5 Steps to an "A" on Your Research Paper

In high school, when most of my classmates heard the words "research" and "project" come out of our english teacher's mouth, they would cringe. However, I was quite the opposite; I was excited. I had been waiting all year to write a paper that was not about my thoughts about a political topic or about how I learned a valuble lesson from doing something I was not supposed to do when I was little. The reasearch paper was my chance to inform my fellow class mates about something that I was  interested in without causing an argument because of difference in opinion. Of course in all other papers that I had to write I had to do a little research on the topic, but the research paper was my chance to go into an in depth search of a topic that I desperately wanted to know more about. My research topic was deforestation. I wanted to know why it was such a big deal, and the actual affects it had on the earth. Out of all the papers I had done my senior in compostition, I recieved my highest grade on the research paper which was a 92%.

What helped me to get that good grade on my research paper are theses five steps, that I still use for just about every paper I have to write:

1. Know What Research Is
In order to do a research paper, you have to know what research is. Research is

when you investigate or look for infromation on a certain topic or topics to learn about them.

 

2. Find a Topic

Once you have figured out what exactly research is and how to go about getting your information, you can choose a topic. If your teacher or professor does not assign you a topic, then it is safe to assume that you can pick just about anything you want. Do not just start out looking for one topic, find two or three that you are interested in and pick one from those. In my opinion, it is best to choose from topics that you already have some information on or that you are already itching to know more about. Trying to do a research paper about something you have no idea about can be difficult because if you have no interest in it, I find it is harder to be motivated to look for information.

**Ask your teacher or professor if there are any topics that they recommend not doing because they have seen it about a million times before or they feel it will be to difficult to sift through the mountains of research that is already out there. Some examples my teacher gave me were abortion and global warming.**

 

3. Do Research On Your Topic

You can find information about just about anything nowadays; in books, magazines, published professional journals and of course the internet. It is good to use more than one source to get information because no two sources will have the exact same infromation. If you have trouble finding a good place to start looking for information, a good place to start, if you are still in school, is your school library's website. Most school library websites will have links to different search engines that will help guide you to information about what you are researching.

**If you choose to use the internet as one of your sources, make sure the website has valid and recent information about your topic**

 

4. Organize Your Thoughts

After you have done all your research organize all of your thoughts out on a piece of paper or on the computer. Get all your major points down and put them in the order that they are going to be in in your paper. This can help you so that when you are writing or typing your paper you don't start mixing up your information.

**Make sure you site your sources on a works cited or reference page to avoid plagiarising**

 

5. Write or Type Your Paper

Now that you have found your topic, done your research and organized your thoughts, it is time to write or type your paper. If you know that your paper is going to be lengthy, do not try to do it all at once. Do a couple pages or paragraphs at a time and come back to it later. Otherwse you will start to dread it and start to just put anything in it to get it done.

**When using the computer to type your paper or organize your thoughts, make sure you hit save often so if your computer crashes you will have at least some of your work already saved.**

 

Absolutely DO NOT wait until the last minute to work on this paper. It may seem like it is just like any other paper but it isn't. It takes a lot more time and effort to do this paper. Unless you are a virtuoso on every subject in the universe you need to start working on this paper as soon as it is assigned unless told otherwise by your teacher or professor.