Research Paper Basics

A research paper is an investigative report, of sorts. It is a question that is answered through exploration of a problem or an original idea that sheds new light on a known topic. When a student writes a research paper, he or she collects information about a specific issue or topic, analyzes the information, and presents all the collected information in a report.

Why Do Students Dread Research Papers?

Research papers take time. A research paper is not merely a writing assignment; it is an action assignment. There are many steps to writing a research paper, and the actions involved are:

• Going to the library
• Exploring a topic
• Narrowing your topic
• Collecting your research
• Developing a thesis
• Writing a paper
• Editing the paper
• Proofreading the paper
• Writing a bibliography or reference list
• Formatting the paper

What Is a Thesis?

The thesis is a central message that is summed up in a sentence. This thesis tells the purpose of the paper - whether it is answering a question or making a new point. The thesis statement usually goes at the end of the introductory paragraph.

What Does a Thesis Statement Look Like?

A thesis in a history paper might look like this:

In Colonial Georgia, it was not poverty that caused citizens to abandon young settlements and flee to Charleston, but the insecurity that citizens felt from living so close to Spanish Florida.

This is a bold statement that requires some proof. The student would need to provide quotes from early Georgia and other evidence to argue this thesis.

What Does a Research Paper Look Like?

The research paper might look like one long essay or it could look different - it could be divided into sections; this all depends on the type of study being conducted. A research paper in science will look different from a research paper in literature.

Papers that are written for a science class will often involve reporting on an experiment a student has conducted or a problem the student has solved. For this reason, the paper might contain sections that are divided by headings and subheadings, like Abstract, Method, Materials, and more.

In contrast, a literature paper is more likely to address a theory about a certain author's point of view, or describe a comparison of two pieces of literature. This type of paper would more likely take the form of one long essay and contain a list of references on the last page.

Your instructor will let you know which style of writing you should use.

What Is a Style of Writing?

There are very specific rules for writing and formatting papers, according to the style. One common style is the Modern Language Association (MLA) Style, which is used for literature and some social sciences.

Another is American Psychological Association (APA) Style, and that style is used in the social and behavioral sciences.

Turabian Style is used for writing history papers, although high school teachers my require MLA for history assignments.

Students may not encounter Turabian or APA style requirements until college.

The Scientific Journal Style is often used for assignments in the natural sciences.

You will find details about writing and formatting your paper in a "style guide." The guide will give details like:

• How to format your title page (if you need a title page)
• Where to place the page numbers
• How to cite your sources
• How and when to use appendices
• How and when to use images
• How to format the list of sources

What Does It Mean to "Cite Sources?"

When you conduct research, you find evidence in books, articles, web sites, and other sources, that you will use to support your thesis. Any time you use a bit of information that you've collected, you must make a visible indication of this in your paper. You will do this with an in-text citation or a footnote. The way that you cite your source will depend on the style of writing you're using, but the citation will contain some combination of the author's name, the title of the source, and a page number.

Do I Always Need a Bibliography?

On the last page of your paper you will provide a list of all the sources you used in putting together your paper. This list can go by many names: it may be called a bibliography, a reference list, a works consulted list, or a works cited list. Your instructor will tell you which style of writing you are to use for your research paper. You will find all the details you need in your style guide for putting all the right pieces in place.

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Finding Research Sources

You’ve selected a great topic and you’ve found two fabulous sources. Research is going well, and then suddenly you hit a brick wall. You discover that the resources you’ve found seem to be the only ones available on your topic.

But your teacher requires five sources! What now?

Every researcher has faced this problem: the moment when the research suddenly runs dry. This is a serious problem if you are required to use a certain number of sources for a paper. Sometimes it just doesn’t seem possible!

Finding Additional Resources

The first thing to do when your research seems to dry up is to check the bibliographies of the books you already have. Sometimes bibliographies are like gold mines of information.

You will probably discover that some of the sources used in the books are scholarly articles. Don’t be dismayed! Many articles are available online, and you may be able to find a specific article by doing a detailed Internet search.

Simply type the entire title of the article into a search engine and put quotations marks around the title. The search will either lead you to that article or it will direct you to another source (article) that quotes your original article. The other source might be just as helpful.

If you find a great article in a bibliography and it’s not available online, you can still get it with a little effort. Just go to a public library and show it to your librarian. If it’s not available on site, the librarian will probably be able to order it from another library.

Your article will be sent through the mail and should be available within a few days. This is just one more reason why it’s important to start your research early!

If That Didn’t Work

Sometimes that approach isn’t feasible. Some sources, such as autobiographies and encyclopedias, don’t have bibliographies.

These are times when it may be necessary to get a little creative. There are a few occasions when you simply cannot find specific books or articles on your topic. Time for some lateral thinking!

Lateral thinking involves shifting your thinking pattern from the logical, sequential pattern to a pattern that shifts focus onto something less predictable. It’s simple, really.

For instance, if you are working on the biography of a not-so-famous person (which often leads to a limited number of sources), then you may need to abandon the typical step-by-step biography approach and focus on some relevant part of the person’s life in more detail.

If your person was a doctor or midwife in Victorian American, you could delve briefly into one of these topics:

• Early medical tools
• Sanitation issues
• Misconceptions
• The daily life of a typical doctor/midwife in Victorian America

If you devote a paragraph or section to one of these topics, you will find that numerous sources are available. If you decide to do this, make sure the topic fits into your thesis and doesn’t jump outside the parameters defined by your thesis sentence.

But what if you’re working on a paper for science class? The same technique will work. For instance, if your paper concerns a rare South American bug and you discover late in the game that there are only two books in the entire world that discuss this bug, you could devote a few paragraphs to “a bug’s life.”

