How To Write A Research Paper Essay

This guide covers question opuss, and deliver the goodss advice on forming a championship for your look for topic, how to plan your writing before you give out, and filtering solid for your query make-up. What is a question authorship?The bournes look into idea and term publisher argon frequently functiond interchangeably. However, the terms do not mean the same thing. terminal account was utilise in the past exclusively to refer to the project (indeed query based) that was due at the end of a term, semester or quarter whereas look paper had a more than specific meaning, i.e. a paper written as a summary of look.Hence research papers whitethorn be written at whatsoever level (before, during and after attending university), they whitethorn be published kit and boodle in a professional journal and they may re put in the results of practical research, which would not ordinarily be conducted for a term paper. This is the context in which we result address t he term research paper herein. A research paper is an academic written assignment that is the product of a research project. This may bridge days, months, weeks or even years. Typic all toldy, research papers get out involve the examination of a particular issue, and discuss * The background or history of that issue* Any outstanding questions relating to the issue (the research paper allow for comm all focus on one particular question and seek to establish assure to tell this) * The current information and statistics relating to the issue* The problems relating to the issue as revealed by the data * The problems relating to the issue as revealed by practical primary research (i.e. canaliseing out interviews, tests etc) or secondary research (i.e. looking at early(a) peoples research) * Proposed solutions to the problems, and the strengths and weaknesses of these * Conclusions drawn from the data, research and evidence, as examined * Recommendations in relation to these concl usions.We go away look at each of these elements in turn, in order to run across how a bookman or professional kitty create verbally a unspoiled research paper. Forming a title for your research paperUnlike approximately fictional characters of assignment, the research paper title is usually decided upon AFTER you get under ones skin completed the paper. This is so that the title accurately reflects the contents of the paper. However, your research paper forget penury a working title. This helps you to focus and helps others to understand what you are doing for example, your lecturer/instructor or, if working at a higher level, those funding your project. You should therefore number to this section when you micturate completed your paper.You then need to pick a concise, accurate title for your research paper that will make readers trust to look at your content, help others call up your paper in databases, and explain exactly what is covered by the paper with a high d egree of accuracy. A research paper will commonly stick a title of 15-20 treatments in length. Every word must be necessary for the title and so for example, Project on Paper on look into on should be removed as these types of phrases are not necessary. Example concise research paper titles* Unemployment by Constituency* Transport in New YorkResearch Paper SubtitleUnlike a research paper or essay, it is very common to give your research paper a subtitle. This explains your title more respectabley, puts it in context and qualifies the extent, or scope, of the research. Example subtitles (relating to the above example titles)* 2007-2008 trends using constituency maps* Transport governance and planning since X was elected in 1999 Researching/gathering randomness for your research paperAs your research paper needs to show a good depth of reading, good research skills are paramount precisely before you grow, a key thing to bear in mind is that you MUST reference all material tha t you use in your paper. So the first thing to do is find out what referencing air is required (either by your university or, if you are writing a research paper for a journal, by that journal) and start to record the location of your arisings using that referencing style. If you do this as you perform the research, youll save yourself hours of time later on. hither are some research tips to get you startedRESEARCH STEP 1* Form a appoint of key voice communication from your research papers working title * usage a thesaurus to find words that mean the same thing as your list of keywordsRESEARCH STEP 2Most students will begin researching using the Internet and indeed, this is a great way to get ideas for your research paper. So start with Google, type in your keywords and bookmark the most pertinent study sites that appear in relation to the issue. therefore identify all current matters that relate to your issue from those sites. Note Internet websites provide a firm source of up-to-date information but unfortunately they are not a secure source. Use a search of the web as a starting point but unless the website is hosted and edited by a reliable organization ( such as the governing ashes), dont rely on its contents as a source for your research paper. Find another means of verifying the information.RESEARCH STEP 3Now youve identified a list of issues and current debates for your research paper, you need to find some flavour source material. The first stage is to find the most recent books written about the issue youre researching. Whilst books are not as up-to-date as journals and articles, they will contain valid points-of-view that need to be considered. So where do you find books for your research paper? * Google Books this is a good place to start as it has several thousand books that demand been s do-nothingned in, together with details and snippet views of those which sucknt been scanned in.