain personal relationships?”

• Theoretical Framework : Social Penetration Theory
• Methodology : Mixed methods, combining quantitative surveys on digital communication habits with qualitative interviews exploring personal relationship dynamics.

43. Crisis Communication Effectiveness: “What strategies are most effective in managing public relations during organizational crises, and how do they influence public trust?”

• Theoretical Framework : Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT)
• Methodology : Case study analysis of past organizational crises, assessing communication strategies used and subsequent public trust metrics.

44. Nonverbal Cues in Virtual Communication: “How do nonverbal cues, such as facial expressions and gestures, influence message interpretation in virtual communication platforms?”

• Theoretical Framework : Social Semiotics
• Methodology : Experimental design using video conferencing tools, analyzing participants’ interpretations of messages with varying nonverbal cues.

45. Influence of Social Media on Political Engagement: “How does exposure to political content on social media platforms influence individuals’ political engagement and activism?”

• Theoretical Framework : Uses and Gratifications Theory
• Methodology : Quantitative surveys assessing social media habits and political engagement levels, combined with content analysis of political posts on popular platforms.

Before you Go: Tips and Tricks for Writing a Research Problem

This is an incredibly stressful time for research students. The research problem is going to lock you into a specific line of inquiry for the rest of your studies.

So, here’s what I tend to suggest to my students:

• Start with something you find intellectually stimulating – Too many students choose projects because they think it hasn’t been studies or they’ve found a research gap. Don’t over-estimate the importance of finding a research gap. There are gaps in every line of inquiry. For now, just find a topic you think you can really sink your teeth into and will enjoy learning about.
• Take 5 ideas to your supervisor – Approach your research supervisor, professor, lecturer, TA, our course leader with 5 research problem ideas and run each by them. The supervisor will have valuable insights that you didn’t consider that will help you narrow-down and refine your problem even more.
• Trust your supervisor – The supervisor-student relationship is often very strained and stressful. While of course this is your project, your supervisor knows the internal politics and conventions of academic research. The depth of knowledge about how to navigate academia and get you out the other end with your degree is invaluable. Don’t underestimate their advice.

I’ve got a full article on all my tips and tricks for doing research projects right here – I recommend reading it:

• 9 Tips on How to Choose a Dissertation Topic

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 5 Top Tips for Succeeding at University
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 50 Durable Goods Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 100 Consumer Goods Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 30 Globalization Pros and Cons

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• How to Define a Research Problem | Ideas & Examples

How to Define a Research Problem | Ideas & Examples

Published on November 2, 2022 by Shona McCombes and Tegan George. Revised on May 31, 2023.

A research problem is a specific issue or gap in existing knowledge that you aim to address in your research. You may choose to look for practical problems aimed at contributing to change, or theoretical problems aimed at expanding knowledge.

Some research will do both of these things, but usually the research problem focuses on one or the other. The type of research problem you choose depends on your broad topic of interest and the type of research you think will fit best.

This article helps you identify and refine a research problem. When writing your research proposal or introduction , formulate it as a problem statement and/or research questions .

Table of contents

Why is the research problem important, step 1: identify a broad problem area, step 2: learn more about the problem, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about research problems.

Having an interesting topic isn’t a strong enough basis for academic research. Without a well-defined research problem, you are likely to end up with an unfocused and unmanageable project.

You might end up repeating what other people have already said, trying to say too much, or doing research without a clear purpose and justification. You need a clear problem in order to do research that contributes new and relevant insights.

Whether you’re planning your thesis , starting a research paper , or writing a research proposal , the research problem is the first step towards knowing exactly what you’ll do and why.

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As you read about your topic, look for under-explored aspects or areas of concern, conflict, or controversy. Your goal is to find a gap that your research project can fill.

Practical research problems

If you are doing practical research, you can identify a problem by reading reports, following up on previous research, or talking to people who work in the relevant field or organization. You might look for:

• Issues with performance or efficiency
• Processes that could be improved
• Areas of concern among practitioners
• Difficulties faced by specific groups of people

Examples of practical research problems

Voter turnout in New England has been decreasing, in contrast to the rest of the country.

The HR department of a local chain of restaurants has a high staff turnover rate.

A non-profit organization faces a funding gap that means some of its programs will have to be cut.

Theoretical research problems

If you are doing theoretical research, you can identify a research problem by reading existing research, theory, and debates on your topic to find a gap in what is currently known about it. You might look for:

• A phenomenon or context that has not been closely studied
• A contradiction between two or more perspectives
• A situation or relationship that is not well understood
• A troubling question that has yet to be resolved

Examples of theoretical research problems

The effects of long-term Vitamin D deficiency on cardiovascular health are not well understood.

The relationship between gender, race, and income inequality has yet to be closely studied in the context of the millennial gig economy.

Historians of Scottish nationalism disagree about the role of the British Empire in the development of Scotland’s national identity.

Next, you have to find out what is already known about the problem, and pinpoint the exact aspect that your research will address.

Context and background

• Who does the problem affect?
• Is it a newly-discovered problem, or a well-established one?
• What research has already been done?
• What, if any, solutions have been proposed?
• What are the current debates about the problem? What is missing from these debates?

Specificity and relevance

• What particular place, time, and/or group of people will you focus on?
• What aspects will you not be able to tackle?
• What will the consequences be if the problem is not resolved?

Example of a specific research problem

A local non-profit organization focused on alleviating food insecurity has always fundraised from its existing support base. It lacks understanding of how best to target potential new donors. To be able to continue its work, the organization requires research into more effective fundraising strategies.

Once you have narrowed down your research problem, the next step is to formulate a problem statement , as well as your research questions or hypotheses .

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Methodology

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

All research questions should be:

• Focused on a single problem or issue
• Researchable using primary and/or secondary sources
• Feasible to answer within the timeframe and practical constraints
• Specific enough to answer thoroughly
• Complex enough to develop the answer over the space of a paper or thesis
• Relevant to your field of study and/or society more broadly

Research questions anchor your whole project, so it’s important to spend some time refining them.

In general, they should be:

• Focused and researchable
• Answerable using credible sources
• Complex and arguable
• Feasible and specific
• Relevant and original

Your research objectives indicate how you’ll try to address your research problem and should be specific:

A research aim is a broad statement indicating the general purpose of your research project. It should appear in your introduction at the end of your problem statement , before your research objectives.

Research objectives are more specific than your research aim. They indicate the specific ways you’ll address the overarching aim.

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Home — Essay Types — Problem Solution Essay

Problem Solution Essay Examples

Choosing the right problem solution essay topics can make a significant difference in the quality of your work and your overall success.

The choice of your problem solution essay topics for college students is crucial because it sets the tone for your entire essay. A well-chosen topic not only makes your essay more engaging but also facilitates the research and writing process. It allows you to explore a subject you're passionate about while demonstrating your critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Choosing a Problem Solution Essay Topic

Before we delve into the problem solution essay topics list, let's discuss some essential factors to consider when making your selection:

• Relevance: Choose a topic that is relevant to your course or field of study. It should align with your academic goals and interests.
• Feasibility: Ensure that your chosen problem has a realistic solution. Avoid topics with overly complex or unsolvable issues.
• Significance: Select a topic that addresses a real-world problem or issue. It should be something that matters to your audience and society as a whole.
• Personal Interest: Opt for a topic that genuinely interests you. Your enthusiasm will shine through in your writing and make the essay more enjoyable for both you and your readers.
• Availability of Information: Check if there is enough research material available on your chosen topic. Having access to credible sources is essential for building a strong argument.

