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Why Expand Your HIR Submission?
A Harvard International Review (HIR) Academic Writing Contest submission is designed to communicate a compelling idea within a limited word count. While this format encourages concise, persuasive writing, it also leaves room for deeper exploration.
By expanding your HIR submission into a longer research project, you can move beyond introducing an issue to conducting a more comprehensive analysis. A longer paper gives you the space to:
- Explore your research question in greater depth
- Examine multiple perspectives and competing viewpoints
- Incorporate additional scholarly sources and evidence
- Develop more nuanced and original arguments
- Demonstrate sustained intellectual curiosity and independent thinking
Perhaps most importantly, you don’t have to start from scratch. Your HIR submission has already laid the groundwork for you by identifying a meaningful research question, organizing your initial ideas, and conducting preliminary research. Building on that foundation lets you refine your work into a more substantial academic project while continuing to develop the research and writing skills that matter in high school, college, and beyond.
Aralia Students Are 4x More Likely to Publish a Research Paper
What a Longer Research Project Actually Means
Expanding your HIR submission can go in several directions. Before you revise your paper, you must identify your goal because each type of research project requires a different approach, level of analysis, and outcome.
An Independent Research Paper for a Competition
If your HIR topic involves an empirical question, such as the effects of trade policies, patterns in migration, or public health outcomes, you may be able to develop it into an independent research project for a science or social science competition. These projects typically require you to go beyond summarizing existing information by analyzing original data, developing a research methodology, or testing a specific hypothesis.
A Submission to a Student Research Journal
For students interested in academic publication, expanding an HIR paper into a research journal article can be a natural next step. Student journals often require a more formal academic structure, including a literature review, a methodology section, an analysis, and a conclusion.
This pathway is especially suitable for policy, history, economics, and humanities-focused HIR topics, where strong research, critical analysis, and original arguments often matter more than laboratory experiments or data collection.
A Mentored Research Project
Some students use their HIR submission as a starting point for deeper research with a teacher, professor, or research mentor. Instead of introducing a new topic, students can approach a mentor with an existing foundation: a research question, preliminary findings, and a clear interest in exploring the topic further.
A mentored project may lead to an independent study, a summer research experience, a conference presentation, or a co-authored publication.
A Stronger College Application Portfolio Piece
Not every expanded research project needs to become a competition submission or publication. A deeper exploration of your HIR topic can also be a meaningful part of your academic profile.
For example, your research may become the foundation for a college application essay, an academic portfolio piece, or a topic you discuss during interviews. The goal is to demonstrate sustained intellectual curiosity and your ability to engage deeply with a subject over time.
Steps to Expand Your HIR Submission Into a Research Project
Step 1: Turn Your Broad HIR Topic into a Researchable Question
First, turn your broad HIR topic into a focused, researchable question. For example, instead of asking, “How does AI affect education?” you might want to ask, “How does AI influence educational equity in developing countries?” or “What policies have successfully integrated AI into K–12 classrooms?” You could also explore a more policy-oriented question, such as, “How should governments regulate AI-powered learning tools?”
The goal is to move from a broad discussion to a question you can investigate with evidence. A strong research question should be specific, debatable, and explorable.
It may seem counterintuitive, but the best way to expand your research is often to narrow your topic first. Rather than trying to cover everything related to a subject, identify one specific issue, population, time period, or geographic region to investigate in depth.
For example, “the environmental impact of fast fashion” is too broad to sustain a detailed research project. A question such as “How have EU textile waste regulations affected sourcing decisions at three mid-size apparel brands between 2019 and 2024?” provides a much clearer direction for research.
Step 2: Expand Your Literature Review
HIR competition essays may rely on a relatively small number of credible sources to support an argument. A full research project requires a much deeper engagement with existing scholarship. Students should look beyond general news articles and explore academic journal articles, government reports, think tank publications, international organization reports, and historical research.
Useful research databases and organizations include Google Scholar, JSTOR, SSRN, the World Bank, the OECD, and United Nations publications. These sources can help students understand what researchers already know about their topic and how scholars have debated the issue.
