If at all possible, don’t rely heavily on one source when writing a paper at college. Search for and consult as many varying sources as humanly possible. You want to provide a well thought out, persuasive argument. Make sure you aren’t using outdated resources, and gather information that will prepare you to address potential arguments to your ideas.
After you’ve gathered your most valuable resources, develop an outline of what you plan to cover. This will help keep you from drifting into uncharted waters as you write. Developing a structure or plan is great college info for any task you encounter, not just writing papers. It helps keep you focused.
There is hope, though. No matter how long your paper must be or how little time you have to complete it, there are some general tips that will help you complete a first-rate research paper. Use the following college guide by Sharon Sorenson, author of “How to Write Research Papers”:
Before you hand in your paper, go back through it again to catch any errors. This time, look specifically for grammar and keyboard errors. If the thought of staring at your paper one more time makes your eyes glaze over, ask a friend or relative to read it and provide constructive feedback.
Use excellent secondary resources
You may not be given a choice about the topic of your paper, but if you’re fortunate enough to have the option, then select a subject that interests you. If you choose something outside your scope of interest, you may find yourself nodding off and have difficulty finishing the task, which is not a good impression to make at college. Information is crucial
After you start college, at one point or another, you’re going to have to write a heavy-duty research paper. This isn’t your high school English teacher’s five-page requirement, either. This is going to be the 28-page monster you’ve heard about, but hoped wasn’t really true, and it will be a task that you’ll likely have to repeat more than once during your college career. But you are not alone. Students at colleges and universities across the country are probably facing the same daunting task.
Some instructors give you ten weeks to complete a project, while others might allot a measly four. Plan backward from the day your paper is due and map out a schedule that allows you enough time to finish.
This statement implies that your paper will discuss patient and family emotions, as well as the reduction of their frustrations. With any paper you write, feel free to fiddle with your thesis statement as you go along to better reflect the results of your research.
Developing a strong thesis statement is very important to your research. Without a thesis, you will not have a direction or focus for your research project.
Step 1. Write a description of the subject of your research. Why is it so important?
Step 2. Use your overview to narrow down your research subject and make it clearer.
Step 3. Provide evidence to support your thesis statement.
Step 4. Mention your potential opponent’s evidence (if available) based on your overview.
Step 5. Write the thesis statement in such a way that it clearly and concisely summarizes the information you gathered from the first four steps.
Step 6. As you research, write, arrange your main ideas, and think through other supporting ideas in your research paper, you should refine your working thesis statement in the following ways:
Imagine you want to explain to your best friend what your paper is about. You probably won’t give too many unnecessary details. Instead, you will tell everything in simple words and just one sentence:
- From the strongest argument to the weakest one.
- From a general topic to a more specific one.
- From a simple to complex analysis.
- From causes to effects.
❌ Common problems with thesis statement
Revisit your thesis statement to add some controversy and counterarguments to it and improve its logic.
(2 votes)
To prove your main point, you will need some weighty arguments. The main arguments that will be further developed in the project make your thesis statement more persuasive. Here’s what you may say in your paper on social activity of adolescents:
- “Even though peers can sometimes have a bad influence on adolescents, communicating with someone of their age helps young people obtain a feeling of belonging, and social interaction as the central component of personal development improves their self-esteem.”
While the role of cattle in climate change is by now common knowledge, countries like the Netherlands continually fail to confront this issue with the urgency it deserves. The evidence is clear: To create a truly futureproof agricultural sector, Dutch farmers must be incentivized to transition from livestock farming to sustainable vegetable farming. As well as dramatically lowering emissions, plant-based agriculture, if approached in the right way, can produce more food with less land, providing opportunities for nature regeneration areas that will themselves contribute to climate targets. Although this approach would have economic ramifications, from a long-term perspective, it would represent a significant step towards a more sustainable and resilient national economy. Transitioning to sustainable vegetable farming will make the Netherlands greener and healthier, setting an example for other European governments. Farmers, policymakers, and consumers must focus on the future, not just on their own short-term interests, and work to implement this transition now.
The steps below show you how to construct an effective conclusion for either type of research paper.
Finish your paper on a forward-looking note by suggesting how you or other researchers might build on this topic in the future and address any limitations of the current paper.
In a more empirical paper, you can close by either making recommendations for practice (for example, in clinical or policy papers), or suggesting directions for future research.
Research paper conclusion examples
Full examples of research paper conclusions are shown in the tabs below: one for an argumentative paper, the other for an empirical paper.