15 Unique Problem Solution Topics for Essay

Now that we've covered the importance of choosing the right topic, let's explore 15 unique topics for problem solution essay that you can consider for your next assignment:

• Combating Cyberbullying in Schools
• Reducing Food Waste: A Sustainable Solution
• Promoting Mental Health Awareness Among Teens
• The Opioid Epidemic: Finding a Path to Recovery
• Problems and Solutions of Procrastination Regarding Time Management
• Tackling Air Pollution in Urban Areas
• Overcoming the Digital Divide in Education
• Addressing Youth Unemployment
• Social Media is The Reason for Many of The World’s Problems and Solutions
• Combating Gender Inequality in the Workplace
• Bullying in Schools: A Comprehensive Approach
• Sustainable Agriculture: Feeding the Future
• The Aging Population: Meeting Healthcare Needs
• Curbing Plastic Pollution: A Global Responsibility
• Effective Parenting in the Digital Age

10 Problem Solution Persuasive Speech Topics

These problem solution persuasive speech topics are aimed at persuading the audience to consider and support specific solutions to pressing issues:

• Combating Online Harassment
• Addressing the Mental Health Crisis
• Tackling Childhood Obesity
• Ensuring Affordable Healthcare for All
• Solving the Student Loan Crisis
• Curbing Youth Unemployment: Job Opportunities
• Reversing Climate Change: Renewable Energy
• Implementing Sensible Gun Control Measures
• Supporting Food Security Initiatives
• Promoting Gender Equality in the Workplace

Selecting the right problem solution essay topic is the first step towards crafting a compelling and impactful essay. Remember to consider relevance, feasibility, significance, personal interest, and the availability of information when making your choice. Once you've chosen a topic from our list or been inspired to come up with your own, you're well on your way to crafting a thought-provoking essay that offers solutions to real-world problems.

A problem solution essay is an analytical piece of writing that describes a problem or issue and proposes well-researched, viable solutions. Students are often tasked with writing these essays, as they require critical thinking to develop a thorough understanding of the problem and present solutions supported by evidence. This guide will outline the key steps for writing an excellent problem solution essay, using a problem solution essay example and relevant analysis to illustrate the process. For more impactful guidance, explore analytical essay titles with a punch to spark creativity and precision in your writing approach.

Introduction to the Problem Solution Essay 

A problem solution essay identifies an issue or problem and aims to persuade readers that solutions exist to resolve it. The essay should outline the problem in the introduction, analyze its causes and effects, propose realistic solutions backed by research, recommend the best solution, and issue a call to action to implement the solution. Transitions should connect each section seamlessly. A strong conclusion reiterates the solutions and urges change.

Problem solution essays tackle current social, political, economic, or environmental issues facing society rather than personal problems. The writer’s aim is to bring awareness and understanding to the problem while convincing readers of the feasibility and necessity of the solution. If you’re looking for practical guidance, you can find problem and solution essay examples to further illustrate these concepts and improve your own writing.

Selecting a Topics for a Problem Solution Essay

Choosing an engaging topic is crucial to writing an interesting problem solution essay. The topic should be focused, address a current issue, and offer realistic solutions. Here are some productive categories to consider:

• Political, Social, or Environmental Issues

Examples include poverty, gender inequality, pollution, global warming, public health, etc. Provide well-researched data and expert analysis of the origins and development of the issue.

• Everyday Problems 

Topics like traffic congestion, lack of recycling, childhood obesity, high cost of college, boredom and stress in school, etc. connect with readers’ daily lives. Support causes and effects with surveys and statistics.

• Hypothetical Situations

Speculative topics imagine an unfavorable scenario like all energy sources disappearing or aliens attacking Earth. Explore imaginative preventative solutions supported by logic and reason.

Avoid overly broad or vague topics without clear solutions. Select issues that really spark your interest as your enthusiasm will show in your writing.

Components of a Problem Solution Essay

• Engaging Introduction. Open with a thought-provoking statistic, question, anecdote, or fact about the problem. Foreshadow the solutions and briefly state the call to action.
• Background on the Problem. Provide detailed facts, data, history, and context. Analyze the causes, effects, and current status through research. Use sources like academic studies, news articles, and surveys.
• Solutions Section. Brainstorm 2-3 attainable solutions. Logically analyze the pros and cons of each solution. Cite evidence on the feasibility or past successes of these approaches.
• Recommended Solution with Rationale. Choose one robust solution and argue convincingly why it is the best option based on your research in the previous section. Address opposing viewpoints.
• Persuasive Call to Action. Inspire readers to implement this solution through collective action. Describe specific steps readers can take. Share resources.
• Smooth Transitions. Use transition words like “First”, “However”, “Consequently”, “Therefore”, “On the other hand”, “For example”, “In conclusion” between ideas and sections.
• Impactful Conclusion. Restate the problem and solutions. Summarize your argument advocating for the best solution. End with a memorable final statement to motivate readers.

How to Write a Conclusion For problem Solution Essay 

Writing a conclusion for a problem solution essay involves summarizing the key points and providing a clear and compelling resolution to the problem discussed. Here are the three most important points to include in your conclusion:

Problem Solution Short Essay Example Analysis 

Here is an excerpt of a problem solution essay responding to the prompt : “Obesity is becoming an increasingly difficult problem across the globe. How can we combat this issue?”

> Obesity has reached epidemic proportions globally, with rates doubling since 1980. A 2018 CDC study found that 40% of American adults are obese, causing chronic illnesses like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer (Smith, 2019). We must take collective action to reverse this preventable health crisis through measures like sugar taxes, nutrition education, and access to healthy affordable foods.

> Implementing a sugar tax on sodas and junk food is an effective solution evidenced by results in countries like Mexico and Hungary where obesity rates declined after introducing taxes…[analysis of research studies]

This introduction hooks readers by stating a surprising fact about escalating obesity rates while foreshadowing solutions like a sugar tax. The background provides well-cited statistics demonstrating the scope of the problem through authoritative sources. The writer recommends the tax as the best solution based on concrete evidence. The sample essay follows the standard problem-solution structure and addresses the prompt appropriately.  

Problem Solution Essay Example

In this compilation, we present a selection of problem-solution essay examples . These essays offer practical insights into addressing various issues through persuasive arguments and proposed solutions. Explore these examples of problem-solution essays to grasp effective problem-solving techniques, innovative approaches, and persuasive writing strategies. If you’re looking for further inspiration, consider delving into i nsights into argumentative essay examples for additional guidance and strategies in crafting compelling arguments.

Problem Solution Essay: Additional Tips for Students

To summarize, here are some key tips for students writing problem solution essays:

✅ Select a focused, current issue for your topic with achievable solutions 

✅ Research extensively to understand the problem’s origins, effects, key stakeholders etc.

