The academic career of students is a period of immense importance. During these years they build their mind, character, skills, IQ level, writing skills, mental level, and creativity. They learn how to learn, how to write, how to observe, how to gather knowledge, how to discover and improve skills, how to think critically, how to be creative while meeting deadlines. All these ‘how-tos’ are answered during the academic time of students. Writing summaries, learning exercises, performing experiments, and writing papers are the actual stepping blocks, which enable ordinary students towards pursuing a successful professional career after completion of their education. Here in this piece of writing, we are going to add in the learning objectives of students, especially those who are nearing their college tenure.

 

What is a Research Paper?

A research paper is an enlarged state of an essay presenting student’s thoughts or views. it involves interpretation, evaluation, and/or argumentation of presented thoughts. A student of any subject may explore his or her respective areas of information randomly available in shapes of books, newspapers, magazines, articles, interviews, and web resources. All these efforts are designed and focus to establish a student’s personal viewpoint on the subject. So, preparation is a comprehensive process of collection of information, brainstorming, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, documentation, and argumentation of the subject content. The process ultimately leads to the production of a well-thought-out position on a chosen topic.

 

Research Paper Format/ How to Write a Research Paper?

Identifying the format of a research paper or discovering the art of writing it, are two similar things. It is constituted by three basic and simple elements:

1. The Introduction
2. The body
3. The conclusion

A research paper format basically consists of three outlines, which covers three chief areas of the paper. All the subheadings or subtopics come under these three outlines, given above. Adequate practice and study of these areas and sections may help the student to answer the question How to write a research paper ppt.

 

How to Write an Introduction in a Research Paper?

The introduction is one of the basic portions of a great research paper. It should be given due significance in its development. The content of this very section should be comprehensive, covering, in the briefest manner, every major portion of the paper. An element of interest is an endemic part of the introduction. This is essentially important to grab the attention of a reader. It should be decorated by inserting the thesis statement to hook the audience. The order of the arguments should reflect the design of the whole research paper. Every word, constituting it, should be the right one, placed in the right order, and organized in the right way to convey the central idea of the work.

 

How to Format a Research Paper?

Major elements to be considered for formatting a research paper are:

Paper

The best specifications for a paper in a research paper are:

Clean, Qualitative, Size (8 1/2×11″), White in color, and one side only.

Margin

Every page is given 1″ of margin in all four sides.

Title Page

Essentially a title page is not considered a part of a research paper unless it is not required in assignment.

 

Numbering the page

Numbering should be consecutive which starts from the very beginning of the research paper. Its position should be in the upper right-hand corner, placed against the right margin. Distance from the top of the page is 1/5″. Numbering must be in Arabic numerals. Any underlining, decoration, or design should be avoided.

 

Paragraphs

For the soft copy of the research paper, number all the paragraphs consecutively by adding [1] at the start of the 1st paragraph, [2] for the 2nd, and [3] for the 3rd, and so forth.

 

Table of Content:

Essentially table of content is not considered the part of a short 6 dollar essay or research paper, unless not required in the assignment.

 

Step-by-Step Process of Writing a Research Paper

 

Step One: Understanding the Assignment

 

It is always advisable to understand before you embark on any project, journey, business, deal, or writing project. It involves several pros and cons of the subject underhand. For a research report, understanding it means thoroughly analyzing and evaluating the instruction and guidelines provided by the teacher, mentor, professors, or by any other authority. The concept is self-explanatory and easy to comprehend. If the students are following the instructions and guidelines provided, they would not detract while working on the project. Otherwise low grades will come as corollary results. Many students are noticed skipping this very step and end up securing low or average marks or grades. So, always write the research paper according to the instructions and guidelines provided by the authority. This is the safest way to complete a paper with maximum quality and standards.

 

Step Two: Selecting a Research Paper Topic

The process starts with understanding the research paper and enters into the next level the selection of the research paper topic. It is also an important stage which should be given due significance. Normally students always show an inclination for going for the topic they like and try to avoid the one they dislike. Research shows that it is not necessarily important to go for an ideal topic in order to write an effective research paper or research report. Choosing an unwanted or controversial topic may also help the students in securing good grades. Besides, their exposure will increase to an area they wanted to escape. This will enhance their mental strength, level of creativity, and writing skills, at the same time boosting their confidence in ensuring a job done under uncomfortable circumstances.

 

Step Three: Doing Research

Research is perhaps, the base of the whole research paper writing and writing a research report. It is the endemic part of any academic or professional assignment. Knowledge about the past, present, and future prospects of given topic is relentlessly important for preparing an effective and qualitative research paper. Not only for a research paper but also for any assignment assigned by teachers, mentors, managers, executives, and management.