Seriously! You could identify the predator of the bug and write a few paragraphs about the tactics the bug uses to avoid his predator. Or—you could focus on an environmental factor that affects the bug and write about the struggles the bug faces when he encounters these factors. Then one of your sources could concern the environmental factor (or the predator) and not concern the bug specifically.

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Overwhelmed by Research

When working on a large project, students can sometimes become overwhelmed by all the information they gather in their research. This can happen when a student is working on a large paper with many segments or when several students are working on a large project together.

In group research, each student can come up with a stack of notes, and when the work is all combined, the paperwork creates a confusing mountain of notes! If you struggle with this problem you may find relief in this coding technique.

Overview

This organization method involves three main steps:

1. Sorting research into piles, forming sub-topics
2. Assigning a letter to each segment or “pile”
3. Numbering and coding the pieces in each pile

This may sound like a time-consuming process, but you will soon find that organizing your research is time well spent!

Organizing Your Research

First of all, don’t ever hesitate to use your bedroom floor as an important first tool when it comes to getting organized. Many books begin their lives as bedroom floor-piles of paperwork which eventually become chapters.

If you are starting with a mountain of papers or index cards, your first goal is to divide your work into preliminary piles that represent segments or chapters (for smaller projects these would be paragraphs). Don’t worry—you can always add or take away chapters or segments as needed.

It won’t be long before your realize that some of your papers (or note cards) contain information that could fit into one, two, or three different places. That’s normal, and you’ll be pleased to know that there is a good way to deal with the problem. You will assign a number to each piece of research.

Note: Make absolutely certain that each piece of research contains full citation information. Without reference information, each piece of research is worthless.

How to Code Your Research

To illustrate the method that uses numbered research papers, we’ll use a research assignment entitled “Bugs in My Garden.” Under this topic you might decide to start out with the following subtopics which will become your piles:

A) Plants and Bugs Introduction
B) Fear of Bugs
C) Beneficial Bugs
D) Destructive Bugs
E) Bug Summary

Make a sticky note or note card for each pile, labeled A, B, C, D. and E and start sorting your papers accordingly.

Once your piles are complete, start labeling each piece of research with a letter and a number. For example, the papers in your “introduction” pile will be labeled with A-1, A-2, A-3, and so on.

As you sort through your notes, you might find it hard to determine which pile is best for each piece of research. For example, you may have a note card that concerns wasps. This information could go under “fear” but it also fits under “beneficial bugs,” as wasps eat leaf-eating caterpillars!

If you have a hard time assigning a pile, try to put the research into the topic that will come earliest in the writing process. In our example, the wasp piece would go under “fear.”

Put your piles into separate folders labeled A, B, C, D, and E. Staple the appropriate note card to the outside of its matching folder.

Start Writing

Logically, you would start writing your paper using the research in your A (intro) pile. Each time you work with a piece of research, take a moment to consider if it would fit into a later segment. If so, place that paper in the next folder and make a note of it on the index card of that folder.

For example, when you are finished writing about wasps in segment B, place your wasp research in folder C. Make a note of this on the folder C note card to help maintain organization.

As you write your paper you should insert the letter/number code each time you use or refer to a piece of research—instead of putting citations in as you write. Then once you’ve completed your paper you can go back and replace codes with citations.

Note: Some researchers prefer to go ahead and create full citations as they write. This can eliminate a step, but it can become confusing if you are working with footnotes or endnotes and you attempt to re-arrange and edit.

Still Feeling Overwhelmed?

You might experience some anxiety when you read back over your paper and realize that you need to restructure your paragraphs and move information from one segment to another. This is not a problem when it comes to the labels and categories that you’ve assigned to your research. The important thing is making sure that each piece of research and each quote is coded.

With proper coding, you can always find a piece of information when you need it—even if you’ve moved it around several times.

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Parts of a Research Paper

Are you facing your first big research paper? It's important to get started early to give yourself lots of time to do a good job. First you should consider the various parts of the paper.

• The introductory paragraph of any paper, long or short, should start with a sentence that piques the interest of your readers. Think of your first sentence as a hook that draws your reader in. It is your big chance to be so clever that your reader can't stop.
• No single sentence will pester you quite so much as the thesis sentence. Often you'll find it is both the first sentence you write and the last sentence you re-write while constructing the body of your essay.
• Page numbering can be frustrating and difficult. The first step is to divide your paper into sections that your computer will recognize.
• Your research note cards should include all the information necessary to write your paper. You should take extreme care as you create these note cards.
• If you want to give your research paper a professional look, you may want to insert a table of contents. When you do it right, this is a simple process that takes a few moments, and it makes a world of difference in the look of your paper.
• The MLA style provides a standard for giving your list of sources at the end of your paper. This alphabetical list of sources is called either a bibliography or a works cited list.

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Research Paper Checklist

A research paper checklist is essential, because the writing process involves many steps. Nobody writes a perfect research paper in one sitting!

Once you have finished the final draft of your research paper, use this checklist to make sure that you have remembered all the details.

See all Checklists

Research Paper Checklist

First Paragraph and Introduction	Yes	Needs Work
Introductory sentence is interesting
The thesis sentence is specific
The thesis statement makes a clear declaration that I back up with examples
Body Paragraphs
Does each paragraph begin with a good topic sentence?
Do I provide clear evidence to support my thesis?
Have I used examples with citations evenly throughout the work?
Do my paragraphs flow in a logical manner?
Have I used clear transition sentences?
Paper Format
Title page meets assignment requirements
Page numbers are in the right location on the page
Page numbers start and stop on the right pages
Each citation has a bibliography entry
In-text citations checked for proper formatting
Proofreading
I've checked for confusing word errors
I've checked for logical flow
My summary restates my thesis in different words
Meeting the Assignment
I mention previous research or positions on this topic
My paper is the right length
I've used enough sources
I've included the required variety of source types

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