✅ Brainstorm innovative but realistic solutions supported by facts, statistics, expert data and case studies

✅ Recommend one solution using convincing evidence and address opposing viewpoints

✅ Persuade readers to take action through clear steps in your call to action

✅ Use transitions, precise language, and an organized structure

✅ Proofread carefully and check formatting requirements

By following these guidelines, students can produce compelling problem solution essays on topics that really resonate with their interests. The professional structure and tips provided above will help tackle these academically challenging essays effectively.

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What is a problem solution essay?

An essay that identifies the problem or an issue, providing several ways to resolve it. A typical problem solution essay example is river pollution or youth gang problems. Include a description of a problem with statistical data or references. As a rule, a solution is offered with due analysis. All problems and solutions examples must include strong argumentation and references.

How to write a problem solution essay?

An introduction part must provide information about the issue and explain why it matters. Provide a list of solutions or mention a methodology. Good problem solution essay topics analyze the strengths and weaknesses of existing solutions by coming to a conclusion and a list of recommendations. Remember about references and backing up your argumentation with evaluation in the Conclusion part.

How do I choose a good topic for a problem solution essay?

Focus on a current issue that interests you and has viable solutions. Avoid topics that are too broad or have no clear remedies. Select locally relevant problems or hypothetical scenarios.

What makes a good thesis statement for a problem solution essay?

Your thesis should identify the problem and the solution(s) you will argue for in the essay. Keep it concise, focused, and clear.

What types of evidence should I use to support my solutions?

Reference studies, statistics, expert opinions, case studies, logical reasoning, analogies, and anecdotes that build a strong case for your solution

The most popular topics for Problem Solution Essay

• Gun Control
• Drug Addiction
• Women's Rights
• Postpartum Depression
• Illegal Immigration
• Gun Violence
• Teenage Pregnancy
• Consumerism
• Human Trafficking
• Domestic Violence

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Identifying problems and solutions in scientific text

Kevin heffernan.

Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge, 15 JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 0FD UK

Simone Teufel

Research is often described as a problem-solving activity, and as a result, descriptions of problems and solutions are an essential part of the scientific discourse used to describe research activity. We present an automatic classifier that, given a phrase that may or may not be a description of a scientific problem or a solution, makes a binary decision about problemhood and solutionhood of that phrase. We recast the problem as a supervised machine learning problem, define a set of 15 features correlated with the target categories and use several machine learning algorithms on this task. We also create our own corpus of 2000 positive and negative examples of problems and solutions. We find that we can distinguish problems from non-problems with an accuracy of 82.3%, and solutions from non-solutions with an accuracy of 79.7%. Our three most helpful features for the task are syntactic information (POS tags), document and word embeddings.

Introduction

Problem solving is generally regarded as the most important cognitive activity in everyday and professional contexts (Jonassen 2000 ). Many studies on formalising the cognitive process behind problem-solving exist, for instance (Chandrasekaran 1983 ). Jordan ( 1980 ) argues that we all share knowledge of the thought/action problem-solution process involved in real life, and so our writings will often reflect this order. There is general agreement amongst theorists that state that the nature of the research process can be viewed as a problem-solving activity (Strübing 2007 ; Van Dijk 1980 ; Hutchins 1977 ; Grimes 1975 ).

One of the best-documented problem-solving patterns was established by Winter ( 1968 ). Winter analysed thousands of examples of technical texts, and noted that these texts can largely be described in terms of a four-part pattern consisting of Situation, Problem, Solution and Evaluation. This is very similar to the pattern described by Van Dijk ( 1980 ), which consists of Introduction-Theory, Problem-Experiment-Comment and Conclusion. The difference is that in Winter’s view, a solution only becomes a solution after it has been evaluated positively. Hoey changes Winter’s pattern by introducing the concept of Response in place of Solution (Hoey 2001 ). This seems to describe the situation in science better, where evaluation is mandatory for research solutions to be accepted by the community. In Hoey’s pattern, the Situation (which is generally treated as optional) provides background information; the Problem describes an issue which requires attention; the Response provides a way to deal with the issue, and the Evaluation assesses how effective the response is.

An example of this pattern in the context of the Goldilocks story can be seen in Fig.  1 . In this text, there is a preamble providing the setting of the story (i.e. Goldilocks is lost in the woods), which is called the Situation in Hoey’s system. A Problem in encountered when Goldilocks becomes hungry. Her first Response is to try the porridge in big bear’s bowl, but she gives this a negative Evaluation (“too hot!”) and so the pattern returns to the Problem. This continues in a cyclic fashion until the Problem is finally resolved by Goldilocks giving a particular Response a positive Evaluation of baby bear’s porridge (“it’s just right”).

Example of problem-solving pattern when applied to the Goldilocks story.

Reproduced with permission from Hoey ( 2001 )

It would be attractive to detect problem and solution statements automatically in text. This holds true both from a theoretical and a practical viewpoint. Theoretically, we know that sentiment detection is related to problem-solving activity, because of the perception that “bad” situations are transformed into “better” ones via problem-solving. The exact mechanism of how this can be detected would advance the state of the art in text understanding. In terms of linguistic realisation, problem and solution statements come in many variants and reformulations, often in the form of positive or negated statements about the conditions, results and causes of problem–solution pairs. Detecting and interpreting those would give us a reasonably objective manner to test a system’s understanding capacity. Practically, being able to detect any mention of a problem is a first step towards detecting a paper’s specific research goal. Being able to do this has been a goal for scientific information retrieval for some time, and if successful, it would improve the effectiveness of scientific search immensely. Detecting problem and solution statements of papers would also enable us to compare similar papers and eventually even lead to automatic generation of review articles in a field.

There has been some computational effort on the task of identifying problem-solving patterns in text. However, most of the prior work has not gone beyond the usage of keyword analysis and some simple contextual examination of the pattern. Flowerdew ( 2008 ) presents a corpus-based analysis of lexio-grammatical patterns for problem and solution clauses using articles from professional and student reports. Problem and solution keywords were used to search their corpora, and each occurrence was analysed to determine grammatical usage of the keyword. More interestingly, the causal category associated with each keyword in their context was also analysed. For example, Reason–Result or Means-Purpose were common causal categories found to be associated with problem keywords.

The goal of the work by Scott ( 2001 ) was to determine words which are semantically similar to problem and solution, and to determine how these words are used to signal problem-solution patterns. However, their corpus-based analysis used articles from the Guardian newspaper. Since the domain of newspaper text is very different from that of scientific text, we decided not to consider those keywords associated with problem-solving patterns for use in our work.

Instead of a keyword-based approach, Charles ( 2011 ) used discourse markers to examine how the problem-solution pattern was signalled in text. In particular, they examined how adverbials associated with a result such as “thus, therefore, then, hence” are used to signal a problem-solving pattern.

