Employ the "So what?" test. Visit this web page from UNC especially. The introduction confirms what we already know about college writing: it often takes the form of argument or persuasion.
After working with students for years, I have learned that their research is often aimless. To give your research direction and purpose, develop a research question. To do this, you have to read the literature and develop what I call working knowledge. As you read and write, the research question appears. I find that this often occurs after a couple of drafts of my paper have already been written.
One way to familiarize yourself with research questions is to try to identify the research questions in scholarly journal articles that you find and read on your topic. In social sciences the research question is explicit; in the humanities you may have more of a challenge. But rest assured that it is there: without a research question the article would not have been published.
See this tutorial for a quick example of how do develop a research question.
One of my favorite popular yet scholarly historians who consciously discusses her methods in her work is Jill Lepore. If you are interested in American history, you might check her out. She is also a staff writer for New Yorker, so you can read her essays there.
