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Research paper has been defined as the presentation of a well-organized deliberation of opinions, informations, or conclusions which are obtained through extensive study of the works of others.
- Choose the subject area you want to study or investigate. Your chosen topic should interest you, otherwise you may end up losing patience and enthusiasm halfway through the research. Remember that you need to narrow down the scope of your topic so your investigation and readings would be much easier. In this day and age, making a research paper is becoming effortless because of internet, but just in case it is not always available, your sources of information are books such as reference works (e.g. encyclopedias), the card catalogue (this helps you find the right book for your chosen topic), periodical indexes (sometimes not available in small libraries).
- Make a working bibliography. What does this mean? It simply means that you need to make a list of your potential sources of information. Most researchers write the necessary bibliographic information on an index card, one bibliographic entry per card. Each entry should include the author's name, the title of the book, the facts of publication such as the publisher, place and year of publication, name of the magazine in case you find the needed information in a magazine article. Also include its date, volume, and page number. For newspaper articles, write down the date and the page where the information is read. Do not also miss to include writing the library call number, location of a reference work in the library.
- Read intensively the article or text where you have found the information you need, take down important points or details, and evaluate them. Before reading intensively, scan first the book or magazine at hand so you will be prepared as to what kind of information you are going to get. This will lessen the amount of information of which you are to take note later. The facts, evidences, and the like that you have gathered should be properly and accurately documented. There is a need to reevaluate and look for other sources of information if necessary to find out if both agree with each other.
- Formulate your thesis. In your readings, there could be a bulk of information you gathered which may include theories, facts, or evidences. See for example, you are doing a research on drug abuse and you come across factors or reasons why a person uses illegal drugs. Given these informations, you may base your paper on the thesis that will answer the question " Why do people abuse drugs?" While others prefer to narrow their topic first before gathering enough information, you may change it anytime depending on the details you gathered. It is when you have finished your research that you can decide what really is you want to write about.
- Make an outline on your narrowed topic. The question "Why do people abuse drugs?" could lead you to a thesis which goes: "People abuse drugs for a number of reasons." CLICK THIS TO SEE A SAMPLE OUTLINE ON THIS TOPIC
- Start writing the paper. This is the time to use the material in your index cards. However, when writing your argument, evidences, etc. should not be copied verbatim or word for word from your note cards as they mostly serve as your reference. You need to discuss your topic in your own words. After writing, never forget to write the footnotes. Every type of reading material has its own way of writing a footnote and there are also several variations of footnoting system. Know what system your instructor or teacher wants you to follow.
The information given here is aimed at giving you a guide into your research paper. As this only provides you steps in writing a research paper in a nutshell, you have to widen your readings on this topic in order to gain a much detailed knowledge on how to come up with an extraordinary output.