Problem solving also has been studied in the framework of discourse theories such as Rhetorical Structure Theory (Mann and Thompson 1988 ) and Argumentative Zoning (Teufel et al. 2000 ). Problem- and solutionhood constitute two of the original 23 relations in RST (Mann and Thompson 1988 ). While we concentrate solely on this aspect, RST is a general theory of discourse structure which covers many intentional and informational relations. The relationship to Argumentative Zoning is more complicated. The status of certain statements as problem or solutions is one important dimension in the definitions of AZ categories. AZ additionally models dimensions other than problem-solution hood (such as who a scientific idea belongs to, or which intention the authors might have had in stating a particular negative or positive statement). When forming categories, AZ combines aspects of these dimensions, and “flattens” them out into only 7 categories. In AZ it is crucial who it is that experiences the problems or contributes a solution. For instance, the definition of category “CONTRAST” includes statements that some research runs into problems, but only if that research is previous work (i.e., not if it is the work contributed in the paper itself). Similarly, “BASIS” includes statements of successful problem-solving activities, but only if they are achieved by previous work that the current paper bases itself on. Our definition is simpler in that we are interested only in problem solution structure, not in the other dimensions covered in AZ. Our definition is also more far-reaching than AZ, in that we are interested in all problems mentioned in the text, no matter whose problems they are. Problem-solution recognition can therefore be seen as one aspect of AZ which can be independently modelled as a “service task”. This means that good problem solution structure recognition should theoretically improve AZ recognition.

In this work, we approach the task of identifying problem-solving patterns in scientific text. We choose to use the model of problem-solving described by Hoey ( 2001 ). This pattern comprises four parts: Situation, Problem, Response and Evaluation. The Situation element is considered optional to the pattern, and so our focus centres on the core pattern elements.

Goal statement and task

Many surface features in the text offer themselves up as potential signals for detecting problem-solving patterns in text. However, since Situation is an optional element, we decided to focus on either Problem or Response and Evaluation as signals of the pattern. Moreover, we decide to look for each type in isolation. Our reasons for this are as follows: It is quite rare for an author to introduce a problem without resolving it using some sort of response, and so this is a good starting point in identifying the pattern. There are exceptions to this, as authors will sometimes introduce a problem and then leave it to future work, but overall there should be enough signal in the Problem element to make our method of looking for it in isolation worthwhile. The second signal we look for is the use of Response and Evaluation within the same sentence. Similar to Problem elements, we hypothesise that this formulation is well enough signalled externally to help us in detecting the pattern. For example, consider the following Response and Evaluation: “One solution is to use smoothing”. In this statement, the author is explicitly stating that smoothing is a solution to a problem which must have been mentioned in a prior statement. In scientific text, we often observe that solutions implicitly contain both Response and Evaluation (positive) elements. Therefore, due to these reasons there should be sufficient external signals for the two pattern elements we concentrate on here.

When attempting to find Problem elements in text, we run into the issue that the word “problem” actually has at least two word senses that need to be distinguished. There is a word sense of “problem” that means something which must be undertaken (i.e. task), while another sense is the core sense of the word, something that is problematic and negative. Only the latter sense is aligned with our sense of problemhood. This is because the simple description of a task does not predispose problemhood, just a wish to perform some act. Consider the following examples, where the non-desired word sense is being used:

• “Das and Petrov (2011) also consider the problem of unsupervised bilingual POS induction”. (Chen et al. 2011 ).
• “In this paper, we describe advances on the problem of NER in Arabic Wikipedia”. (Mohit et al. 2012 ).

Here, the author explicitly states that the phrases in orange are problems, they align with our definition of research tasks and not with what we call here ‘problematic problems’. We will now give some examples from our corpus for the desired, core word sense:

• “The major limitation of supervised approaches is that they require annotations for example sentences.” (Poon and Domingos 2009 ).
• “To solve the problem of high dimensionality we use clustering to group the words present in the corpus into much smaller number of clusters”. (Saha et al. 2008 ).

When creating our corpus of positive and negative examples, we took care to select only problem strings that satisfy our definition of problemhood; “ Corpus creation ” section will explain how we did that.

Corpus creation

Our new corpus is a subset of the latest version of the ACL anthology released in March, 2016 1 which contains 22,878 articles in the form of PDFs and OCRed text. 2

The 2016 version was also parsed using ParsCit (Councill et al. 2008 ). ParsCit recognises not only document structure, but also bibliography lists as well as references within running text. A random subset of 2500 papers was collected covering the entire ACL timeline. In order to disregard non-article publications such as introductions to conference proceedings or letters to the editor, only documents containing abstracts were considered. The corpus was preprocessed using tokenisation, lemmatisation and dependency parsing with the Rasp Parser (Briscoe et al. 2006 ).

Definition of ground truth

Our goal was to define a ground truth for problem and solution strings, while covering as wide a range as possible of syntactic variations in which such strings naturally occur. We also want this ground truth to cover phenomena of problem and solution status which are applicable whether or not the problem or solution status is explicitly mentioned in the text.

To simplify the task, we only consider here problem and solution descriptions that are at most one sentence long. In reality, of course, many problem descriptions and solution descriptions go beyond single sentence, and require for instance an entire paragraph. However, we also know that short summaries of problems and solutions are very prevalent in science, and also that these tend to occur in the most prominent places in a paper. This is because scientists are trained to express their contribution and the obstacles possibly hindering their success, in an informative, succinct manner. That is the reason why we can afford to only look for shorter problem and solution descriptions, ignoring those that cross sentence boundaries.

To define our ground truth, we examined the parsed dependencies and looked for a target word (“problem/solution”) in subject position, and then chose its syntactic argument as our candidate problem or solution phrase. To increase the variation, i.e., to find as many different-worded problem and solution descriptions as possible, we additionally used semantically similar words (near-synonyms) of the target words “problem” or “solution” for the search. Semantic similarity was defined as cosine in a deep learning distributional vector space, trained using Word2Vec (Mikolov et al. 2013 ) on 18,753,472 sentences from a biomedical corpus based on all full-text Pubmed articles (McKeown et al. 2016 ). From the 200 words which were semantically closest to “problem”, we manually selected 28 clear synonyms. These are listed in Table  1 . From the 200 semantically closest words to “solution” we similarly chose 19 (Table  2 ). Of the sentences matching our dependency search, a subset of problem and solution candidate sentences were randomly selected.

Selected words for use in problem candidate phrase extraction

Selected words for use in solution candidate phrase extraction

An example of this is shown in Fig.  2 . Here, the target word “drawback” is in subject position (highlighted in red), and its clausal argument (ccomp) is “(that) it achieves low performance” (highlighted in purple). Examples of other arguments we searched for included copula constructions and direct/indirect objects.

Example of our extraction method for problems using dependencies. (Color figure online)

If more than one candidate was found in a sentence, one was chosen at random. Non-grammatical sentences were excluded; these might appear in the corpus as a result of its source being OCRed text.

800 candidates phrases expressing problems and solutions were automatically extracted (1600 total) and then independently checked for correctness by two annotators (the two authors of this paper). Both authors found the task simple and straightforward. Correctness was defined by two criteria:

• An unexplained phenomenon or a problematic state in science; or
• A research question; or
• An artifact that does not fulfil its stated specification.
• The phrase must not lexically give away its status as problem or solution phrase.

