Research Paper Writing

What is a Research Paper?

A research paper is an essay 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.

Features of a Research Paper

A good research paper should have the following features:
• A research paper should be written precisely in simple language and should provide a
detailed presentation of the whole research process.
• It should present the data in tables and figures with suitable explanations. The end part
should include the concluding remarks.
• The language and style should be academic, formal and simple.
• The paper should facilitate the reader with systematic presentation like proper headings,
title, subtitles, tables, graphs, parts and even bullet points where required.
• Research paper should focus on a central issue that interests you.
• Your topic should be limited in such a way so that you can cover it in a paper of the assigned
length.
• Organize the paper around the points that are most important in your opinion. State your
main ideas in your own words and use information from your sources to support them.
• Incorporate ideas and facts from your sources by paraphrasing and summarizing. Write the
ideas in your own way, using different words and sentence structures and leaving out
unnecessary details.
• Use quotations when the author's words are especially well chosen or memorable. When you
quote even a short phrase, copy the exact words, enclose them in quotation marks, and cite
the name of the author or speaker.

Steps in Process
Choose a topic
Select a topic covered in the course or assigned by the instructor. Discuss with your instructor any
questions about an appropriate topic.
Do Literature Survey
Look for a variety of sources, such as books, periodicals, and Internet sites. Books give a broad
perspective, while recent articles provide up-to-date information. You can search for articles from
many newspapers, magazines,and scholarly journals in the library's research databases.

Narrow Your Topic

As you do research, you may form a question that you want to answer or find that a lot of
information is available about a particular aspect of your topic.

Read Actively and Make Notes

As you read your sources, highlight and make notes in the margin (on copies). Write summaries of
the main points in your own words, noting the source of each summary. If you copy groups of
words, put them in quotation marks so that you will remember that you copied them.

Plan
Decide how to organize your paper and make an outline that will help you stay on topic and present
your ideas in a logical order.

Write and Revise

Do not expect to write a finished paper all at once. First, get your ideas down on paper in a rough
draft. Read it over and revise, trying to improve the content and organization. Ask someone else to
read it and give you feedback. Edit your paper for sentence structure and word choice.

Document Your Sources

In addition to citing your sources in the text of your paper, the last page will be a list of sources. Use
the documentation style that your instructor assigns. Four common styles are Modern Language
Association (MLA), American Psychological Association (APA), Chicago Manual of Style (CMS),
and Council of Science Editors (CSE).

Proofread
Read over the whole paper slowly and carefully, checking for errors in grammar, punctuation,
capitalization, and spelling. Make sure your paper follows the assigned format. Use the spelling
checker on the computer, but do not depend on it. The spelling checker does not catch misspellings
of similar-sounding words, and it frequently suggests the wrong word as a correction. The grammar
checker is even less reliable. Remember: You make the decisions, not the computer.
Main Components of a Research Paper
Authors
List of all the authors who have played a significant role in the research paper are listed here along
with their full affiliation information, and the corresponding authors name should also be indicated.

Title
The title of the paper should be concise and specific that clearly reflects the content of the article.
Title should be related to the contents of the paper, going off the track will lose the interest of the
people.

Abstract
Abstract should be up to 300 words long and provide a brief summary of the article. Although the
abstract should explain why the article might be interesting, the importance of the work should not
be over-emphasized. Abstracts formatted with bullet point lists and separate headings are allowed,
but the text will be included in the overall word limit. Citations should not be used in the abstract.
Abbreviations, if needed, should be spelled out.

Keywords
Authors should supply up to eight relevant keywords that describe the subject of their article. These
will improve the visibility of your article.

Main Body
The format of the main body of the article is flexible: it should be concise, making it easy to read
and refer, and presented in a format that is appropriate for the type of study presented.
For most Research Papers, the following standard format are the most appropriate.
• Introduction
• Methodology
• Results
• Conclusions/Discussion

Introduction
The main purpose of the introduction is to provide the necessary background or context for the
research problem. How to frame the research problem is perhaps the biggest problem in research
paper writing. The introduction typically begins with a general statement of the problem area, with
a focus on a specific research problem, to be followed by the rational or justification for the
proposed study.
The introduction generally covers the following elements:
• State the research problem, which is often referred to as the purpose of the study.
 • Provide the objectives of the study. The objectives identified should be general as well as
specific.
• Identify the rationale of the proposed study and clearly indicate why it is worth doing.
• Briefly describe the major issues and sub-problems to be addressed by the research.
• Identify the key independent and dependent variables of the study.

Methodology
Research Methodology means the adoption of the special procedures, tools and techniques in order
to find, categories, select, process, and analyze information about a particular research problem. In a
research paper the methodology section allows the reader to critically evaluate a study's overall
validity and reliability.
In methodology section the researcher discusses in details the research methodology he has
followed i.e. what he did and how he did it. Methodology should be clearly written so that other
researcher could also understand it and follow it in similar kind of research endeavors.
Methodology is normally written in a passive voice e.g. ‘the population was selected on the basis of
stratified sampling’ or ‘the respondents were asked to answer the questions’ instead of writing in
active voice e.g. ‘I asked the respondents to fill the questionnaire’.

Results
The results represent the findings of the study based upon the methodology or methodologies
applied in collection of data and the tools and techniques applied in data analysis. The results
should state the findings of the research in a systematic manner and in logical sequence without bias
or interpretation. It is here where the researcher indicates what he has found. In simple words it is
the data collected and arranged systematically ready for interpretation.

Conclusions/Discussion
The purpose of the discussion is to interpret and describe the significance of your findings in light
of what was already known about the research problem being investigated, and to explain any new
understanding or fresh insights about the problem after you've taken the findings into consideration.
Conclusion refers to the broad drawing of the study done and the major findings and suggestions
made. It can also be called the summary of the major findings of the study. In conclusions the
researchers are advised not to include any new information or idea not discussed in the previous
sections. However, one can specify the limitations of the study and the zones of its utility and
applications.

Author Contributions
The individual contributions of each author to the manuscript should be detailed in this section.
Anyone who has contributed but does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the
Acknowledgments section.
Grant Information
The funding information for the research should be provided here, with the grant number and the
name of the funding agency.

Acknowledgments
This section should acknowledge anyone who contributed to the research or the writing of the
article but who does not qualify as an author, you should clearly state how they contributed. It
should be noted that grant funding should not be listed here.

References
References can be listed in any standard referencing style as long as it is consistent between
references within a given article. Only articles, books and book chapters, datasets and abstracts that
have been published or are in press, or are available through public e-print/preprint servers/data
repositories, may be cited. Unpublished abstracts, papers that have been submitted but not yet
accepted, and personal communications should instead be included in the text, they should be
referred to as ‘personal communications’ or ‘unpublished reports’ and the researchers involved
should be named.