No, it’s not appropriate to present new arguments or evidence in the conclusion. While you might be tempted to save a striking argument for last, research papers follow a more formal structure than this.
While you are restating a problem you’ve already introduced, you should avoid phrasing it identically to how it appeared in the introduction. Ideally, you’ll find a novel way to circle back to the problem from the more detailed ideas discussed in the body.
As social media becomes increasingly central to young people’s everyday lives, it is important to understand how different platforms affect their developing self-conception. By testing the effect of daily Instagram use among teenage girls, this study established that highly visual social media does indeed have a significant effect on body image concerns, with a strong correlation between the amount of time spent on the platform and participants’ self-reported dissatisfaction with their appearance. However, the strength of this effect was moderated by pre-test self-esteem ratings: Participants with higher self-esteem were less likely to experience an increase in body image concerns after using Instagram. This suggests that, while Instagram does impact body image, it is also important to consider the wider social and psychological context in which this usage occurs: Teenagers who are already predisposed to self-esteem issues may be at greater risk of experiencing negative effects. Future research into Instagram and other highly visual social media should focus on establishing a clearer picture of how self-esteem and related constructs influence young people’s experiences of these platforms. Furthermore, while this experiment measured Instagram usage in terms of time spent on the platform, observational studies are required to gain more insight into different patterns of usage—to investigate, for instance, whether active posting is associated with different effects than passive consumption of social media content.
To write a good conclusion, figure out what the most important facts are and restate them briefly using different words. The conclusion should contain the facts that should be memorable for your reader and emphasize the general idea of your text.
Additionally, instructors still prefer books or printed articles to online sources. Thus, try to use them. If you don’t have any hardcopy books on your topic, use Google to find available scans or electronic copies of them.
After that, carefully check the style in which you have written the main parts of the text while working with the sources. The whole text must be written in one style in order to avoid plagiarism that your professors could notice while reading your work.
Think about the number of paragraphs in your paper and distribute the information you have throughout these paragraphs. This will be the body of your text.
5. Write an Introduction and a Conclusion for the Research Paper
Write the selected sources in your own words to make the paragraphs for the body of your text.
This simple advice can help you, even if you have just one day for your academic paper. However, if you are still unsure how to write a research paper in one day, you can always order it from our research paper services. Our qualified writers can write an assignment fast and professionally. You certainly will be satisfied with it since they can do your work in one day!
After you have completed your research, you can prepare your thesis statement. It should not be too broad because a thesis should show the main problems related to your research. Thus, it should be short and clear. Use our thesis statement generator to save even more time.
After you have done all your work, start checking for mistakes. If you do it in the morning the next day, your mind will be much clearer. This way, you can have a look at your paper from another perspective and find mistakes more productively. While proofreading, get rid of all extra sentences that don’t relate to the main topic, check for grammar and spelling mistakes, and check your citations’ format.
A thesis statement should be provided early in your paper – in the introduction part, or in the second paragraph if your paper is longer. It is impossible to create a thesis statement immediately when you have just started fulfilling your assignment. Before you write a thesis statement together with outline, you should collect, organize and analyze materials and your ideas. You cannot make a finally formulated statement before you have completed your research paper. It’ll naturally change while you develop your ideas.
Sometimes students are asked to submit formal outlines with their research papers. In a formal outline, numbers and letters are used to arrange topics and subtopics. The letters and numbers of the same kind should be placed directly under one another. The topics denoted by their headings and subheadings should be grouped in a logical order.
Make sure your thesis is strong. If you have time and opportunity, show it to your instructor, receive some revision comments, work on improvement of weak points. Otherwise, you may estimate it yourself.
After going through the necessary amount of information, data and literature available on your desired topic, it is time to narrow the research down. It’s not appropriate if chosen issue is very broad as there may be several important aspects within this very theme. It won’t be a good solution to cover them all in one research paper as it’ll turn out vague or generic.
CHECK OUT ONLINE RESOURCES, WEB-BASED INFORMATION SERVICES, OR SPECIAL RESOURCE MATERIALS IN AUDIO FORMAT:
- Outline and explain readers how you interpret research subject.
- Tell readers what to expect from your paper.
- Answer the question you were asked.
- Present your claim which other people may want to dispute.
- Focus group. It is a great method to use if the goal is to obtain a lot of information from a small group of people without much investment in time and money. Just gathering them in one place (typically up to a dozen people) and asking them to provide insights into your research questions is often enough.
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