No College Student Has Ever Fallen In Love with Research Paper Writing

A good research paper is every student’s goal. But other things can get in the way, and time runs out. Or a student has just never learned the shortcuts for how to do a good research paper, and every one of them is just a huge struggle, all for only a very average grade or worse. Let’s look at the steps of producing one and see where things can be streamlined a bit.

 

Getting the Topic Nailed Down

Good research papers begin with an appropriate topic- one that will meet the requirements of the instructor or professor for length and rigor. So where do you find such a topic? You look in obvious places – your textbook and your class notes. Here you may be able to find a topic that interests you, and that is important. Look at the large sub-headings in the chapters. Each of them could probably be expanded into a solid paper.

 

Getting a Thesis

You may not have a thesis right away. This may come after you have finished your research, so let it be if you cannot come up with one yet. Just remember that your thesis will have to be some overall thought of yours about the topic – it can be an opinion, a statement about why the topic is so important to study, and so forth.

 

Explore the Papers of Others

This is one of the steps that can really shorten the amount of work you have to do in the end. Get online and find research papers on the same topic. You are not looking to “lift” them and use them; you are looking to see how they are organized; and if they are very recently written, look at the resources that have been used. Reviewing these papers will give you two things:

• An organizational structure that you can use for your own paper – this will save you from having to sort through your notes and come up with your own sub-topics for your outline and writing.
• A list of resources that you can quickly locate. This saves you from pouring through lots of possible resources to find those that really relate to your topic.

This step of looking at what others have done with your topic can save you hours of time. One word of caution: if you try to just re-write a paper you find or, worse, just try to use it, you will be in a “world of trouble.” Don’t even think about it.

 

Do Your Research

The old note card system is still the best, because you can list the source and page number at the top, write your information and/or quote and then put that card in the pile of the right sub-topic.

 

Your Outline Should be Easy to Compose

Lots of students think they can just skip over this critical step in how to do a good research paper. You can’t. If you, you are going to leave out important detail and make errors in the sequence in which you are going to include that detail. Your outline does not have to be formal unless it has to be turned in, but it does have to give you a sequence for covering your sub-topics and the details within those sub-topics. Yours should be easy to create if you already have your sub-topics defined.

 

The Writing

If you struggle with good academic writing, then this can be a time-consuming part of your research paper production. Just get your rough draft written without worrying too much about grammar and other things yet. Once that is finished, you have to review, edit and polish. You have a couple of options here:

Read it out loud to yourself. You’ll catch a lot of your errors

Let someone else edit it for you – someone whose English writing skills you trust.

The best research paper will be one that has been reviewed 3-4 times before the final draft is considered good enough to turn in. And don’t forget the formatting – some instructors are really picky, so make sure the style is right.

 

When You are Just Up Against a Wall

If you just don’t have the time; if the topic is of no interest; if you just don’t write well, you have another option. You can look for an online writing service and just say, “Do my research paper.” Any one of them will take your money and give you something. And if you are thinking, “I’ll just find some service to write my research paper cheap,” think again. Use a top essay writing services reviews website and locate a company that is reputable – you may spend just a bit more, but you will also get a great paper.