I'm not going to get into the technical aspect of writing, you should have paid attention in class or ask for assistance from your teacher or professor. I'm just going to give a step by step plan of action that will make anyone write a damn decent paper.
Things you will need:
- Pen
- Highlighter
- Note Cards
- Binder/Folder
- Library Card
- Access to Galileo is preferred, but not necessary
- Word Processor, Word is preferred
Topic: The soul of your paper.
The most important part of a research paper is your topic. After all, it is what you paper is about. Now choosing a Topic sounds easy, but let me tell you, once you start getting into your research you may encounter a few problems such as a lack of reputable (non-internet based) information on a topic, or changing your mind on what direction you want to go with your paper. There are so many possibilities.
What I would suggest is first, find a broad topic you would like to research, or if you are assigned a paper use that topic. Then do a little light reading about that topic on the internet and get an idea of a direction. Then go to Galileo, or your local library and find out how many decent sources there are on your topic. The point of this step is to make your topic as specific as possible and be sure that you have enough material to support your thesis. In order to write a successful paper, you must have a clearly defined goal.
Thesis Statement: The mind of your paper.
So you have narrowed your scope. It is time to write your thesis statement. be sure that you have enough information to support this statement, and be sure that it is clear, to the point, and makes sense. This is the entire premise of your paper.
Outline: The skeleton of your paper. Trying to write a paper without an outline is a writer's suicide. It will force you to stay on topic and help you paper flow in a logical manner.
CLICK HERE FOR AN OUTLINE LAYOUT
This should be the skeleton of your paper.
Important points:
- Be sure to do everything in 3's. It is hard to support an argument with less.
- Your introduction paragraph should be just that, one paragraph stating your intentions.
- Background information can be a few paragraphs long but don't make it too long. You just want to give a general background to introduce those who are not aware of your topic.
- The outline will fill out once you start your research. The information will be like the muscles, tendons, and organs of your paper.
Research Materials: The cells that multiply and become tissue.
So now you are ready to get started. Collect all the information you can to support your thesis. Articles, books, etc. Now, if you have narrowed your topic like you should have, you will only need to utilize a few pages of a book, so you should xerox the pages you need to keep you load light and be able to highlight only the important things you need to document. You should do the same for articles, or print them. You will collect all this information in a folder or a binder.
Go through each of your materials and highlight the information that you will need to support your thesis. Discard the papers you will not need.
Note Cards: The muscles of your paper.
Now, this is key to making your paper flow like water. Click the title "Note Cards" to see how this is done.
First, I like to make a card for each book/article writing the information exactly like it will appear in the bibliography.
Next, you should write the author, title and page number of your reference on the top line of the card, preferably on the right side, just be sure to leave room for coding on the left. We will get into that later.
Now, this is extremely important. Skip a line and write a single quote or paraphrase a single idea from your research notes. Especially when paraphrasing, be sure to write it the way you want it written in your paper.
Do this for every idea or quote you highlighted on its own card for all of your references.
Next, you want to organize the cards coinciding with your outline. Now it is time to code. Coding is like the nerves. It tells you where the information needs to be placed. On the left side of the top line, you will write the location to which the information supports. ie. II.A.3.a. or II.B.2.
Now you are 95% done with your paper!!! Time for the fun and easy part. Using your outline as a guide start writing your paper. Introduce each of your ideas, use your cards to support those ideas, documenting the last name of the author and the page number after each quote or idea. This is extremely important as to not plagiarize. This is your paper expressing your view on the information, you are merely supporting your ideas with information from others. You must give those others the credit they deserve. After all, someone might be using your ideas to support their own, don't you want credit for that?
Bibliography: Giving credit where credit is due.
Take the cards that you have written all of your sources on and put them in alphabetical order and input the information the way you wrote them on your bib page. Now you have completed your research paper.
It feels good when all of your hard work comes together so seamless and effortless.
About now, you might be saying, "Elizabeth, this is not fast, you liar." I assure you, when your ideas are going off in a million directions, you will wish you had followed these tips. I learned this in 4th grade but I have met many people that do not have a clue as to what they are doing and find themselves in a mess. This is for those people. You might not be grammatically apt, but you will have a very well structured paper and I assure you that means more than a grammatically proper tangent. Any teacher/professor would love to assist you with your grammar especially if they see you have a well structured and organized plan.
I hope this is helpful and I wish you the best of luck. I have enabled comments so that you can tell me how bad this sucked if you found it useful, or if you have any questions.
All the Best!!!
