Anyone Can Write a Research Paper!

"I'll figure that out...when I get the time."

"I really don't know how to start!"

"I should really write my research paper!"

This common dilemma is expressed over and once again by many people everywhere. What's promising is that anybody can write a research paper!

There are three main reasons for research papers:

1. To allow you to piece together information from different sources and cohesively use it back together.

2. To assist you develop good written and oral communication skills.

3. To allow you to work out how to get information.

Unsure how to write properly will make your academic life disorganized, stressful and chaotic. By improving your writing skills, you are able to confidently and quickly finish assignments and write properly during your professional career. Writing a research paper can be very simple once you follow these basic steps:

1. Choose or Brainstorm Your Topic: Sometimes a topic is given to you, or you may have your own personal topic that you would like to research. You may be forced to conduct your research with hardly any direction.research paper proofreading Sometimes you are only given a page count, quantity of sources and a deadline. It is helpful to start by brainstorming a topic. Writing down a couple of ideas can be very helpful, and lead you in a specific direction.

2. Determine the Scope: Once you've scanned the internet or library and learned a tad bit more about your topic, you will need to ascertain whether you will need to broaden or narrow your focus.

3. Research: By so you have a concept of one's topic and have scanned the niche area. You have an emphasis for your research paper, but you also need details to "flesh out" the paper. Start going to your resources, and taking notes on sections that may be pertinent to your paper. Remember to document where you got the investigation from! This usually includes noting the author's name, title of book, paper or website, year of publication, publishing house, page numbers and/or date accessed.

4. Outline Your Paper: An outline can be an organized arrange for your paper. Develop an outline by starting the initial section with a wide introduction of the topic, then list several sections that you've read about (or will read about) that pertain to your topic. The general sections are: introduction, literature review, data collection, results and discussion. Writing an outline will allow you to to feel a lot better about writing your research paper as you may have a feeling of organization and direction once you write it.

5. Create the First Draft: The first draft must be written once you have completed your research. By this point, you will most likely have numerous sources and many pages of notes written down from each of these sources. You will have enough information to write the whole paper. It is essential "just to start writing", and to not worry a lot of about the facts only at that point.

6. Revise, Revise, Revise! Revision of a paper should actually take more than writing the initial draft. Here is the time to wash up all of the grammatical mistakes, spelling, run-on sentences, etc, and to produce this paper easily readable. This is also the time to incorporate or subtract text when necessary.

7. Proofread: Here is the time for nit-picky editing to insure that there are no mistakes. Some items to watch for are: correct verb tenses, punctuation, grammar, spelling, word choice and proper citation. Other details that may be important are: page numbers, correct spacing and correct margins.

By breaking your research paper into small tasks, you are able to stay dedicated to the goal of completing it quickly and meticulously!

Colleen Spiegel can be an consultant engineer and writer. For more information, please visit