Writing a Research Paper: Where to Start and How to Deal With It
Every student sooner or later finds out that the research paper is an unavoidable part of their studying and it should be written perfectly if they want a good grade. It’s writing for the science fair project that you must get done just perfectly well. Fortunately, you have our service as a helping hand, and we are going to teach you how your research paper should be done right.
What Is a Research Paper?
First of all, let’s learn what a real research article is. This is a paper that summarizes all the answers to the questions of your research in a report form and way. All these research questions and answers on them should be gathered in your background research plan. What is a background research plan? It is a type of a review that you must write about all the relevant publications on the topic of your investigation. What are these publications? It can be a various sort of relevant sources such as books, websites, magazines, etc.
It was a short answer to a question what research paper writing is all about. Let’s have a more deep answer now. This type of paper is a summary of the main theory behind the experiment you are providing for the topic. You are writing it to show to the teachers that you understand completely what the subject is all about and why the experiment you are doing turn in that exact way. The research should be done in the library and on the Internet. Due to that, there should be a clear prediction of what your experiment will occur and what would be the consequences. Your grade depends on your prediction totally.
Besides the consequences, the author also should review the tools and techniques he or she was using during the research and experiment. Any investigation can’t be provided without proper equipment, and you must write about it. There are methods that were used for a great number of times and that make them more reliable and applicable than others. You can easily use a technique that was used for some other experiment before, but you should obtain it in your own way to make a success and sense. You should not describe a process. There is no need in reinventing the wheel, right?
Special Info for Your Research Paper Writing
There are lots of experiments connected with Mathematics. It means you should use your Math knowledge to deal with the experiment as you write your research paper. The entire Math info in your paper should be relevant to have success. If there is any explanation of your project provided by Math, include this fact in your paper.
The Writing Process
First of all, you should have enough time to work. For some average length paper of 10 or 20 pages, you should plan a month to do it right. Sometimes a week is not enough to do all the research and writing job. You should organize your researching and writing time. Try to get a schedule that will help you to deal with your time. Point your main tasks and time periods you need to do them.
You should have a solid thesis statement before you going to start your research work. The thesis is the question you are going to answer in your paper. Your thesis should be simple and clear. Also, avoid of too general thesis. Just write is specific and narrow. You don’t need any massive idea to make everything too complicated. Before you start writing, try to learn about all the libraries you can use including systems and materials.
Taking notes
This point is very important for a successful research and its further writing process. This is a common routine while reading bibliographies or any other sources. Consider making some index or note cards. This tip is highly recommended by teachers all over the globe. It can be small pieces of paper of different color. Each card should contain such data as authors' names, date, and page number on each of those cards. Consider writing the source name on the top side and quoting it underneath.
Lots of students prefer to write notes directly into a word processor. No matter what way you will get this point done, but remember that notes will help you to make your reference list and identify the citations correctly. And do not be too easy with statistics information. You should be focused while writing all the statistics indexes. While writing your quotations try to make them take just about 10-15% of the whole research paper.
Outline
Outline writing is a must for any type of essay. This point should be made correctly as it will help you to deal with your research paper. The outline is some sort of a map that helps you not to lose your path while juggling with various facts and big volumes of information. You can write it in your own way. Just make everything to be comfortable to you.
How to Organize Your Research Paper
Planning is the perfect trick that will help you to do your research right and speed the entire work a little bit up. As we said before you should have an outline. Before writing it, think of the order your paper should be writing in. Think about the order your main arguments should be put in. Mostly, students begin with the questions they have for their research. This will make your reader clear about the purpose of your paper in general. Next, come up with the info that is crucial for your reader to know to have an opportunity to get along with your article. Speaking simpler, tell them what they need to know to understand what you are writing about. Here is the typical order for a research paper:
- Your topic or list of research project questions
- Description of the experiment and definitions of important words and terms
- Some mentions of similar experiments
- Answers to the research questions
Drafting
Here is the place for your thesis expansion. Do all the definitions for your main points to make them perfect and clear. Avoid any personal opinions and words like that. This is the research article, and there is no place for your own opinion and suggestions, just bold facts. You must be critical and concrete. Your conclusion is your final statement. This is your synopsis of the paper and a short summary of your research. After the writing part, there goes editing and revision.
While doing your editing, check all the mistakes and make sure that your paper is convincing, and every point of it is clear. Each question you have for your research should be covered in your article. Consider writing your first draft as soon as possible. Don’t forget to follow your outline. Check all the facts you have posted in your draft. Consider the final draft as an ideal and effective paper. Check the grammar, structure, punctuation, and spelling. After you’ve finished the last stage, take a break. After that, read your research paper once again to see it with a fresh eye.
Referencing the Sources
There is always a place for references in an academic article. Authors always need to use already existing words, pictures, diagrams, or even ideas. It is allowed to use these points, but you should include their source. It is called referencing. If you have a quotation of a word, phrase or a sentence, you should put it in quotation marks. This is an accepted way to use the ideas of other people, but the format for this information is strict so you should be very serious about it.
Credit is a must
It is a common deal for authors to be serious about something they were working on hard and for a long time. It means no one wants his paper to be copied by someone else. We are living in a time when everything can be plagiarized easily and fast. Words, pictures, diagrams, or ideas often become objects of plagiarism.
So, as you do not want someone to copy your own work, you should respect the work of other authors. It means that you must give credit to other people if you use their work. If the copy of a sentence is exact and unchanged, use quotation marks around the text. You also will be surprised to know that plagiarism can be easily identified by a teacher or someone who knows you well even without any special tools like plagiarism checking software, for example. So do not break the rules if you do not want to have troubles and get red because of that.
Also, there is another way for you to deal with your research paper writing. If you want your article to get success without any plagiarism and mistakes, our company will easily help you with that.