The second criterion saves us from machine learning cues that are too obvious. If for instance, the phrase itself contained the words “lack of” or “problematic” or “drawback”, our manual check rejected it, because it would be too easy for the machine learner to learn such cues, at the expense of many other, more generally occurring cues.

Sampling of negative examples

We next needed to find negative examples for both cases. We wanted them not to stand out on the surface as negative examples, so we chose them so as to mimic the obvious characteristics of the positive examples as closely as possible. We call the negative examples ‘non-problems’ and ‘non-solutions’ respectively. We wanted the only differences between problems and non-problems to be of a semantic nature, nothing that could be read off on the surface. We therefore sampled a population of phrases that obey the same statistical distribution as our problem and solution strings while making sure they really are negative examples. We started from sentences not containing any problem/solution words (i.e. those used as target words). From each such sentence, we at random selected one syntactic subtree contained in it. From these, we randomly selected a subset of negative examples of problems and solutions that satisfy the following conditions:

• The distribution of the head POS tags of the negative strings should perfectly match the head POS tags 3 of the positive strings. This has the purpose of achieving the same proportion of surface syntactic constructions as observed in the positive cases.
• The average lengths of the negative strings must be within a tolerance of the average length of their respective positive candidates e.g., non-solutions must have an average length very similar (i.e. + / -  small tolerance) to solutions. We chose a tolerance value of 3 characters.

Again, a human quality check was performed on non-problems and non-solutions. For each candidate non-problem statement, the candidate was accepted if it did not contain a phenomenon, a problematic state, a research question or a non-functioning artefact. If the string expressed a research task, without explicit statement that there was anything problematic about it (i.e., the ‘wrong’ sense of “problem”, as described above), it was allowed as a non-problem. A clause was confirmed as a non-solution if the string did not represent both a response and positive evaluation.

If the annotator found that the sentence had been slightly mis-parsed, but did contain a candidate, they were allowed to move the boundaries for the candidate clause. This resulted in cleaner text, e.g., in the frequent case of coordination, when non-relevant constituents could be removed.

From the set of sentences which passed the quality-test for both independent assessors, 500 instances of positive and negative problems/solutions were randomly chosen (i.e. 2000 instances in total). When checking for correctness we found that most of the automatically extracted phrases which did not pass the quality test for problem-/solution-hood were either due to obvious learning cues or instances where the sense of problem-hood used is relating to tasks (cf. “ Goal statement and task ” section).

Experimental design

In our experiments, we used three classifiers, namely Naïve Bayes, Logistic Regression and a Support Vector Machine. For all classifiers an implementation from the WEKA machine learning library (Hall et al. 2009 ) was chosen. Given that our dataset is small, tenfold cross-validation was used instead of a held out test set. All significance tests were conducted using the (two-tailed) Sign Test (Siegel 1956 ).

Linguistic correlates of problem- and solution-hood

We first define a set of features without taking the phrase’s context into account. This will tell us about the disambiguation ability of the problem/solution description’s semantics alone. In particular, we cut out the rest of the sentence other than the phrase and never use it for classification. This is done for similar reasons to excluding certain ‘give-away’ phrases inside the phrases themselves (as explained above). As the phrases were found using templates, we know that the machine learner would simply pick up on the semantics of the template, which always contains a synonym of “problem” or “solution”, thus drowning out the more hidden features hopefully inherent in the semantics of the phrases themselves. If we allowed the machine learner to use these stronger features, it would suffer in its ability to generalise to the real task.

ngrams Bags of words are traditionally successfully used for classification tasks in NLP, so we included bags of words (lemmas) within the candidate phrases as one of our features (and treat it as a baseline later on). We also include bigrams and trigrams as multi-word combinations can be indicative of problems and solutions e.g., “combinatorial explosion”.

Polarity Our second feature concerns the polarity of each word in the candidate strings. Consider the following example of a problem taken from our dataset: “very conservative approaches to exact and partial string matches overgenerate badly”. In this sentence, words such as “badly” will be associated with negative polarity, therefore being useful in determining problem-hood. Similarly, solutions will often be associated with a positive sentiment e.g. “smoothing is a good way to overcome data sparsity” . To do this, we perform word sense disambiguation of each word using the Lesk algorithm (Lesk 1986 ). The polarity of the resulting synset in SentiWordNet (Baccianella et al. 2010 ) was then looked up and used as a feature.

Syntax Next, a set of syntactic features were defined by using the presence of POS tags in each candidate. This feature could be helpful in finding syntactic patterns in problems and solutions. We were careful not to base the model directly on the head POS tag and the length of each candidate phrase, as these are defining characteristics used for determining the non-problem and non-solution candidate set.

Negation Negation is an important property that can often greatly affect the polarity of a phrase. For example, a phrase containing a keyword pertinent to solution-hood may be a good indicator but with the presence of negation may flip the polarity to problem-hood e.g., “this can’t work as a solution”. Therefore, presence of negation is determined.

Exemplification and contrast Problems and solutions are often found to be coupled with examples as they allow the author to elucidate their point. For instance, consider the following solution: “Once the translations are generated, an obvious solution is to pick the most fluent alternative, e.g., using an n-gram language model”. (Madnani et al. 2012 ). To acknowledge this, we check for presence of exemplification. In addition to examples, problems in particular are often found when contrast is signalled by the author (e.g. “however, “but”), therefore we also check for presence of contrast in the problem and non-problem candidates only.

Discourse Problems and solutions have also been found to have a correlation with discourse properties. For example, problem-solving patterns often occur in the background sections of a paper. The rationale behind this is that the author is conventionally asked to objectively criticise other work in the background (e.g. describing research gaps which motivate the current paper). To take this in account, we examine the context of each string and capture the section header under which it is contained (e.g. Introduction, Future work). In addition, problems and solutions are often found following the Situation element in the problem-solving pattern (cf. “ Introduction ” section). This preamble setting up the problem or solution means that these elements are likely not to be found occurring at the beginning of a section (i.e. it will usually take some sort of introduction to detail how something is problematic and why a solution is needed). Therefore we record the distance from the candidate string to the nearest section header.

Subcategorisation and adverbials Solutions often involve an activity (e.g. a task). We also model the subcategorisation properties of the verbs involved. Our intuition was that since problematic situations are often described as non-actions, then these are more likely to be intransitive. Conversely solutions are often actions and are likely to have at least one argument. This feature was calculated by running the C&C parser (Curran et al. 2007 ) on each sentence. C&C is a supertagger and parser that has access to subcategorisation information. Solutions are also associated with resultative adverbial modification (e.g. “thus, therefore, consequently”) as it expresses the solutionhood relation between the problem and the solution. It has been seen to occur frequently in problem-solving patterns, as studied by Charles ( 2011 ). Therefore, we check for presence of resultative adverbial modification in the solution and non-solution candidate only.