* Amazon.com Amazon is a good source because you can see which books are being released, and their release date, as well as using search inside to look through the contents of many books (this latter service only works if you cast off placed an order before) * Questia Questia has thousands of books scanned in although you have to pay a small subscription fee. Your university may too provide you with access to a library and you can then search through their databases to find the most relevant and recent books for your research paper. The best way to scan whether a book is relevant to what youre writing about is to look through the index. Youll quickly see if theres anything effectual in the book for your research paper.RESEARCH STEP 4Now you have the latest books for your research paper, you need to start looking for journals. These really should be your main type of source material. Open University tissue Resources is an excellent list of such journal databases, although youll need an ATHENS password to use some of them. Our best-loved journal databases for consistently excellent and up-to-date content are * ScienceDirect 2,000 peer-reviewed journals, books, handbooks etc * EBSCO- thousands of journals, millions of articles* Emerald- thousands of journals in management and library and information services, engineering, applied science and technology * Ingenta 4,500+ journals in all fields and a further 20,000 abstracts The latter source, Ingenta, gives you exculpate access to the bibliography which is useful for your research paper even if you dont have an athens login. make up articles relating to your subject and catch out out the bibliography for further reading which you might be able to locate online without passwords. You can sometimes obtain a free trial of these databases giving you temporary access. Also, the four websites also have a good number of journals that you do not need a subscription to view. These are often indicated by a special icon. For example (from Ingenta)RESEARCH STEP 5T here is one final type of source material you need to consider, and that is the new-makes. If youre lucky enough to have an athens password, your first determine will be Lexis Professional (formerly known as LexisNexis Executive) which contains the full text of newspapers and other news sources widely distributed as well as company data, annual reports and business directory information from Disclosure, Extel, ICC, and Worldscope. If you dont have an athens password, any good news site will suffice US News, CNN etc. Of course, if you are researching an issue which affects another country, you should be looking at that countrys main news website.What you are looking for is any current developments that may affect the research for your paper. This may be statistics released by the Government, extension papers, proposed changes in legislation, current developments or debates etc. Dont forget, newspapers are NOT a reliable source of information. You are using them to find informati on for your research paper but you should substantiate this information once you have found it. If it is reported that the Government has released some statistics, go and find those on the Government website. If a consultation paper has been released, go and find the paper and read it.Filtering the material for your research paperThe five step research process reveals a lot of information for your research paper and youll need to filter it down, or youll have too much to analyses. This does, however, beg the question how many sources should you use? The suffice to this depends on the level of your research paper. If it is an assignment for your degree, you should look at using roughly 9 timberland sources per 2,500 words. If it is for some come in-graduate course, you can easily double that. A professional research paper (for publication) might use 30-40 sources per 2,500 words. The emphasis in all cases, however, should be on quality and not on quantity.A good pick of research material from a variety of quality sources (i.e. not honest books, not just journals, not just the internet and not just the news) is far better than a huge selection of research material from poor quality, unreliable sources of a similar type. To help filter the information you have found for your research paper, you are going to need to evaluate its quality. This involves a consideration of whether * The source is a quality source -its reliable, dependable and highly likely to be accurate. * The source is unbiased crack newspapers which may have political views.Ask yourself if the writer has presented a balance argument, or has deliberately contend down one side of the argument to prove his own personal views. * The source is relevant to your research does it specifically tie in with your working title? * You havent already got enough material to prove what this source proves if you aim to back up each of your arguments in your research paper with 2-3 pieces of evidence (fo r a very high quality paper) or at least 2 for a student paper, then you can filter out any material that is excessive of this. Creating an outline for your research paperA basic outline will look something like this* Working title (as discussed previously)* Purpose this is a short statement to say what the paper is for. It helps people who are looking for research papers themselves to esteem the relevancy of your research paper to their studies. Example purpose statement This paper shows the number of people claiming benefits preserve as resident in each constituency in the United States in July 2008, together with comparisons with the levels in July 2007 and July 1997. This paper also presents residence-based