Research paper writing is important for students. Helps students in developing habits for critical evaluation. Aim to improve your reasoning skills as you have to collect evidence to prove your claim in a scholarly paper. Tells ways to look out of the box while reading something. Research paper writing is essential for students in several ways; however, it seems the toughest task for the majority of the students. Even some students take months only to plan to write it. There are many ways to tackle this technical writing task. Some ask for help from ghostwriters, while others remain in search of some tips that may help them in mastering the ways of writing a perfect scholarly paper. This article is for the second type of people who want to learn tips for writing a good research article instead of hiring someone else. Let us start the article by describing why research paper writing is so important for students.
Importance of writing a perfect research paper:
The research article is one of the great tools to be recognized in the field of interest. It acts as written proof of your contributions in a particular field. Apart from this, it aims to improve the following skills of students:
- Boosts reading skills
- Teaches scholarly writing style
- Improves argumentative skills
- Develops the habit of critical thinking and critical appraising skills
- Provides deep insights into the situation to be evaluated
Essential components of scholarly articles:
Before writing a scholarly article, you first need to understand the nature of the problem you want to address. For writing a perfect paper, you must read a related article but not in a book style. Rather, you must first read an article to gather all important information regarding its components, writing tone, and even the format. The following are some essential components of a research article:
2.1 Abstract / executive summary:
The scholarly article must start from the abstract written by the author (s) of the article. It must summarise all the key points of a research paper. The best way to write it is by just describing all sections of research in a few lines.
2.2 Introduction/ background:
It is the platform to set the stage for the reader. It must state the brief background of the research problem in the simplest way. In this part, the authors describe the nature of the study and its purpose and explain in a unique way.
2.3 Literature review:
This part discusses the summary of the previous work published on a topic of interest. It aims to highlight what work has been done and what points still need attention.
2.4 Methodology:
It describes the complete research map that you will follow to conduct research. It must contain even minor details so that anyone can repeat the experiment using your protocol.
2.5 Results:
It infers what happened or what you found by following a particular protocol. This section contains graphs, tables, or charts to better describe the findings of a research.
2.6 Discussion and analysis:
Describing your findings is also a necessary part of the paper. In a more concise way, it is the clarification of the results an author extracted in the light of others’ findings.
2.7 Conclusion:
It is the last part of the research paper. It is the final thoughts of an author. Must not contain any additional information regarding the problem statement. Instead, it should answer how your research answered or tested the research questions and hypothesis.
The right method for writing a research paper:
The right method to write a research article is to start with the determination of the purpose of the paper and end with editing or proofreading. The following are some steps that one must use for writing a research paper.
Determine the purpose of the paper:
Research paper writing by having good innovative ideas is essential to take a head start. You must start writing by selecting a worth-noted topic that may improve the living conditions and may benefit mankind in one way or another. A good writer remains well-informed about the purpose of his study even at this very early stage of writing a research paper.
Select journal for publication:
All experienced writers always start writing by taking into account the instructions for publication in the journal. A draft structured according to the journal’s guidelines will make publication process smooth.
Refine your research question:
Sometimes, the situations are so diverse that you cannot study them from all aspects in a study. Thus, research questions aim to specify what aspect of a situation you really want to explore. So, research questions formulated for research must be clear and concise enough.
Organize your main approach:
Clear research questions clarify the approach a researcher should use to collect information to answer them in the most appropriate way. After selecting the approach, one should wait for a minute and think whether you fit all the information gathered from diverse sources together. In simple words, what will be the most suitable pattern of organization for a research paper must be the prime focus of this step.
Analyse the content and draw the conclusion:
Once a researcher collects all the important pieces of information for a research paper, and after selecting the right organization for it, the next must be to analyse the data. There are several tools that help the researchers to analyse the information statistically as well as non-statistically. Whatever method of data analysis a researcher uses, it must provide ways to draw a logical conclusion. The conclusion is the last part of the paper.
Proofread, edit, and submit:
Done with conclusion means you have done with your research paper. If you still have remaining time, you should spend it on refining the quality of the content. Thus, students are advised to spend as much time on proofreading and editing.
Final thoughts:
Writing a research paper is not rocket science. You just need to become a bit more organized to produce a quality one. Following the step-by-step guide and seeking help from experts is only a one-time effort. Once you learn how to write a good research paper, you feel like writing a paper is fun.
