Writing A Research Paper Guidelines

To help you with your research paper I selected some excerpts from
“How to write a research paper” written by Sarah Hamid from an

excellent website:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/hypertext/ResearchW/:
Use this website when you need more help.
Excerpts:
What is a research paper?
A research paper is a piece of academic writing that requires a more

abstract, critical, and thoughtful level of inquiry than you might be
used to. But not to worry, you'll gradually pick up that mindset the
more you envelop yourself in tutorial discussions and lectures at the
college level, and of course, the more you write. Not just research
papers but any paper, period.
Writing a research paper involves (1) first familiarizing yourself with

the works of "experts"--for example, on the page, in cyberspace, or in
the flesh through personal interviews--to build upon what you know
about a subject and then (2) comparing their thoughts on the topic
with your own.
You'll end up using relevant information--facts and/or opinions--from

these expert sources, these "others," to support the topic you have
been given or chosen to explore. Then, as our subsequent steps will
outline, the final product will be a unique and appropriate integration
of evidence you have located outside yourself and personal insights
generated from your own internal think tank--your mind!
The final product will be a unique and appropriate integration of

evidence you have located outside yourself and personal insights.
Often to the surprise of many a first-year student, it is the latter that

your professors are most interested in. The inclusion of sources isn't
just some arbitrary can-you-use-the-library? test in disguise, but
complements your own ideas by providing academic context and
credibility to what you are asserting. No professor will be marking what
the published experts have to say, only how well you use what the
experts have to say to advance your paper's purpose.
Why and How to Create a Useful Outline
Why create an outline? There are many reasons; but in general, it may
be helpful to create an outline when you want to show the hierarchical
relationship or logical ordering of information. For research papers, an
outline may help you keep track of large amounts of information. For
creative writing, an outline may help organize the various plot threads
and help keep track of character traits. Many people find that
organizing an oral report or presentation in outline form helps them
speak more effectively in front of a crowd. Below are the primary
reasons for creating an outline.
• Aids in the process of writing

• Helps you organize your ideas
• Presents your material in a logical form
• Shows the relationships among ideas in your writing
• Constructs an ordered overview of your writing
• Defines boundaries and groups
How do I create an outline?

• Determine the purpose of your paper.
• Determine the audience you are writing for.
• Develop the thesis of your paper.
Then:
• Brainstorm: List all the ideas that you want to include in your
paper.
• Organize: Group related ideas together.
• Order: Arrange material in subsections from general to specific
or from abstract to concrete.
• Label: Create main and sub headings.
Remember: creating an outline before writing your paper will make
organizing your thoughts a lot easier. Whether you follow the
suggested guidelines is up to you, but making any kind of outline (even
just some jotting down some main ideas) will be beneficial to your
writing process.
The First Draft
Before you begin writing, you should have a thesis or question that
you're comfortable with and an outline that gives you structure on
what you need to say and where.
Writing an introduction: Introductions are important. They arouse a

reader's interest, introduce the subject, and tackle the So What?
factor. In short, they're your paper's "first impression." But you don't
have to write them first. In fact, many students prefer launching right
into the body of the essay before they tackle intros and conclusions.
However, other students prefer writing the introduction first to help
"set up" what's to follow.
Your body paragraphs are perhaps the most important part of your
paper; without them your thesis is meaningless and your research
question . . . well . . . remains an unanswered question.
The number of paragraphs you have will entirely depend on the length
of your paper and the complexity of each subtopic. However, after you
have begun to double space your prose, there should be a new
paragraph somewhere on each page; a page without an indent is
usually a signal that a paragraph somewhere is running too long.
Moving through your essay should be like strolling through hilly terrain.
At the hill peaks, you introduce your readers to the 'bigger picture' with
more general, abstract words. Then you descend the hill from these
heights of generality to the examples down in the valleys. Here you
explain in concrete terms what you mean by your lofty claims and
show them in action. Eventually, you make your way back up again so
that readers can see the examples in their context, that is, what they
mean to the bigger picture. This is how your essay should flow: up and
down and up again. If, on the other hand, your valleys mutate into vast
prairies, readers begin to lose a sense of the original general
assertions. Or, if your peaks become heady plateaus, the audience will
get dizzy from the high altitude and long for examples in the concrete
world. Therefore, you must always achieve a sense of balance between
the general and the particular.
According to Bell and Corbett's The Little English Handbook, the three
most important features of a paragraph (and unfortunately the most
common errors as well) are unity, coherence, and adequate
development.
ACTIVITY: see if the above paragraph on essays like hills fits the
following three criteria. If not, how would you fix it?
Unity is the development of a single controlling idea usually presented

in the topic sentence. Each sentence should somehow develop that
idea and no other. A paragraph on the role of midwives in child-birth
should not digress to child-rearing in the same paragraph. Thus, if
you're typing a sentence in your draft that doesn't seem to fit where it
is, keep it in but flag it somehow. During revision, you'll see whether
there isn't a better spot for it or if it ought to be scrapped.
Coherence is a quality where the writer makes it explicitly clear what

