How to Write an Academic Research Paper

It’s pretty astounding what kinds of requirements are heaped on students these days. Honestly, just because a teacher assigns you something, doesn’t mean you’re capable of doing it. A lot of teachers in the school system today take it for granted that students are taught essential writing skills before they enter their classroom. All too often, this is not the case. The truth is, more than half of high school and college students come into class with only basic skills. They aren’t capable of some analytical thinking, organized writing and research projects – because they haven’t been taught how to do it! Either that, or they’ve been taught poorly, with some unclear strategy that doesn’t work for them.

Astoundingly, there are a few simple ways that students can learn to combat academic research papers. These tricks are fairly simple once you learn them, but they can make it easy to tackle any research paper.

First, students should know how to research. Once your subject is identified and your thesis is chosen, you have to find the evidence to back up your argument. This can be done through web and textual searches. With web searching, it’s important that students can identify what is a credible source and what isn’t. Google searching, for example, can turn up great results; but students should be using the scholar search option. This will only bring up accredited, scholarly articles that teachers will approve of (instead of random, unprofessional websites and other unreliable sources). Online sources should still come from journal, academic papers or books. Students can also go to the library and use local search engines – even those available at their college – to find books on the needed subject. Once acquired, students should scan these books for needed information. Understanding available research tools and credible sources is the first and most important step to crafting a research paper.

After you’ve developed great research skills, you need to employ organized thinking. Use outlines, brainstorming techniques and other organizational strategies to help you plan and execute your research paper writing. This includes picking and choosing what resources and research to include in your paper. By planning your introduction, arguments, ideas and conclusion ahead of time, writing the actual paper will be a breeze. Also make sure you understand the citation styling you’ll need for this paper. If you aren’t familiar with organizational strategies, planning techniques or citation rules, consult a professional writing company or an experienced professor. Students should also continually review, proofread and edit their work; have friends, teachers or a professional look over your research paper for further reassurance and improvement.