How to Write a Research Paper

Assignment sentence:

This [course paper / lab report / thesis chapter] must [analyze / argue / compare / evaluate] [object or question] for [audience], in [page or word range], using [APA / MLA / Chicago / numbered] citations.

OWL argumentative paper:

I will argue that [a stance a thoughtful reader could still dispute], using [primary and secondary sources the assignment allows].

OWL analytical paper:

I will ask [a question I have not already answered], then offer a critical reading of [named primary text or dataset] rather than a yes/no campaign.

Research question:

Not “what is [topic]?” but “how valid is the evidence that [specific claim], and what would change the answer?”

Working thesis / purpose:

I will argue that [claim a thoughtful reader could dispute], using [kinds of evidence the assignment allows].

Organization test:

Each section answers a sub-question of the thesis. If a heading is only a source name or a plot event, the sources are still organizing the paper.

IMRaD gate:

If the assignment is a methods-and-results report, do not paste a five-paragraph essay onto it. Write Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion as separate jobs.

The first step in any successful college writing venture is reading the assignment.

Read the assignment carefully as soon as you receive it. Do not put this task off—reading the assignment at the beginning will save you time, stress, and problems later.

Paper assignments give you more than a topic to discuss—they ask you to do something with the topic.

With a few exceptions (including some lab and ethnography reports), you are probably being asked to make an argument. You must convince your audience.

You need to do more than just repeat what you have read. Your writing should have a point, and you should be able to say it in a sentence. Sometimes instructors call this sentence a “thesis” or a “claim.”

The first step of any research paper is for the student to understand the assignment. If this is not done, the student will often travel down many dead-end roads, wasting a great deal of time along the way.

research—gather material from outside sources about the subject, often with the implication or requirement that you will analyze what you have found

Usually, the page length tells you something important: The instructor thinks the size of the paper is appropriate to the assignment’s parameters.

spend more time on the cover page than the essay—graphics, cool binders, and cute titles are no replacement for a well-written paper.

use huge fonts, wide margins, or extra spacing to pad the page length—these tricks are immediately obvious to the eye.

use a paper from another class that covered “sort of similar” material.

get all wacky and “creative” before you answer the question.

A research paper is the culmination and final product of an involved process of research, critical thinking, source evaluation, organization, and composition.

A research paper is not simply an informed summary of a topic by means of primary and secondary sources. It is neither a book report nor an opinion piece nor an expository essay consisting solely of one's interpretation of a text nor an overview of a particular topic.

The goal of a research paper is not to inform readers what others have to say about a topic, but to draw on what others have to say about a topic and engage the sources in order to thoughtfully offer a unique perspective on the issue at hand.

An important goal of the argumentative research paper is persuasion, which means the topic chosen should be debatable or controversial.

Too settled to argue (their example):

Cigarette smoking poses medical dangers and may lead to cancer for both the smoker and those who experience secondhand smoke.

Still arguable (their example):

Although it has been proven that cigarette smoking may lead to sundry health problems in the smoker, the social acceptance of smoking in public places demonstrates that many still do not consider secondhand smoke as dangerous to one's health as firsthand smoke.

The analytical research paper often begins with the student asking a question (a.k.a. a research question) on which they have taken no stance. Such a paper is often an exercise in exploration and evaluation.

Their starting question:

How should one interpret the poem Beowulf?

Their later thesis:

Though Beowulf is often read as a poem that recounts the heroism and supernatural exploits of the protagonist Beowulf, it may also be read as a poem that served as an exemplum of heterodoxy for tenth- and eleventh-century monastic communities found in the Danelaw.

It is typically not until the students have begun the writing process that their thesis statement begins to take solid form. In fact, the thesis statement in an analytical paper is often more fluid than the thesis in an argumentative paper.

The simple three-point essay taught in high school is far too restrictive for the complexities of most university assignments.

If you are used to writing essays that are similar to the five-paragraph essay (one claim and then three points that support that claim), it can be daunting to think about how to structure your ideas in a longer essay.

This page lists some of the stages involved in writing a library-based research paper.

Although this list suggests that there is a simple, linear process to writing such a paper, the actual process of writing a research paper is often a messy and recursive one, so please use this outline as a flexible guide.