However, the goal of a literature review is not to simply collect as many sources as possible. Students should look for patterns, disagreements, limitations, and gaps in existing research. Identifying what previous researchers have not fully answered can help students develop a more meaningful research question and determine how their own project can contribute.
Step 3: Strengthen Your Evidence
One of the biggest differences between a competition essay and a research paper is the use of original or primary evidence. Whenever possible, students should look beyond secondhand analysis and incorporate government datasets, original surveys, interviews with people who work in the field, historical documents, or other primary sources.
Students should also strengthen their arguments with statistics, policy reports, historical case studies, economic data, peer-reviewed research, and comparisons between countries or regions. For example, an HIR essay might argue that AI improves access to education. An expanded research project could compare AI adoption in Singapore, Finland, and India using OECD and UNESCO data.
This shift from making a claim to systematically investigating that claim helps transform the project from an opinion-based essay into evidence-based research.
Build Research Skills That Set You Apart
Step 4: Develop a Clear Methodology
Many high school research projects stop at summarizing information from existing sources. A stronger research paper explains exactly how the research was conducted and why the chosen approach is appropriate for answering the research question.
Depending on the topic, students might use comparative policy analysis, historical analysis, case study research, content analysis, data interpretation, or a systematic literature review. Even projects based primarily on qualitative sources should explain how sources were selected, compared, and analyzed.
A clear methodology makes the research more transparent and allows readers to understand how the student arrived at their conclusions.
Step 5: Address Counterarguments
A strong research paper should acknowledge perspectives that challenge its central argument. Instead of presenting only evidence that supports their position, students should consider competing explanations and potential limitations.
For example, a project arguing that AI improves educational access could also examine algorithmic bias, unequal access to technology, student privacy, potential teacher displacement, and broader ethical concerns. Addressing these counterarguments demonstrates that the researcher understands the complexity of the issue rather than simply trying to prove a predetermined point.
Engaging seriously with opposing perspectives can also make the conclusions more nuanced and persuasive.
Step 6: Add Original Insights
The strongest research projects do more than summarize what other people have already discovered. After reviewing the existing literature and analyzing their evidence, students should ask what new conclusions they can draw from the research.
Consider questions such as: What connections have previous researchers overlooked? What patterns emerge when different cases are compared? What policy recommendations follow from the evidence? Which future developments deserve further investigation? How does your analysis add to the existing conversation?
Originality does not necessarily mean discovering something that no researcher has ever considered. For high school researchers, it can mean developing a thoughtful new interpretation, connecting existing evidence in a new way, conducting an original comparison, or proposing a well-supported recommendation.
Step 7: Revise Your Structure
An HIR competition essay often follows a relatively straightforward structure: an introduction, a central argument, supporting evidence, and a conclusion. A research paper usually requires a more detailed structure that separates the research process from the analysis and discussion.
Depending on the requirements of the target journal or competition, a research paper may include an abstract, introduction, literature review, methodology, analysis or results, discussion, conclusion, and references.
Each section serves a different purpose: The introduction establishes the research problem and question. The literature review explains what previous researchers have found. The methodology describes the research approach. The analysis and discussion explain what the evidence means. This structure allows students to explore their topic with significantly greater depth and organization.
Step 8: Seek Feedback from Experts
Independent research can improve significantly with feedback from an experienced teacher, researcher, or academic mentor. An outside perspective can help students refine their research questions, identify gaps in their evidence, strengthen their arguments, improve their academic writing, and determine whether or not their methodology is appropriate.
Feedback is especially valuable before submitting a paper for publication or competitions. Receiving constructive criticism early in the research process can prevent students from spending significant time developing an argument that ultimately needs to be restructured.
Research Opportunities with Aralia Research Program
The Aralia Forefront Research Program gives high school students the opportunity to explore their academic interests through structured, in-depth research. Designed for students across disciplines, the program helps students move beyond classroom learning to investigate meaningful questions and develop research projects in areas they are genuinely passionate about.
For students who have already completed an HIR paper or want to build on an HIR-related topic, the Aralia HIR Research Program provides a more focused pathway to take their work further. With individualized guidance, students can expand their initial ideas, deepen their research and analysis, strengthen their methodology and academic writing, and develop their HIR work into a more substantial independent research project.
