How to Write a Research Paper with These Efficient Techniques

As you move ahead to pursue a professional education, you go through different tasks and practical work. One of the assignments that you may deal with will be writing a research paper. While it is very similar to writing an academic essay, some technicalities vary.

So, knowing how to write a research paper is essential to demonstrate strong knowledge about the topic. Here, you will know everything about writing a research paper.

Part 1. What is a Research Paper?

A research paper is an academic writing assignment providing details, analysis, argument, and interpretation according to in-depth research on a specific topic. When you write a research paper, the main goal is to demonstrate a good understanding and strong knowledge of your research topic.

Additionally, bringing something original and new while engaging with multiple sources is necessary. So, academic writing with a lot of research on some topic, combining the research with your ideas, and ultimately proposing some deduction from your findings is a research paper.

Part 2. Research Paper VS Essay Writing

An essay and a research paper are both academic writing assignments. These share many similarities in writing style and sections like an introduction, conclusion, references, and several other factors. However, the information and the basic idea of presenting knowledge are different. We usually express our ideas and thoughts to support or contradict an argument in an essay.

In fact, an essay is more like telling a story with some descriptive knowledge, and these have multiple formats that a writer can follow. On the other side, research papers rely solely on information taken from a previous research paper or new research work done for the sake of this paper.

As these focus more on research and data, there are 2 main types of research papers which are qualitative and quantitative.

Part 3. Tools to Write Research Paper

Research papers can be written individually, as a team, or in the supervision of a senior professional. Before you publish your research paper, it needs a lot of work to be done; for that, you may require multiple tools. While you write the research paper, here are the top 3 tools you can use to enhance efficiency.

1. UPDF

The most important and beneficial tool that you can use is UPDF. A research paper is usually published in PDF format because the PDF format ensures the same great experience on every device. It does not change the formatting of your content as a document would.

However, sometimes you may need to edit something in your research paper. Instead of editing a document that takes too long to reformat, you can use UPDF to make all the edits in PDF in real time. UPDF is packed with PDF editing and creating features like:

• Real-time text editing without worrying about font style, size, etc.
• Annotations and highlighting features.
• Adding images.
• Page organization within the PDF file without disturbing the formatting.
• Conversion from image or scanned files to editable Text in PDF file with OCR.
• Protect your PDF files with a password.
• Share PDF files via a link, QR code, or email.

Along with all these features, it comes with support for Mac, iOS, Android, and Windows computers.

2. MS Word

A document editing tool is the easiest way to gather ideas and format your research paper file. Document editing tools also bring features like adding citations which make completing the research paper very quick. When selecting MS Word, going with Office 365 offers a variety of collaboration tools that you can use to work on your research paper in collaboration with supervisors, professors, and team members. MS Word is also packed with features, including:

• Online and offline usage.
• 1TB online cloud storage.
• Desktop and mobile apps.
• Ad-free experience in both online and offline versions.
• Built-in grammar and spelling checking tool.

3. Zotero

It is open-source software that helps users collect and organize all their research content to write the research paper. While you cannot work on everything with one document only, Zotero enables your team to collaborate remotely while sharing all the files. Zotero is packed with collaboration features, including:

• Save PDFs with one click.
• Automatic detection of institutional proxy
• Language selection option for Bibliography
• Google Docs integration
• 300MB free file storage

Also Read: 6 Best Essay Writing Apps Every Student Needs

Part 4. How to Write a Research Paper?

While writing a research paper may seem similar to writing an academic essay, it is much more complex. Many ideas are a part of your search paper, with information backing each argument. So, research papers are much longer than an essay.

However, if you create a roadmap for writing the research paper, things will be much simpler. If you understand the answers to all the questions below, you already know how to write a research paper and can start immediately.

Q1. How to Start a Research Paper?

The first step is key to setting a solid base for your research paper. This phase also requires the most work and brainstorming since you don't have a roadmap. To start a research paper, you need to work on finding the topic and its relevant data. Additionally, you must confirm your main line for the research paper since it will derive the whole research process. So, when starting your research paper, you can divide it into 3 steps below:

Step 1. Choose Research Paper Direction and Topic

Whenever you are assigned to write a research paper, you get a list of topics to select from. In some cases, you have to provide the topic yourself. So, you start by looking for the right topic for your research paper.

For instance, if you specialize in Machine Learning, your research paper topic can be Machine Learning applications in Cancer diagnosis and treatment. Here the direction of your research paper will be toward its application in the health sector specifically in cancer.