Pose your topic as a question to be answered or a problem to be solved

The first step in writing a research paper is to establish the topic.

Interesting: The topic should appeal both to you and to your intended readers.

Researchable: A body of knowledge should already exist on the topic.

Nonfiction: The information about the topic should be factual, not based on personal opinions or conspiracy theories.

Important: Your reader should think the topic is relevant to them or worthy of being explored and discussed.

Once you have figured out what you are asking (your research question), your thesis is simply the answer.

College athletics question:

Should college athletes be paid for playing?

College athletics thesis:

College athletes perform a valuable service for their schools and should be paid for their performance.

Photography question:

What ethics should guide photojournalists in war zones?

Photography thesis:

Photojournalists should always be embedded with military troops for their own protection.

Media-violence question:

How does television violence affect ratings?

Media-violence thesis:

The effect of television violence on ratings has varied from decade to decade and depends on what society at large views as acceptable in each era.

It should allow for reasoning as well as gathering of information—not just what the proto-Iroquoians ate, for instance, but how valid the evidence is for early introduction of corn.

In academic writing, an argument is usually a main idea, often called a “claim” or “thesis statement,” backed up with evidence that supports the idea.

You will almost always need to do more than just summarize information that you have gathered or regurgitate facts that have been discussed in class.

Too thin (their example):

Frank Lloyd Wright was a great architect.

Specific enough to research (their first example):

Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture combines elements of European modernism, Asian aesthetic form, and locally found materials to create a unique new style

Leftover second official claim (their other example):

There are many strong similarities between Wright’s building designs and those of his mother, which suggests that he may have borrowed some of her ideas.

Your essay must be an expression of your own thinking, not a patchwork of borrowed ideas.

Copy out exact words only when the ideas are memorably phrased or surprisingly expressed—when you might use them as actual quotations in your essay.

The best time to think about how to organize your paper is during the pre-writing stage, not the writing or revising stage.

Though there are no easy formulas for generating an outline, you can avoid one of the most common pitfalls in student papers by remembering this simple principle: the structure of an essay should not be determined by the structure of its source material.

Your obligation is to advance your argument, not to reproduce the plot.

Despite Hamlet’s highly developed moral nature, he becomes morally compromised while delaying his revenge.

I. Introduction: Hamlet’s father asks Hamlet not only to seek vengeance but also to keep his mind untainted.
II. Hamlet has a highly developed moral nature.
    A. Hamlet is idealistic.
    B. Hamlet is aware of his own faults, whereas others are self-satisfied.
    C. Hamlet does not want to take revenge without grounds for acting.
III. Hamlet becomes morally compromised while delaying.
    A. The turning point in Hamlet’s moral decline is his killing of Polonius.
    B. Hamlet’s moral decline continues when he sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their death.
    C. Hamlet already began his moral decline before the turning point in the play, the killing of Polonius.
        1. Hamlet treats women badly.
        2. Hamlet criticizes others in the play for acting falsely to get ahead, but in adopting the disguise of madness he, too, is presenting a false face to the world.
IV. Though Hamlet becomes more compromised the longer he delays, killing the king would have been a morally questionable act.
V. Conclusion: The play Hamlet questions the adequacy of a system of ethics based on honour and revenge.

In Act 3, Scene 4, Polonius hides behind an arras in Gertrude’s chamber in order to spy on Hamlet at the bidding of the king. Detecting something stirring, Hamlet draws his sword and kills Polonius, thinking he has killed Claudius. Gertrude exclaims, “O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!” (28), and her words mark the turning point in Hamlet’s moral decline. Now Hamlet has blood on his hands, and the blood of the wrong person. But rather than engage in self-criticism, Hamlet immediately turns his mother’s words against her: “A bloody deed — almost as bad, good Mother, as kill a king, and marry with his brother” (29-30). One of Hamlet’s most serious shortcomings is his unfair treatment of women. He often accuses them of sins they could not have committed. It is doubtful that Gertrude even knows Claudius killed her previous husband. Hamlet goes on to ask Gertrude to compare the image of the two kings, old Hamlet and Claudius. In Hamlet’s words, old Hamlet has “Hyperion’s curls,” the front of Jove,” and “an eye like Mars” (57-58). Despite Hamlet’s unfair treatment of women, he is motivated by one of his better qualities: his idealism.

