Section 3 writing research papers

Writing a research paper takes a lot of time and effort. It demands a thorough knowledge not only of the subject you are writing about, but also of the strategies for generating, verifying, substantiating and proving ideas. It is necessary to follow the structure, style, format and layout of the paper. The following guidelines will help you by providing a step-by-step explanation of the research-writing process.

1. Gathering Data and Writing Summary Notes

When reading papers written by other authors on the subject that is of interest to you, you must write summary notes. There are two kinds of summary notes.

A summary condenses into a brief note the key ideas of a source. It is a concise description of the material without a lot of concern for details. Summary notes are very helpful when you deal with references to source materials, statistical data and all kinds of facts on your spe­cific topic.

A précis is a polished summary that in a few words expresses the key ideas of an entire paragraph, section, or chapter. Writing a précis proves to be very helpful when you review an article, a book or produce an abstract. To produce a précis, condense the original piece of writing, reducing a paragraph into a sentence, an article into a brief paragraph, a book into a page. Preserve the tone and moods of the original (serious, skeptic, doubtful, etc.), do not take material out of context. Always locate the source of your material.

TASK: Do you ever write summary notes? If not, are you going to start? Write a précis of a paper using the instructions given above.

2. Organizing Ideas

Most papers in various scientific disciplines have a similar organi­zation pattern – Introduction, Body and Conclusion (especially papers on theoretical issues). Research papers based on experiments would include Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion/Conclusions.

When you write a research paper observe the following instructions:

Introduction: identify the subject of your research and narrow it to a specific topic, provide background information, state the problem and the hypothesis of research, provide theoretical basics of the study, formulate the thesis statement/sentence.

Method: describe the subjects/participants of your study, the ap­paratus and equipment used, the procedure followed.

Results: report on your findings, support them with statistical data, diagrams, graphs, tables and figures, etc., note whether your findings are consistent with the advanced hypothesis.

Discussion/Conclusions: evaluate and interpret the results obtained, make inferences from the results, discuss the implications of your findings. You can end your paper with some reflections about the topic discussed, some suggestions for further research.

TASK: When you start writing a paper, will you follow the instruc­tions given above? Will you eliminate or add new elements? Have you consulted your thesis supervisor on this issue? If not, are you going to discuss it with him/her?