How to write a Research Paper
IntroductionWriting skills are essential for succeeding in high school,
college, and at a job. Writing is not just an end result, but also a
process that helps us develop our ideas and think logically. Begin
by brainstorming topics, collecting information, taking a lot of notes,
and asking a lot of questions. Keep your notes and sources organized as
you go.
When developing a topic,one should look for patterns and
relationships, try to draw conclusions, try discussing one's ideas with
classmates, teachers and parents. A new os diffrent perspective can
help shake up ones thinking.
How to get Started
The first step towards writing a quality research paper is to
organize what is to be written. It is always nice to develop an outline
to help to stay on track as we write, identifying the main points and
what is to be the conclusion. The introduction should give your reader
an idea of the essay's intent, including a basic statement of what the
essay will discuss. One should always keep the basic outline of a
simple easy first and follow it , further changes can be made as
required but the basic layout is followed always. The following are the
parts of the basic layout of an essay or a research paper:
-The Introduction
-The Body
-The Conclusion
The introduction should give the reader an idea of the essay's or papers intent, including a basic statement of what the essay will discuss.
The body
presents the evidence that supports the writers idea. Here concrete
examples should be used and generalities should be avoided as much as
possible.
The conclusion should summarize and make sense of the evidence presented by the writer in the body (The Keys to Effective Writing, 2005).
These are the steps to be followed before writing any kind of
paper or essay. After these basic guidelines are followed ammendments
can be made according to the nature of the research paper and according
to the different writing styles.
Writing College research papers
College courses
demand many different kinds of writing that employ a variety of
strategies for different audiences. During college, it may be required
to write long essays or short answers in response to examination
questions or one may be asked to keep a journal, write a lab report,
and document the process one uses to perform research. College writing
or writing college research papers, also called academic writing, is
assigned to teach the critical thinking and writing skills needed to
communicate in classes and in the workplace. The quality of one's
writing depends on the quality of the thinking one does about his topic
or his assignment.
The whole writing process is divided into three steps namely prewriting, writing, and rewriting or revising phases.
-Prewriting: In the
prewriting phase one ponders over the questions like what he has to
write about, what are his feelings about the topic to be written, how
is the topic to be approached, how to organize the materials and the
audience who will be reading the paper.
-Writing: In this phase the plan is implemented by working out the details and fine-tuning thoughts.
-Rewriting: In the
phase of rewriting or revising, the material or paper written is
reviewed and techniques to for improving it are applied.
During
these steps, there are some phases, which also take place before the
final draft of the research paper is ready. The first phase would be
understanding the assignment or research topic, which has been
explained as prewriting earlier. Understanding the assignment or the
research topic includes thinking over the fact that what kind of
research topic it is and what is the main purpose of the research
topic. Then in this context comes the issue of using systematic
techniques such as the use of classic strategies, these strategies are
ways to develop or organize a research paper, these include definition,
division and classification, comparison and contrast, cause and effect,
and process analysis.
Another
important factor is looking at the topic from a multiple perspective,
when a topic is viewed from multiple points of view; relationships
which have not occurred before are visible. This approach invites the
writer to look at the topic as an entity, as a process or a part of a
process, and as a system or part of a system (The Writing Process,
2005).
Doing exploratory research is included here with the prewriting
techniques because library research often is a way to generate ideas.
As we review the literature on a subject or read in a particular area,
we may note ideas that will help us get started with the writing.
Analysis, the
basis of many other strategies, is the process of breaking something
into its parts and putting the parts back together so that one can
better understand the whole. When we focus on understanding something
better by comparing and contrasting it to something else, we identify
and analyze the similarities and differences. Synthesizing information,
all the opinions and research in support of the thesis or research
paper are incorporated together. The relevant facts, statistics, expert
opinion, and whatever can directly be observed with your own opinion
and conclusions to persuade the audience that the thesis is correct is
integrated. Synthesis is used in supporting the thesis and assembling
the paper. In applying the strategy of evaluation after synthesis,
first, the criteria to be used to evaluate the subject will be
established and then applied to the specific parts of the subject that
is being judged, and conclusions would be drawn that whether it meets
the criteria.
The final draft is what we hand in as the completed paper. Before
turning in the final draft, we should read what we have written all the
way through at least once more. a black pen on the final paper. Choppy
sentences, poor or
nonexistent transitions between paragraphs, grammar and spelling
errors, and other characteristics of a first draft should all
disappear(The Writing Process, 2005).
Bibliography
The Keys to Effective Writing, 2005. Retrieved on October 5th
2005 from: http://www.collegeboard.com/article/0,3868,2-8-0-122,00.html
The Writing Process, 2005. Retrieved on October 5th 2005 from: http://www.umuc.edu/prog/ugp/ewp_writingcenter/writinggde/chapter2/chapter2-20.shtml
Evaluating Internet Research Sources. Retrieved on October 5th 2005 from: http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm.
About the Author
Alex works as a staff writer for
TermPapersCorner,Inc.
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