Writing Research Papers

Writing a research paper is easier if you approach it as a project with distinct tasks and
a systematic process. This document lays out a sequence of basic tasks involved in
writing a research paper. Use this document as a supplement to Thomason Library’s
research tutorials.

Crafting a Topic
Establish what your paper is about
What exactly will you be researching for the paper? Unless your topic already is chosen
by your professor, you need to decide what will be the main subject matter of your
paper. Knowing what you are and are not interested in will help guide this first step. Find
a topic that interests you and start asking questions about it and reading up on it.

Narrow the scope

A strong research paper will be aggressively limited in its scope, or how big of a topic it
aims to address. “Media and society” is a topic with such a large scope, for example,
that it constitutes an entire field of research — it is a subject area more than a paper
topic. What kind of media, exactly? What aspect of society? When and where? For what
kinds of audiences? These kinds of questions will narrow the scope of your topic.

Formulate a question
Think of your research paper topic as a question you are trying to answer or a problem
you are trying to solve. Some preliminary reading should start to give you a sense for
the kinds of questions to ask. Review your notes from class, too. Has your professor or
other students raised any questions that were not fully discussed? Has the professor
given advice about interesting lines of inquiry? Has a specific class topic stimulated your
interest and made you want to know more?
Doing Research
Use the library to find source material
Start by consulting the Writing Center’s guide to Using Source Material. Thomason
Library gives you access to good source material you can’t find on the Internet. If you
limit your research to Google, you will generate a lot of commercial and for-profit
content, whereas the library’s academic databases will steer your search in the direction
of academic publication and research — precisely what you want to be using in your
research paper. In the library, books, periodicals, bibliographies, and other print
resources will contribute to your research. You should see what the library can access
for your project, either by looking through Research Guides or by talking to an actual
librarian and getting help that way.

Critically evaluate source material before using it

Critically evaluating the credibility of sources you uncover may be the most important
part of research. Once you find source material that seems relevant to your project,
you’ll need to decide if it is credible enough to use. All source material is not created
equally, which means a paper is strong only if the sources on which it relies can
withstand critical scrutiny. An Internet search, for example, can at times lead you to
primary sources and other useful material, but what is more likely is that it will throw in a
mix of outdated content, false claims, hucksterism, and misinformation. By contrast, a
library’s research databases are far less likely to turn up junk source material. Your job
as a researcher is to exercise intelligence and distinguish between material you can use
and material you should ignore.

Here are some questions to ask when critically evaluating a book or other printed
material:
 Questions about the author. Who is it? What are the author’s credentials?
What institution or organization does the author work for? What else has the
author published? What is their public reputation as a scholar?

Questions about the publisher. Is the publisher a university press? University

presses are going to be the most reliable publishers because they hire
professionals to scrutinize everything they publish. Other large publishing houses
(such as Random House) also provide reliable works. If you don’t recognize the
publisher, do a quick Internet search to find out if they are reputable.

Questions about the work. Does the work include a bibliography or list of works
cited? Does the work include footnotes or endnotes that substantiate the author’s
claims?

With Internet sources, ask the questions listed above along with some additional
considerations:

Be skeptical if there is no author. Most authors are proud of their written work
if it is reliable. Internet articles without human authors may be commercially
motivated and/or contain unsubstantiated opinions.

Organizations publish works, too. Sometimes no human is named as an

author because a work has been published by an organization. In this case the
skill to develop is knowing how to determine the organization’s credibility. Often a
.org website will be more reliable than one using a .com domain. Advocacy
organizations tend to publish less objective work than organizations associated
with research centers and universities.

Keep track of source material

Even for short writing assignments it can be hard to keep track of all the sources you
look at. This is why best research practices require precise organization of source
material. If you follow the advice below, your research process will go more smoothly
than if you ignore it:

Use file folders systematically. On your computer, create folders that make
sense according to a system. This means spending time on your computer and
making decisions about files you want to keep together and files you want to
keep separate. If you can see how your files are organized by category and
hierarchy, then it is easier to retrieve files you need and put new files in their right
place.