Embeddings We also wanted to add more information using word embeddings. This was done in two different ways. Firstly, we created a Doc2Vec model (Le and Mikolov 2014 ), which was trained on  ∼  19  million sentences from scientific text (no overlap with our data set). An embedding was created for each candidate sentence. Secondly, word embeddings were calculated using the Word2Vec model (cf. “ Corpus creation ” section). For each candidate head, the full word embedding was included as a feature. Lastly, when creating our polarity feature we query SentiWordNet using synsets assigned by the Lesk algorithm. However, not all words are assigned a sense by Lesk, so we need to take care when that happens. In those cases, the distributional semantic similarity of the word is compared to two words with a known polarity, namely “poor” and “excellent”. These particular words have traditionally been consistently good indicators of polarity status in many studies (Turney 2002 ; Mullen and Collier 2004 ). Semantic similarity was defined as cosine similarity on the embeddings of the Word2Vec model (cf. “ Corpus creation ” section).

Modality Responses to problems in scientific writing often express possibility and necessity, and so have a close connection with modality. Modality can be broken into three main categories, as described by Kratzer ( 1991 ), namely epistemic (possibility), deontic (permission / request / wish) and dynamic (expressing ability).

Problems have a strong relationship to modality within scientific writing. Often, this is due to a tactic called “hedging” (Medlock and Briscoe 2007 ) where the author uses speculative language, often using Epistemic modality, in an attempt to make either noncommital or vague statements. This has the effect of allowing the author to distance themselves from the statement, and is often employed when discussing negative or problematic topics. Consider the following example of Epistemic modality from Nakov and Hearst ( 2008 ): “A potential drawback is that it might not work well for low-frequency words”.

To take this linguistic correlate into account as a feature, we replicated a modality classifier as described by (Ruppenhofer and Rehbein 2012 ). More sophisticated modality classifiers have been recently introduced, for instance using a wide range of features and convolutional neural networks, e.g, (Zhou et al. 2015 ; Marasović and Frank 2016 ). However, we wanted to check the effect of a simpler method of modality classification on the final outcome first before investing heavily into their implementation. We trained three classifiers using the subset of features which Ruppenhofer et al. reported as performing best, and evaluated them on the gold standard dataset provided by the authors 4 . The results of the are shown in Table  3 . The dataset contains annotations of English modal verbs on the 535 documents of the first MPQA corpus release (Wiebe et al. 2005 ).

Modality classifier results (precision/recall/f-measure) using Naïve Bayes (NB), logistic regression, and a support vector machine (SVM)

Italicized results reflect highest f-measure reported per modal category

Logistic Regression performed best overall and so this model was chosen for our upcoming experiments. With regards to the optative and concessive modal categories, they can be seen to perform extremely poorly, with the optative category receiving a null score across all three classifiers. This is due to a limitation in the dataset, which is unbalanced and contains very few instances of these two categories. This unbalanced data also is the reason behind our decision of reporting results in terms of recall, precision and f-measure in Table  3 .

The modality classifier was then retrained on the entirety of the dataset used by Ruppenhofer and Rehbein ( 2012 ) using the best performing model from training (Logistic Regression). This new model was then used in the upcoming experiment to predict modality labels for each instance in our dataset.

As can be seen from Table  4 , we are able to achieve good results for distinguishing a problematic statement from non-problematic one. The bag-of-words baseline achieves a very good performance of 71.0% for the Logistic Regression classifier, showing that there is enough signal in the candidate phrases alone to distinguish them much better than random chance.

Results distinguishing problems from non-problems using Naïve Bayes (NB), logistic regression (LR) and a support vector machine (SVM)

Each feature set’s performance is shown in isolation followed by combinations with other features. Tenfold stratified cross-validation was used across all experiments. Statistical significance with respect to the baseline at the p  < 0.05 , 0.01, 0.001 levels is denoted by *, ** and *** respectively

Taking a look at Table  5 , which shows the information gain for the top lemmas,

Information gain (IG) in bits of top lemmas from the bag-of-words baseline in Table  4

we can see that the top lemmas are indeed indicative of problemhood (e.g. “limit”,“explosion”). Bigrams achieved good performance on their own (as did negation and discourse) but unfortunately performance deteriorated when using trigrams, particularly with the SVM and LR. The subcategorisation feature was the worst performing feature in isolation. Upon taking a closer look at our data, we saw that our hypothesis that intransitive verbs are commonly used in problematic statements was true, with over 30% of our problems (153) using them. However, due to our sampling method for the negative cases we also picked up many intransitive verbs (163). This explains the almost random chance performance (i.e.  50%) given that the distribution of intransitive verbs amongst the positive and negative candidates was almost even.

The modality feature was the most expensive to produce, but also didn’t perform very well is isolation. This surprising result may be partly due to a data sparsity issue

where only a small portion (169) of our instances contained modal verbs. The breakdown of how many types of modal senses which occurred is displayed in Table  6 . The most dominant modal sense was epistemic. This is a good indicator of problemhood (e.g. hedging, cf. “ Linguistic correlates of problem- and solution-hood ” section) but if the accumulation of additional data was possible, we think that this feature may have the potential to be much more valuable in determining problemhood. Another reason for the performance may be domain dependence of the classifier since it was trained on text from different domains (e.g. news). Additionally, modality has also shown to be helpful in determining contextual polarity (Wilson et al. 2005 ) and argumentation (Becker et al. 2016 ), so using the output from this modality classifier may also prove useful for further feature engineering taking this into account in future work.

Number of instances of modal senses

Polarity managed to perform well but not as good as we hoped. However, this feature also suffers from a sparsity issue resulting from cases where the Lesk algorithm (Lesk 1986 ) is not able to resolve the synset of the syntactic head.

Knowledge of syntax provides a big improvement with a significant increase over the baseline results from two of the classifiers.

Examining this in greater detail, POS tags with high information gain mostly included tags from open classes (i.e. VB-, JJ-, NN- and RB-). These tags are often more associated with determining polarity status than tags such as prepositions and conjunctions (i.e. adverbs and adjectives are more likely to be describing something with a non-neutral viewpoint).

The embeddings from Doc2Vec allowed us to obtain another significant increase in performance (72.9% with Naïve Bayes) over the baseline and polarity using Word2Vec provided the best individual feature result (77.2% with SVM).

Combining all features together, each classifier managed to achieve a significant result over the baseline with the best result coming from the SVM (81.8%). Problems were also better classified than non-problems as shown in the confusion matrix in Table  7 . The addition of the Word2Vec vectors may be seen as a form of smoothing in cases where previous linguistic features had a sparsity issue i.e., instead of a NULL entry, the embeddings provide some sort of value for each candidate. Particularly wrt. the polarity feature, cases where Lesk was unable to resolve a synset meant that a ZERO entry was added to the vector supplied to the machine learner. Amongst the possible combinations, the best subset of features was found by combining all features with the exception of bigrams, trigrams, subcategorisation and modality. This subset of features managed to improve results in both the Naïve Bayes and SVM classifiers with the highest overall result coming from the SVM (82.3%).