the connections are between thoughts. In Latin, coherence basically
means "to stick together." Make things stick together for your readers.
You won't be there beside them saying "oh, this is what I meant." Tell
them what you mean in writing! Don't think "but, that's obvious"--make
it obvious by saying it. Bell and Corbett include the following tips for
achieving coherence:
Adequate development is what it sounds like: fulfill what you promise
in your topic sentence. If you say you will discuss several unusual
items found in drugstores, then discuss several. Give your readers
enough meat to chew on about the topic. What is adequate? Well, it's
quite subjective but remember this little saying (sexist implications
aside) from one of my early English teachers: "An essay or paragraph
is like a woman's skirt: it should be long enough to cover the topic and
short enough to be interesting."
Writing a conclusion. Just as there is no formula for an introduction,

there is none for a conclusion either. What form a conclusion will take
entirely depends on what precedes it. There are some rules of thumb
to keep in mind though:
* Don't depend on your conclusion to sum up the body

paragraphs. Your paragraphs should flow naturally into one another
and connections should be made among them. Summary can be an
important function of conclusions but keep this part brief; readers
know what they've just read.
* Don't simply regurgitate your introduction. Try to talk about

your topic in a new way now that you've presented all that you have
about it.
* Point out the importance or the implications of what you've just

said on an area of societal concern. Again, this is the so what? factor
stated perhaps a bit more dramatically.
* For analytical papers in particular, you could mention the lack

of conclusion in the field. This demonstrates that you understand the
complexity of the subject matter.
* Perhaps propose what you feel is a natural next step to take in

light of what your argument is attempting to convince people of.
* Don't end your conclusion with a quotation or with a statement

that could very well be the subject of another paper. The former
deflects attention away from you as writer and thinker; the latter
deflects attention from what you're saying in your paper.
What is plagiarism?
This is a statement that Professor Irwin Weiser of Purdue University has

used with his Introductory Composition courses:
When writers use material from other sources, they must acknowledge
this source. Not doing so is called plagiarism, which means using
without credit the ideas or expressions of another. You are therefore
cautioned (1) against using, word for word, without acknowledgment,
phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc., from the printed or manuscript
material of others; (2) against using with only slight changes the
materials of another; and (3) against using the general plan, the main
headings, or a rewritten form of someone else's material. These
cautions apply to the work of other students as well as to the published
work of professional writers. Of course, these cautions also apply to
information you find on the Internet, World Wide Web, or other
electronic or on-line sources.
Traditional Endnotes or Footnotes with Superscript Numbers
This system of small raised numbers signaling footnotes or endnotes,

followed by a bibliography, used to be the standard method of
documentation and interrupts the essay very little. You can choose
either endnotes or footnotes (at the bottom of each page); readers
usually prefer footnotes. Established scholars also use notes for
digressions on tangential points, but that would seem pretentious in
most student work.
Example:
When Hamlet protests to his mother, "Leave wringing of your hands"
(3.4.35),1 he is naming a universally recognizable gesture. As Smith
says, similar broad physical movements are "still the most direct way
of indicating inner turmoil."2
Notes
1 William Shakespeare, Hamlet, in The Norton Introduction to

Literature, 8th ed., ed. Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, Kelly J. Mays, and
Jerome Beaty (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001), 996. Subsequent
parenthetical references will refer to this edition.
2 Jasmine Smith, "Renovating Hamlet for Contemporary Audiences,"

UTQ 76 (Summer 2007): 960.

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To help you with your research paper I selected some excerpts from

“How to write a research paper” written by Sarah Hamid from an

Use this website when you need more help.

What is a research paper?

A research paper is a piece of academic writing that requires a more

Writing a research paper involves (1) first familiarizing yourself with

You'll end up using relevant information--facts and/or opinions--from

The final product will be a unique and appropriate integration of

Often to the surprise of many a first-year student, it is the latter that

Why and How to Create a Useful Outline

• Aids in the process of writing

How do I create an outline?

The First Draft

Writing an introduction: Introductions are important. They arouse a

Unity is the development of a single controlling idea usually presented

Coherence is a quality where the writer makes it explicitly clear what

Writing a conclusion. Just as there is no formula for an introduction,

* Don't depend on your conclusion to sum up the body

* Don't simply regurgitate your introduction. Try to talk about

* Point out the importance or the implications of what you've just

* For analytical papers in particular, you could mention the lack

* Perhaps propose what you feel is a natural next step to take in

* Don't end your conclusion with a quotation or with a statement

This is a statement that Professor Irwin Weiser of Purdue University has

Traditional Endnotes or Footnotes with Superscript Numbers

This system of small raised numbers signaling footnotes or endnotes,

1 William Shakespeare, Hamlet, in The Norton Introduction to

2 Jasmine Smith, "Renovating Hamlet for Contemporary Audiences,"

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