At one point in your academic career, you will have to write a research paper.
A research paper is quite literally a 10-15 essay on a specific topic. The point of a research paper is to really dissect the topic on hand.
In English courses, this is usually a must, so you can’t really escape it.
As daunting as it may sound, research papers don’t have to be that hard.
We have an easy step by step you can follow that will help you write a great research paper.
- Topic Selection
This is the first, but also one of the most important steps. When choosing a topic, you have to select something that is:
- Not too narrow, because you might run out of writing material if the topic is too specific.
- Not too broad, because then that defeats the purpose of a research paper.
Usually, the selection of topics depends on the class you are taking. Your professor will give you a broad category, which you can delve in to find your research paper topic of liking.
If this is the situation for you, then we will suggest doing thorough research on something that is actually of interest to you.
This is because you will be spending a good amount of time on this research paper – we are talking 3-4 months here at the very least.
So, it will be in your best interest to pick something that you enjoy writing about.
You can use Google scholar for this, but you will quickly run out of search options.
There is a gold mine of scholarly articles, accessible at your fingertips. This is the university catalog of databases.
Databases like EBSCO have a huge variety of scholarly articles from an extensive list of topics.
You can easily find some great sources that are super relevant to your topic.
Make the most out of it!
At this stage of the research paper, you will have the material and the sources you will be using to write.
But you need to organize this neatly so you can use them effectively.
That is where an outline comes in. An outline will basically be a rough version of your essay.
You will jot down material, briefly, for the introduction, body, and conclusion.
This way you will remember what to use, and what not to use in your essay. An outline will also tell you whether or not you need additional things for your main research paper.
You can also show the outline to your professor and ask for feedback. Since you actually haven’t begun the writing process, you can get some great points to include in your research paper.
Professors are great when it comes to getting help writing a paper.
After you are done doing the outline, you can consider 70% of the work done. The writing can be paced over a certain time period so you it doesn’t feel like a burden.