Confusion matrix for problems

The results for disambiguation of solutions from non-solutions can be seen in Table  8 . The bag-of-words baseline performs much better than random, with the performance being quite high with regard to the SVM (this result was also higher than any of the baseline performances from the problem classifiers). As shown in Table  9 , the top ranked lemmas from the best performing model (using information gain) included “use” and “method”. These lemmas are very indicative of solutionhood and so give some insight into the high baseline returned from the machine learners. Subcategorisation and the result adverbials were the two worst performing features. However, the low performance for subcategorisation is due to the sampling of the non-solutions (the same reason for the low performance of the problem transitivity feature). When fitting the POS-tag distribution for the negative samples, we noticed that over 80% of the head POS-tags were verbs (much higher than the problem heads). The most frequent verb type being the infinite form.

Results distinguishing solutions from non-solutions using Naïve Bayes (NB), logistic regression (LR) and a support vector machine (SVM)

Each feature set’s performance is shown in isolation followed by combinations with other features. Tenfold stratified cross-validation was used across all experiments

Information gain (IG) in bits of top lemmas from the bag-of-words baseline in Table  8

This is not surprising given that a very common formulation to describe a solution is to use the infinitive “TO” since it often describes a task e.g., “One solution is to find the singletons and remove them”. Therefore, since the head POS tags of the non-solutions had to match this high distribution of infinitive verbs present in the solution, the subcategorisation feature is not particularly discriminatory. Polarity, negation, exemplification and syntactic features were slightly more discriminate and provided comparable results. However, similar to the problem experiment, the embeddings from Word2Vec and Doc2Vec proved to be the best features, with polarity using Word2Vec providing the best individual result (73.4% with SVM).

Combining all features together managed to improve over each feature in isolation and beat the baseline using all three classifiers. Furthermore, when looking at the confusion matrix in Table  10 the solutions were classified more accurately than the non-solutions. The best subset of features was found by combining all features without adverbial of result, bigrams, exemplification, negation, polarity and subcategorisation. The best result using this subset of features was achieved by the SVM with 79.7%. It managed to greatly improve upon the baseline but was just shy of achieving statistical significance ( p = 0.057 ).

Confusion matrix for solutions

In this work, we have presented new supervised classifiers for the task of identifying problem and solution statements in scientific text. We have also introduced a new corpus for this task and used it for evaluating our classifiers. Great care was taken in constructing the corpus by ensuring that the negative and positive samples were closely matched in terms of syntactic shape. If we had simply selected random subtrees for negative samples without regard for any syntactic similarity with our positive samples, the machine learner may have found easy signals such as sentence length. Additionally, since we did not allow the machine learner to see the surroundings of the candidate string within the sentence, this made our task even harder. Our performance on the corpus shows promise for this task, and proves that there are strong signals for determining both the problem and solution parts of the problem-solving pattern independently.

With regard to classifying problems from non-problems, features such as the POS tag, document and word embeddings provide the best features, with polarity using the Word2Vec embeddings achieving the highest feature performance. The best overall result was achieved using an SVM with a subset of features (82.3%). Classifying solutions from non-solutions also performs well using the embedding features, with the best feature also being polarity using the Word2Vec embeddings, and the highest result also coming from the SVM with a feature subset (79.7%).

In future work, we plan to link problem and solution statements which were found independently during our corpus creation. Given that our classifiers were trained on data solely from the ACL anthology, we also hope to investigate the domain specificity of our classifiers and see how well they can generalise to domains other than ACL (e.g. bioinformatics). Since we took great care at removing the knowledge our classifiers have of the explicit statements of problem and solution (i.e. the classifiers were trained only on the syntactic argument of the explicit statement of problem-/solution-hood), our classifiers should in principle be in a good position to generalise, i.e., find implicit statements too. In future work, we will measure to which degree this is the case.

To facilitate further research on this topic, all code and data used in our experiments can be found here: www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~kh562/identifying-problems-and-solutions.html

Acknowledgements

The first author has been supported by an EPSRC studentship (Award Ref: 1641528). We thank the reviewers for their helpful comments.

1 http://acl-arc.comp.nus.edu.sg/ .

2 The corpus comprises 3,391,198 sentences, 71,149,169 words and 451,996,332 characters.

3 The head POS tags were found using a modification of the Collins’ Head Finder. This modified algorithm addresses some of the limitations of the head finding heuristics described by Collins ( 2003 ) and can be found here: http://nlp.stanford.edu/nlp/javadoc/javanlp/edu/stanford/nlp/trees/ModCollinsHeadFinder.html .

4 https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/ruppenhofer/data/modalia_release1.0.tgz.

Contributor Information

Kevin Heffernan, Email: [email protected] .

Simone Teufel, Email: [email protected] .

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Problem-Solution Research Papers Example

Type of paper: Research Paper

Topic: Law , Awareness , Tobacco , Cigarettes , Smoking , Knowledge , Water , Health

Words: 1900

Published: 04/03/2020

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Effects of Hookah Smoking A hookah is a water pipe used to smoke (usually) flavored tobacco which is specifically made for this purpose. It has various names in various languages, such as water pipe, narghile, argileh, shisha, hubble-bubble, goza and etc. The origin of the device dates back to the 16th century in Persia. Today, hookah bars and cafes are gaining popularity around the world, including Britain, France, Middle East, Russia and the United States. Hookah smoking has now become a trend and Hookah itself has been classified as a socially-acceptable drug, with countries all over the world making minimal efforts to create awareness against the harmful effects of hookah smoking. If this problem persists, we will have a new generation that is much more susceptible to cancers and other health risks than their elders. Hence, the issue of hookah smoking needs to be addressed at a global level and immediate steps should be taken to create awareness among hookah smokers regarding its detrimental health effects. Hookah pipes make use of tobacco sweetened with either fruit or molasses sugar. This makes the hookah smoke more aromatic and pleasant than a normal cigarette smoke. Popular hookah flavors include apple, plum, pineapple, coconut, mango, mint, strawberry and cola. These flavors vary from culture to culture and certain “custom” or combination flavors can also be created and used. The fruit or molasses sugar dampens the tobacco. The damp tobacco is then heated up in the hookah pipe using wood, coal or charcoal to create the smoke. Data obtained from the 2012 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) reveals that hookah smoking among high school students in the United States and Canada increased from 4.1% to 5.4% from 2011 to 2012, compelling a dire need to address the issue through emphasizing on the harmful effects of hookah smoking and the solutions to alleviate the problem.

