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HOW TO WRITE A
RESEARCH PAPER by Fawad Imam
Introduction
Writing skills
are essential for succeeding in high school, college, and at a job. Writing is
not just an end result, but also a process that helps us develop our ideas and
think logically. Begin by brainstorming topics, collecting information, taking
a lot of notes, and asking a lot of questions. Keep your notes and sources
organized as you go.
When developing a topic,one should look for
patterns and relationships, try to draw conclusions, try discussing one's ideas
with classmates, teachers and parents. A new os diffrent perspective can help
shake up ones thinking.
How to get Started
The first
step towards writing a quality research paper is to organize what is to be
written. It is always nice to develop an outline to help to stay on track as we
write, identifying the main points and what is to be the conclusion. The
introduction should give your reader an idea of the essay's intent, including a
basic statement of what the essay will discuss. One should always keep the
basic outline of a simple easy first and follow it , further changes can be
made as required but the basic layout is followed always. The following are the
parts of the basic layout of an essay or a research paper:
- The
Introduction
- The Body
- The Conclusion
The introduction
should give the reader an idea of the essay's or papers intent, including a
basic statement of what the essay will discuss. The body presents the evidence
that supports the writers idea. Here concrete examples should be used and
generalities should be avoided as much as possible. The conclusion should
summarize and make sense of the evidence presented by the writer in the body
(The Keys to Effective Writing, 2005).
These are the steps to be
followed before writing any kind of paper or essay. After these basic
guidelines are followed ammendments can be made according to the nature of the
research paper and according to the different writing styles. Writing College
research papers
College courses demand many different kinds of writing
that employ a variety of strategies for different audiences. During college, it
may be required to write long essays or short answers in response to
examination questions or one may be asked to keep a journal, write a lab
report, and document the process one uses to perform research. College writing
or writing college research papers, also called academic writing, is assigned
to teach the critical thinking and writing skills needed to communicate in
classes and in the workplace. The quality of one's writing depends on the
quality of the thinking one does about his topic or his assignment.
The whole writing process is divided into three steps namely prewriting,
writing, and rewriting or revising phases.
- Prewriting: In the
prewriting phase one ponders over the questions like what he has to write
about, what are his feelings about the topic to be written, how is the topic to
be approached, how to organize the materials and the audience who will be
reading the paper.
- Writing: In this phase the plan is
implemented by working out the details and fine-tuning thoughts.
-
Rewriting: In the phase of rewriting or revising, the material or paper
written is reviewed and techniques to for improving it are applied.
During these steps, there are some phases, which also take place before the
final draft of the research paper is ready. The first phase would be
understanding the assignment or research topic, which has been explained as
prewriting earlier. Understanding the assignment or the research topic includes
thinking over the fact that what kind of research topic it is and what is the
main purpose of the research topic. Then in this context comes the issue of
using systematic techniques such as the use of classic strategies, these
strategies are ways to develop or organize a research paper, these include
definition, division and classification, comparison and contrast, cause and
effect, and process analysis.
Another important factor is looking at
the topic from a multiple perspective, when a topic is viewed from multiple
points of view; relationships which have not occurred before are visible. This
approach invites the writer to look at the topic as an entity, as a process or
a part of a process, and as a system or part of a system (The Writing Process,
2005).
Doing exploratory research is included here with the prewriting
techniques because library research often is a way to generate ideas. As we
review the literature on a subject or read in a particular area, we may note
ideas that will help us get started with the writing. Analysis, the basis of
many other strategies, is the process of breaking something into its parts and
putting the parts back together so that one can better understand the whole.
When we focus on understanding something better by comparing and contrasting it
to something else, we identify and analyze the similarities and differences.
Synthesizing information, all the opinions and research in support of the
thesis or research paper are incorporated together. The relevant facts,
statistics, expert opinion, and whatever can directly be observed with your own
opinion and conclusions to persuade the audience that the thesis is correct is
integrated. Synthesis is used in supporting the thesis and assembling the
paper. In applying the strategy of evaluation after synthesis, first, the
criteria to be used to evaluate the subject will be established and then
applied to the specific parts of the subject that is being judged, and
conclusions would be drawn that whether it meets the criteria.
The
final draft is what we hand in as the completed paper. Before turning in the
final draft, we should read what we have written all the way through at least
once more. a black pen on the final paper. Choppy sentences, poor or
nonexistent transitions between paragraphs, grammar and spelling errors, and
other characteristics of a first draft should all disappear
Bibliography
The Writing Process, 2005. Retrieved on
October 5th 2005 from: (Website)
Evaluating Internet Research Sources.
Retrieved on October 5th 2005 from: http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm
About the Author:
Fawad works as a staff writer for
Term Papers Corner http://www.termpaperscorner.com They Provide high quality
custom term paper, custom research paper, custom essay and thesis writing
service to students and professionals.
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