One of Hamlet’s most serious moral shortcomings is his unfair treatment of women. In Act 3, Scene 1, he denies to Ophelia ever having expressed his love for her, using his feigned madness as cover for his cruelty. Though his rantings may be an act, they cannot hide his obsessive anger at one particular woman: his mother. He counsels Ophelia to “marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them” (139-41), thus blaming her in advance for the sin of adultery. The logic is plain: if Hamlet’s mother made a cuckold out of Hamlet’s father, then all women are capable of doing the same and therefore share the blame. The fact that Gertrude’s hasty remarriage does not actually constitute adultery only underscores Hamlet’s tendency to find in women faults that do not exist. In Act 3, Scene 4, he goes as far as to suggest that Gertrude shared responsibility in the murder of Hamlet’s father (29-30). By condemning women for actions they did not commit, Hamlet is doing just what he accuses Guildenstern of doing to him: he is plucking out the “heart” of their “mystery” (3.2.372-74).

The second of these two paragraphs is much stronger, largely because it is not plot-driven. It makes a well-defined point about Hamlet’s moral nature and sticks to that point throughout the paragraph.

While Sandel argues persuasively that our instinct to “remake”(54) ourselves into something ever more perfect is a problem, his belief that we can always draw a line between what is medically necessary and what makes us simply “better than well”(51) is less convincing.

Leftover informal draft heading (their wording):

Explain the author’s main point

Leftover informal draft heading (their wording):

Show why this main point doesn’t hold up when we consider this other example

Leftover final heading they print:

Sandel’s main argument

Leftover final heading they print:

Sandel’s opposition to genetic enhancement

Build your essay around points you want to make (i.e., don’t let your sources organize your paper)

Summarize, analyze, explain, and evaluate published work rather than merely reporting it

present relevant background or contextual material

define terms or concepts when necessary

explain the focus of the paper and your specific purpose

reveal your plan of organization

In order to use a source effectively in your paper, you must integrate it into your argument in a way that makes it clear to your reader not only which ideas come from that source, but also what the source is adding to your own thinking.

In other words, each source you use in a paper should be there for a reason, and your reader should not have to guess what that reason is.

When you're finished drafting your paper, you should always go back and make sure that you have made conscious decisions about how and where to use each source and that you've made the reasons for those decisions clear to your readers.

APA 7 parenthetical:

([Surname], [year], p. [page])

MLA 9 parenthetical:

([Surname] [page])

Chicago note (Notes-Bibliography):

First note: full bibliographic details. Later note: short writer, short title, page.

Revision literally means to “see again,” to look at something from a fresh, critical perspective. It is an ongoing process of rethinking the paper: reconsidering your arguments, reviewing your evidence, refining your purpose, reorganizing your presentation, reviving stale prose.

Writing is a process of discovery, and you don’t always produce your best stuff when you first get started.

That’s called proofreading. It’s an important step before turning your paper in, but if your ideas are predictable, your thesis is weak, and your organization is a mess, then proofreading will just be putting a band-aid on a bullet wound.

THINK BIG, don't tinker

Just read through your essay, and every time you make a new point, summarize it in the margin. If the essay is reasonably well-organized, you should have one point in the margin for each paragraph, and your points read out in order should form a coherent argument.

Are those points in an order that makes sense to you?

Are there gaps in your argument?

Do the topic sentences of the paragraphs clearly state these main points?

Do you have more than one paragraph that focuses on the same point? If so, do you need both paragraphs?

Do you have some paragraphs that include too many points? If so, would it make more sense to split them up?

Do you make points near the end of the draft that would be more effective earlier in your paper?

Are there points missing from this draft?

You know you’re planning too little if the first draft of your essays is always a disorganized mess, and you have to spend a disproportionate amount of time creating reverse outlines and cutting and pasting material.

You know you’re planning too much if you always find yourself writing your paper a day before it’s due after spending weeks doing research and devising elaborate plans.