unemployment rates for all constituencies in the United States. * Methodology this is a statement of how you will carry out your research. You have already done some secondary research but you may also wish to carry out primary research for your paper. Primary research (s ometimes called empirical research) is research you carry out yourself and data that is produced as a result of this, which has never been published before.Primary research may be carried out through face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews, postal surveys, website surveys or focus/ intervention groups. Be careful before carrying out research over the phone or through the post though some states allow people to restrict how they are contacted. Secondary research is the study of data that exists already such as books, journals, statistics, other research papers, websites, news reports, magazine articles etc. You have already carried out secondary research through the five step research process. So which research method acting is best for your research paper? Instinctively you may think that the primary data will provide the most interesting results.However, if your time and budget are both express mail, do not be tempted to send on a study. You will do far better analyzing ex isting studies than producing a low-quality study that is bourned in its value due to the amount of time and finance you can devote to it. * Scope of research all research is going to be deposited to certain factors. A paper on law-breaking cannot investigate all types of crime, committed by all sexes, all ages, globally. So how are you going to limit your paper? What areas of the issue will you look at and which will you discard? Your statement of scope will be about 150-300 words long and explain exactly what you are going to cover in your research, and what you are going to leave out (usually with brief reasons). If you are carrying out primary research, you may want to set out the limitations of this here too.* Introduction this is where you set the scene for your reader. You explain what you are researching and why. You identify the issues you will be looking into and you say what you are going to prove. It is therefore a good idea to write this last, along with your final title* Background/history this section of your research paper isnt all-important(a) but might be appropriate. You might want to explain the development of the issue and how particular matters have arisen. Dont bother unless it is necessary, to put the matter in context.* Body this section of your research paper will be broken up into sub-sections, each dealing with a particular sub-matter. Aim to present balanced evidence in each section on the points you wish to raise, and try not to nettle any conclusions at this stage. The body is the body of your research, not the analysis.* Findings/Discussion heres where you analyze the research you have conducted and say how your findings are relevant to the issue. Its a very important section, without which you will have merely stated other peoples findings and opinions without contributing anything yourself.* Conclusion this section of your research paper returns to the introduction and stated aims, and spells out very clearly how yo u achieved them, referring to the points you have proved and the evidence you have used to prove it. It should not be repetitive but instead, it should summarize the results of your research. You should also ensure no new material is predated at this stage if you have new material for your research paper, put it in the body and findings sections.* Recommendations this section of your research paper is very much optional and will depend on whether such a section would be appropriate for the subject you are studying. Law research papers nearly always will include recommendations. What sort of recommendations should you make? These might include * How policies/the law/practice should be changed, based on your findings * What further research must be carried out beforemaking any sensible recommendations.Your recommendations must actually relate to what you have established in your research paper. You cannot randomly introduce things at this stage that you think might be useful. They must be logical recommendations, based on your research and analysis, and they should follow on from the conclusion. Now you have written out an outline for your research paper, you will literally be able to fill in the blanks and your paper should evolve and progress naturally, following the headings you have chosen. Keep referring back to your working title as you write, as well as to your methodology and scope. This should limit you to material that is most relevant and ensure you dont include excessive, unnecessary points. Finishing your research paperNow youve written up your research paper, youll need to do a little redact and proofreading to ensure the finished product achieves the grade youre looking for. This includes * Weeding out any unnecessary material. adjudicate what you have written and whether it is needed, keeping the methodology, scope and working title in mind* Proofreading your research paper. pack it out loud, have someone else read it for you, run a spell check, run a grammar check go over the paper several times and make sure you havent made any errors. There are often extra marks for students in respect of presentation. * Checking your referencing. Every source should be properly referenced. Quotations should be in quotation marks. Your work should contain a full list of references and a bibliography. References are sources you actually cite in your work whereas the bibliography includes sources which you may have read, and may have influenced your writing, but you havent specifically cited.