Writing a good research paper seems like a difficult task, especially for first-time students.
To write a good and clear research paper, enough knowledge of the subject and in-depth research of the topic is necessary.
Writing a research paper can be challengeable. There are some steps to help you to write a good research paper. You can write a good research paper by practicing and following these steps.
Here’s how to write a good research paper.
Understand the assignment
To write a good research paper, you need to know exactly what your teacher wants you to do before you start writing, and you need to understand exactly what you need to write about.
Spend a lot of time preparing it. Pay attention to everything the task sheet gives you. Pay attention to writing instructions, purpose, deadline, formatting, submission method, etc. Take the time to figure out exactly what you are being asked to do.
Choose a research paper topic
Once you understand what you have been asked to do, it’s time to decide what you want to write about. Choose a topic that interests you, controversial topics can be ideal.
There are many ways to choose the topic of a research paper, such as brainstorming, talking to students or professors and teachers, and being inspired by other research papers.
Conduct preliminary research
This is one of the most important steps, this step is very flexible. In fact, people do research in different ways. However, it is important to focus on the subject of your research paper and do research based on it.
Some key points to keep in mind when researching are:
- Review or skimming
First review the writings quickly and concisely. Identify important and arguments and key points without reading all of the words and engaging your mind with them.
- Finding credible sources
Next, find credible sources. You can use journals, books and reputable sites like Wikipedia to write your paper.
- Considering information
Finally, do not underestimate the power of information. You can find a content that includes everything you want about your subject.
Organize your researches
At this point everything is about organizing. Make a list of your sources and researches and organize them according to the importance and priority of using them in the paper. Prioritize your resources and researches so that you can easily access them if needed.
Create a theory
At this stage, you should express your opinions, reasons or statements in accordance with your paper. Even if you agree or disagree with the content. In fact, theory is an opinion or a summary of what you (as a writer) present of the whole research paper that you try to explain or prove to the readers.
create an outline
How to create an outline depends on your research paper. Creating an outline can help you write a good research paper. In fact, the purpose of creating an outline is to structure your content.
Creating an outline is for drawing, classifying, and organizing thoughts, ideas and information. This will help you to create a set of information based on importance and relevance. The points are arranged in categories and then sub-categories, and from the summary to the main point. In general, by using an outline, you will be able to reconstruct the structure of information in texts.
Start writing and make a draft
Now it’s time to write. You may feel that you should have started writing earlier, but rest assured that what ever you have done so far has been important and will help you to produce a good, clear and plausible research paper.
While writing, do not worry about finding the right words, grammar, misspellings, and sentence structure. Because you can complete your content while editing. For now, you should write.
Proofreading and editing
After spending a lot of time and completing your paper in terms of content, do not forget that there is still a very important stage that is proofreading and editing.
Proofreading and editing is one of the final steps in completing a good research paper that is of particular importance. Also keep in mind that this step involves editing the content of paper and rereading the whole of paper, which are two separate parts that you should do both so that there are no flaws in your paper. At this point it is time to correct and rewrite the sentence structure, misspellings, grammar and anything else you have written incorrectly.
Read it again and then submit it
Briefly and quickly review the research paper from beginning to end. If you’ve only read your paper on a computer screen, print out it and read it on paper this time.
This will help you to notice mistakes with the formatting of your research paper that your eyes do not see them when reading on the computer. After you have read your entire research paper for the last time and reviewed it again and made sure that the paper has no problem you can submit it.
Conclusion
In general, there are some of the important rules which you must follow them to write a good research paper. By following all of them be sure you able to write a good paper easily accepted by the journals and publications. Keep in mind that even the slightest mistake can lead to the cancellation of your scientific paper. Therefore, do your best and check your paper over and over again and then submit.
Also read:
5 Skills Required for Writing a Scientific Paper