Problems of Hookah Smoking

The health risks associated with hookah smoking are numerous and devastating. Ask any hookah smoker and they’ll tell you that hookah is neither as harmful nor as addicting as cigarettes. Or that the filter used in the water pipe “filters out” the harmful effects of tar and carcinogens. This is far from the truth. Hookah smoke contains high levels of toxic compounds; such as tar, carbon monoxide, heavy metals (such as arsenic and lead) and several other carcinogens. Therefore, hookah smokers are exposed to more carbon monoxide and smoke than normal cigarette smokers. An average one-hour hookah smoking session is as damaging to your health as smoking over 100 cigarettes. Furthermore, hookah contains nicotine, which causes addiction. What starts as a style or a trend quickly becomes a routine. . A study has shown that the level of nicotine and cotinine increased up to 250% and 120% respectively in hookah smokers, after a smoking session of forty to forty-five minutes. It further reiterates the fact that one hookah smoking session is much more devastating to health as compared to cigarette session. The study further concluded that hookah smoking leads to the following conclusions: . - In China and Northern India, the tobacco used in hookah is unprocessed and heated by charcoal. This leads to an increase in the risks of Lung Cancer diagnosis and mortality. - The use of tobacco in cigarettes and hookah is closely linked with the rising Bladder Cancer among the smokers - Hookah smoking has also been linked to Oesophagal and Nasopharyngial Cancers - Tobacco juices from hookah increase the risk of Oral Cancers - The toxic ingredients from hookah can cause the arteries to clog and lead to Heart Diseases and increase the risk of Heart Attacks - Babies born to women who smoked hookah on a daily basis during pregnancy weighted, on an average, at least 3 ounces less than babies born to non-smoking women - Such babies are also highly susceptible and vulnerable to Respiratory Diseases - Prolonged use of hookah also leads to Stomach Cancer, Respiratory Failure, Reduced Lung Function and Decreased Fertility Another study states that the social aspects of hookah smoking are equally profound. Sharing of mouth pieces and the exchange of heated and moist smoke may increase the risk of communication and transfer of infectious diseases and viruses such as tuberculoses, hepatitis and herpes. Passive smoking from hookah is equally injurious to health as it contains smoke from both the tobacco itself and the heat source used to burn the tobacco. The exposure to benzene, a volatile compound, is much higher in a hookah smoker as compared to a cigarette smoker. Researchers have detected twice the amount of a metabolite of benzene in the urine excretion of hookah smokers, as compared to cigarette smokers. This is an alarming situation considering the fact that benzene exposure caused leukemia (blood cancer) in human beings. Hence, hookah smokers are twice as susceptible to blood cancer as normal cigarette smokers. . According to recent statistics from survey data collected across the state of Michigan, over 27% of teenagers (between the ages of 14 and 18) of Arab-American descent (living in Michigan) used water pipes. In the United States, the trend of hookah smoking and addiction, among 18 to 24 year olds, has reached an alarming figure. This is mainly due to emergence and viral marketing support techniques of Hookah Bars and Cafes, all across California, Illinois, Texas and Virginia. Furthermore, hookah smoking is viewed by most college and university students as an inexpensive way to get together and have fun. This creates a dire need for the state and society to take drastic measures to eliminate or alleviate this problem.

Solutions to Hookah Smoking

The solutions to eliminate or alleviate hookah smoking have not been fully researched, explored and documented. This is mainly due to lack of awareness among individuals and incumbent legal and administrative reforms to address the issue at a global level. Various countries have introduced various laws and reforms to address the issue of hookah smoking. Most of these reforms, however, have not yielded a significant result in terms of eliminating and alleviating the problem. Some of the measures introduced by various economies are listed below: - In the United States, 22 States and the District of Columbia have clean air laws. 13 states have prohibited smoking in all workplaces and adopted an exhaustive definition of the term “smoking” so as to incorporate hookah smoking within the definition. However, this reform has produced little effect especially in the state of California and New York where certain Middle Eastern hookah bars bypass smoke-free laws by making their employees the owners, thereby qualifying for exemption from the said laws as an “establishment without any employees”. Furthermore, these hookah bars operate as “retail tobacco establishments” or “tobacco bars and cigar lounges”, since the bulk of their revenue derives from the sale of tobacco products or they engage in selling such products to their customers on the premises. . - In England, the Leicester PCT Stop Smoking service, on reporting on a rise in the number of teenagers in the city smoking hookah, announced that Birmingham's three PCT will launch a city-wide tobacco control strategy, which includes increasing the awareness of hookah smoking. The Niche Tobacco Advisory Group (NTAG) for North England also introduced an educational campaign on hookah smoking. Even these reforms yielded little results. . - Countries, like Ireland, Norway and Sweden have also passed clean air laws - In the Middle East and several Eastern Mediterranean countries, there is a complete lack of awareness regarding the potential health effects of hookah smoking. Researchers found that in such societies, it is perfectly acceptable for some families to share a hookah after every meal, even with children. Clean air and anti-smoking laws are virtually absent and cannot be implemented in such countries. The most important way to reduce or alleviate hookah is by creating awareness amongst hookah smokers, especially the youth across the globe. For this purpose, a report was presented by the World Health Organization in 2005 that explained the potential health risk factors associated with hookah and what measures can be introduced to address the issue. The proposals presented by the report include the following: . - Regulation of water pipes and water pipe tobacco under the same laws as cigarettes and other tobacco products - Strong health warning advise and indicators on water pipes and their tobacco used - Use of any claims of harm reduction or “safe-hookah” to be prohibited - Any misleading statements, such as “contains 0% tar” should be prohibited and any person(s) found placing such signs shall be liable to criminal prosecution - Water pipes should be incorporated as part of an overall comprehensive tobacco control efforts initiative. Prevention strategies and cessation procedures and reforms should also be framed - Where there are public places or workplaces which prohibit the use of cigarettes and other tobacco products, the use of water pipes should also be prohibited - Training of health professionals and regulators and educating the public at large about the hazardous effects of water pipe smoking, including the effects of high levels of passive smoking exposure among children, pregnant women and others - Development of a Technical Report Series at an international level to evaluate thoroughly the effects of water pipes. Policies banning hookah smoking in public places may also help reduce this menace. Limiting the power of hookah bars to claim exemption from clean air laws on the precondition of using not more than 20% of their floor area for hookah smoking and the remaining area for sale of tobacco products is also seen as a positive step to curb hookah smoking at public places. More health education and campaign materials should be launched to raise public awareness on the devastating effects of hookah. These measures include, but are not limited to, the following: - Creating peer groups and peer-to-peer presentations on the hazardous impacts of hookah smoking, since peer-to-peer model has been proven to be the most effective way of educating and learning - Encouraging individual initiative to come up with alternatives to hookah smoking, such as nicotine chewing gums and patches and electronic cigarettes - Raising the issue of hookah smoking at national and international level conferences and workshops - Introduction, at the academic level, of subject(s) related to the harmful effects of tobacco and water pipe usage; and - Creating awareness regarding the deceptive tactic employed by certain hookah bars, such as claiming to serve hookah with 0% tar and carcinogens

Works Cited

American Association for Cancer Research. (2013). Waterpipe Smoking May Not be an Alternative to Cigarette Smoking. American Association for Cancer Research. American Lung Association. (2007). Tobacco Policy Trend Alert, An Emerging Deadly Trend: Waterpipe Tobacco Use. New Jersey: American Lung Association. Gaddam S, G. S. (2010). The effects of waterpipe tobacco smoking on health outcomes: a systematic review. International Journal of Epidemiology . Lowell Dale, M. (2012, July 20). Is Hookah Smoking Safer than Cigarettes? Retrieved from www.mayoclinic.org: http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/quit-smoking/expert-answers/hookah/faq-20057920 Qureshi, H. (2011, August 22). Smoking shisha: how bad is it for you? The Guardian , p. 1. WHO. (2005). Waterpipe Tobacco Smoking: Health Effects, Research Needs and Recommended Actions by Regulators . Geneva: WHO Press.

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