Basically, there exist two main categories of research:

 

• Primary Research:

It is the type of research in which the researcher collects information by means of his or her personal contacts, communications, and exposure to the target public. Here, in this category, the personal experience of the researcher is increased and he or she collects first-hand information. Meeting the people, observing behavior, and conducting interviews are the tools of this research.

 

• Secondary Research:

As opposed to the primary research, secondary research information is collected by means of data and sources available. It involves spending hours in reading relevant books, magazines, publications, and newspapers, sitting before computers and doing online research, and analyzing similar work done by other students for benchmarking and research help.

 

Step Four: Organize Your Research

After doing all the necessary research, students are required to organize it. In involves preparing the bibliography of books and bookmarks of digital bibliography. Book bibliography involves books, articles, magazines, and other written sources of information a student may have used for research purpose. It is all about organizing your research. Instructions given in the assignment may also help to organize it in a certain way.

 

Step Four: Thesis Formulation

At this stage when students have reached a half-way round their research paper writing process, it is time to establish an opinion, argument, assertion, or declaration. This statement is known as ‘thesis statement’ which may be defined as “a short statement the researcher/author puts forward for its reader about the subject matter”. Students, in their research paper writing, are free to give their thesis statement the direction they perceive fit. They are free to go in support or against a specific idea or they may follow a neutral tone. It is all about the establishment of a statement.

One basic question which a thesis statement should answer is “What is the paper about”

The following example helps understand thesis statement:

Q: What is the paper about?

A: The paper explains the relationship between Moon-Soonal airs and the resulting rainfall in South Asia.

The answer above is the start of the thesis statement.

Let’s have an example thesis statement:

“The Moon Soon airs starts blowing from the shores of Australia and travels the thousands of miles across the Indian Ocean. On crossing the equator they turn North-East and enter into South Asia. All their way round from Australia to South Asia, these airs collects sufficient moisture which kicks start the rainy seasons in the region”.

 

For an effective thesis statement always avoid using words like “my research paper” or “my paper is about”. Try to make the statement definite, clear, and comprehensive relative to the research paper. Present it more strongly by avoiding vagueness in its words and phrases. Every word should be the right word, put in the right order, and organized in the right way. Always keep it open to arguments, at the same time avoiding the element of controversy in its points and concepts.

 

Step Six: Develop an Outlines

For writing a research paper students are not necessarily required to write or include outlines. Papers without it are also acceptable. However, if the assignment demands an outline, it must be designed in such a way as mentioned in the instructions. Here again comes the significance of the very first step of the report paper writing, “Understanding the Assignment”.  Outlines should also include examples given in the paper. All major areas of the research paper should be given their best position in the outlines. It is also the way students structure or format their paper.

 

Step Seven: Write

This is the seventh step of research paper writing. Many students think of following this step at an earlier stage. However, there is not any short cut if an effective and qualitative research paper is the target. All the earlier steps help induce clarity, strength, interest, and definiteness of ideas. Going for writing after following all those steps will enable the students to write the right things right, timely, and effectively.

And everyone wants to write with perfection. However, even the writing experts do not consider themselves perfectionists. So, students do not need to think this way at this writing stage. Only the following steps will help them to provide their best and deliver their highest writing skills.

 

Important Tips for Writing

• Believe in yourself
• Effectively use your memory
• Use genuinely personal ideas and do not steal.
• Avoid copy-paste culture
• Save yourself from plagiarism
• Give recognition to other’s work
• Give citation, where necessary

 

Step Eight: Edit for Content

Always believe in yourself and accept whatever you have written. Now, it is time to make it as effective and acceptable as you can by editing. It involves the structure of the overall paper, organization of words, length of the research paper, paragraphs, and sentences. Make sure that the content is according to the content given in the outline. Do not hesitate in initiating any change in making the contents so. Actually this step gives the students another chance to make their research paper more and more errorless, quality oriented, interesting, grabbing, and according to the instruction given in the assignment.

It is always advisable for better edit that students should start edit with a fresh eye. It means that there should be a considerable gap between the time the research paper is written and that of its edit.

After structural edit grammar edit is a must. For the effective check and correction of grammatical mistakes and errors, students are always advised to use online tools like Grammarly.

 

Step 10: Re-read a Submit the Research Paper

Reread your research paper multiple times. This technique will help students identify structural complexities and feel the minute errors in sentence structure, in the flow of ideas in paragraphs, and in the overall organization of the paper. After re-reading the contents multiple times, it is now time to submit the research paper.