Step 2. Make Research on the Topic

After you select the topic and direction of the paper, you need to start doing your research. Find as many sources as possible, including scholarly articles, research papers, and anything else your supervisor allows as research material. This research will define what type of outline you create and how you write the whole research paper.

Step 3. Make Sure Your Main Line for The Research Paper

The main line of your research paper also defines how you will write your research paper. So, before creating an outline, conduct research, create your main line, and get it approved by your supervisor. The main line is also known as the thesis statement, and it is the central argument that defines the purpose of your research paper.

Q2. How to Write Outline for Research Paper

Knowing how to create your outline is essential. The outline of your research paper divides this huge assignment into smaller sections and eases the writing process. The outline includes the following:

• Topics
• Arguments
• Evidence

All these are usually headings, and stating them before starting your research paper creates a rough roadmap that you can follow. Without an outline, you will not have any map to follow, so that the writing process may get complex.

Q3. What is a Research Paper Format?

In a research paper format, you will write all the information. For example, your research paper instructions may ask you to write in APA style format, and this format contains:

• Title page
• Introduction
• Abstract
• Methods
• Results section
• Discussion
• References
• Figures
• Tables
• Appendix

All of these are part of the format you follow, which can vary between different formats.

Q4. What Can You Get from Good Research Paper Examples?

Good research paper examples are those research papers that have already been worked on and are published now. For example, some good research papers are:

• Social Problems
• Cancer Research
• Communication Research

Going through such good examples can benefit you in multiple ways like the following:

• You get to know the right way to follow the formatting.
• A good research paper makes understanding your assignment easy.
• You already know all the requirements, and meeting them becomes easier.
• There are several ideas that you can take as inspiration from good examples.

Q5. How to Write a Research Paper Introduction?

After the title and thesis statement, the most important part of your research paper is the introduction. It is because it addresses the 3 most important questions: what, why, and how? So, whenever a reader finishes reading your research paper's introduction, they have a good understanding of what the whole research paper addresses. To write a good research paper, you may follow these steps:

1. Start by writing the background and key concepts of your research paper. These will address the “What” aspect.
2. Now discuss brief answers to the questions like what new information you offer in the research paper and what issues you may be resolving. It addresses the "Why" section.
3. Lastly, give the reader an idea of how you will conduct your research. Give a small map of the whole research paper, and it will address the "How" section.

Q6. How to Write a Good Main Body for a Research Paper?

As your reader gets attentive because of your introduction, you must write a compelling body according to the outline. This body will discuss detailed information about everything you decided in the thesis statement and discuss it in the introduction. One way to write a good body is:

• Finding thesis sentences against your thesis statements
• Arranging all the ideas according to the outline
• Converting your ideas into words and arranging everything in the logical ordering of paragraphs

Note: Refrain from creating sections or paragraphs that repeat the same information.

Q7. How to Write a Conclusion for a Research Paper?

You need to give all your findings to the reader in a quick form, and that's what the conclusion section is for. The conclusion gives a reader a sense of finality, and to write a conclusion, you can:

• Trace how your research came together against the thesis statement.
• Present your findings in a way that you have successfully settled the issues from the introduction section.
• Include the general research sequence and consequences faced.
• End the conclusion with an outline of the future of the research.

Also, make sure that you are never concluding too long. Also, never raise new arguments.

Q8. How to Make Your Research Paper Better?

All the questions and their answers discussed above help you write your research paper. However, that is just the initial draft, and it still needs a lot of improvements. To improve your research paper:

• Use multiple grammar-checking tools to ensure there are no mistakes.
• Ask for suggestions from the supervisor or professor to make any changes.
• Revise the whole research paper yourself to remove any unnecessary or misleading information.

With that, your research paper is complete after all the revisions. Writing a research paper is not easy since it is long and involves multiple ideas from multiple sources. So, it is only possible to write a good research paper after creating a roadmap for yourself and following it. The way to create and follow that roadmap was elaborated in 8 different sections as questions here. Hence, you can also follow the same process to write your research paper.

Final Words

A research paper is important in your professional education, so knowing how to write a research paper matters a lot. If you didn't know the right way to start with your research paper, we hope that this guide is helpful enough and you have the roadmap in your mind now.

However, before you begin, you must gain access to all the tools you will be using here. For example, for your PDF editing requirements while writing the research paper, UPDF will be an excellent choice.