Research Paper Writing

A research paper is an documentation in which you explain what you have learned after exploring your topic in depth. In a research paper, you include information from sources such as books, articles, interviews, and Internet sites. You also use your own ideas, knowledge, and opinions. Most of your paper (as a rule of thumb, at least 80%) must be in your own words. The goal of a research paper is to bring together different views, evidence, and facts about a topic from books, articles, and interviews, then interpret the information into your own writing. It's about a relationship between you, other writers, and your teacher/audience. A research paper will show two things: what you know or learned about a certain topic, and what other people know about the same topic. Often you make a judgment, or just explain complex ideas to the reader. The length of the research paper depends on your teacher's guidelines. It's always a good idea to keep your teacher in mind while writing your paper because the teacher is your audience.

 

 Parts In Research Paper

 Title

 The first page of the paper; this includes the name of the paper, a “running head”, authors, and institutional affiliation of the authors.  The institutional affiliation is usually listed in an Author Note that is placed towards the bottom of the title page.  In some cases, the Author Note also contains an acknowledgment of any funding support and of any individuals that assisted with the research project.

          

 Abstract

   Typically no more than 250 words in length (and in many cases it is well shorter than that), the Abstract provides an overview of the study.

 Introduction

The first major section of text in the paper, the Introduction commonly describes the topic under investigation, summarizes or discusses relevant prior research , identifies unresolved issues that the current research will address, and provides an overview of the research that is to be described in greater detail in the sections to follow.

 Method

A section which details how the research was performed.  It typically features a description of the participants/subjects that were involved, the study design, the materials that were used, and the study procedure. If there were multiple experiments, then each experiment may require a separate Methods section.  A rule of thumb is that the Methods section should be sufficiently detailed for another researcher to duplicate your research.

Results

A section which describes the data that was collected and the results of any statistical tests that were performed.  It may also be prefaced by a description of the analysis procedure that was used. If there were multiple experiments, then each experiment may require a separate Results section.

Discussion

The final major section of text in the paper. The Discussion commonly features a summary of the results that were obtained in the study, describes how those results address the topic under investigation and/or the issues that the research was designed to address, and may expand upon the implications of those findings. Limitations and directions for future research are also commonly addressed.

References

An alphabetized list of the sources that are cited in the paper (by last name of the first author of each source). Each reference should follow specific APA guidelines regarding author names, dates, article titles, journal titles, journal volume numbers, page numbers, book publishers, publisher locations, websites, and so on .

Tables And Figure

Depending on the type of research being performed, there may be Tables and/or Figures (however, in some cases, there may be neither).  In APA style, each Table and each Figure is placed on a separate page and all Tables and Figures are included after the References. Tables are included first, followed by Figures.  However, for some journals and undergraduate research papers , Tables and Figures may be embedded in the text .