6 Tips For Writing A Winning Research Paper

Ask any student and you’ll learn that writing a research paper is one of the most dreaded tasks. Research papers can require intensive research, especially as you move on to the upper-level courses. You may need to review different sources of information in order to come up with a good research paper. We’ll share with you a few tips to make it easier for you to write a good research paper.

Pin-Point The Action Words

Action-words are simply words that will help you to quickly understand what is required of you. Good examples of action words in a research question include “analyze”, “evaluate”, “argue”,” compare”,” describe”,” classify”. If you notice that your paper doesn’t contain any of these action-words it is a possibility that your instructor wants you to argue out the topic. In case you are not very clear as to what is required of you, ask your instructor before you proceed.

Gather Your Thoughts And Ideas

As soon as you understand the topic and what your instructor requires, the next thing would be to organize your thoughts after doing a bit of research. Write down all the ideas you’ve had and organize them well. Make sure the outline of ideas you’ve come up with are relevant to the topic at hand.

List Possible Sources

The key to writing a winning research paper is to provide information from very credible and reliable sources. Make sure you cite all the sources effectively. You must stick to the same format.

Create A Rough Draft

Using all the ideas that you gathered as well as the thesis statement and all possible sources, you can begin writing the initial draft. This draft will provide a sort of guideline that lets you know what to add and what to omit in your final copy. Go through this rough draft a number of times looking for areas where you can provide more detailed information.

Write The Final Draft And Proofread

At this point, you’ll need to include all the ideas you’ve had in your research paper. Make sure you include all the credible citations in this final draft. It is important to ensure that the reader can quickly connect what you are talking about to the reference list at the end of the paper. Most importantly, always proofread your work. You must go through the content and check for spelling, grammar mistakes and punctuation errors. Even better, ask someone to read it on your behalf and pinpoint areas of improvement/correction.

Take It Easy

Procrastination is the worst thing you can do if you have a task to write a research paper. Set aside a few hours each day to work on the paper if you don’t want to rush last minute. Start with creating an outline for your paper. It will act as a guide and help the rest of the information to flow smoothly. Remember that a guide will really help you to remain on track and make sure you deliver a high-quality research paper.