Use file names systematically. Leverage your computer’s file display settings
so that it shows you the files you want to see in the order you want to see them.
This skill will require you to use similar file names (or file name templates) for
similar kinds of files. Numerical or alphabetical systems may work best.

Use a bookmark manager. If part of your research does require Internet

searches, save site URLs in a bookmark manager. Every web browser provides
a basic system for managing bookmarks. Others can be downloaded or
purchased as applications.

Manage citations accurately. Put Zotero on your computer and use it!
Otherwise, you will need to gather citation information the old fashioned way by
designating a separate document for copying and pasting source citation
information and hyperlinks that will take you back to the original source. Such
documents can later be revised into your bibliography or works cited page, but
Zotero will keep your citations in order and even make works cited pages for you.

Take notes as you go

As you start the paper process by freewriting, working on thesis statements, and
reading up on your topic, make extensive notes along the way. Write extensive notes
while reading source material. Otherwise your thoughts and ideas will not find
expression in a usable form. You should plan on writing many more words than will
actually end up in the final draft of your research paper. It is okay during the early
drafting stage to write notes to yourself and to ask yourself questions in written form. Be
deliberate about writing in full, complete sentences instead of just jotting words and
phrases. See Stage 2: Drafting of The Writing Process.

Writing the Paper

Start formulating a thesis
When you can boil down the central claim of your paper into a single, well-crafted
sentence, you have begun formulating the thesis of your paper. How to word your thesis
can be a tricky task, so don’t expect to figure it out right at the beginning. Consider
using the University of Arizona’s Thesis Generator to help you get started. Once
formulated, the thesis is the bottom line to your whole argument, the road map for your
argument, the backbone of your research. No research paper can succeed without a
precisely-formulated thesis, and no thesis is ready for prime time unless it is specific,
argumentative, and significant.

Make an organizational plan for the paper

Paper plans can take many forms. Outlines, lists, and mapping clusters are widely used
examples. An important consideration when planning your paper is how you are
understanding and writing about relationships between your ideas — what comes first
and why; what comes after that and why; and so on. These relationships are important
because they guide the development of your paper from one idea to the next. Try at first
to make broad connections between your ideas, and then later you can connect and
draw more complex relationships as you come to understand your research topic more.

An effective organizational plan may begin with freewriting that lacks polish and linear
structure. From there the writer goes back through and starts clustering similar ideas
and observations into paragraphs. Connected paragraphs are then placed into different
parts of a document, or even into separate documents. (Drafting software such as
Scrivener gives writers a way to make many separate documents and keep them all in
one file.) Once the main sections of the paper come into focus, they can be mapped out
in outline or storyboard format. Organizational plans don’t materialize all at once. It is
more often the case that they evolve during the research process.

Divide the paper into sections

Research papers in standard academic English are expected to have a distinct
introduction, body, and conclusion. Here are some tips:

Write the introduction last. You may need to write a rough introduction to get
you going, but in most cases a writer doesn’t know exactly what they need to say
in the introduction until after the body of the paper has been written. Once the
body of the paper is finished, then you can write a strong introduction because
you know for sure what will happen in the paper. Avoid the common error of
waiting too long to tell your readers what you want to tell them.

Have a strategy for the introduction. Too many introductions consist of

“throat-clearing,” where a writer winds up and warms up before getting to the
point. Not all introductions need to provide background information. Many strong
introductions hit the ground running. Some common ways to do that are: quickly
explaining what is at stake in the paper; describing a conversation or debate the
writer is engaging; stating the research problem right away or proposing one or
two responses to the problem. Again, it is easier to write a strong introduction
once you have a developed sense for the body of the paper.

Organize the body so your readers can follow. After reading the introduction,
your readers should already have a sense for what the paper is about, what your
position or findings are, and why the paper matters. Since the body of the paper
is where you show your work, it also is where you as the writer can help to
educate your readers about your topic. Take your readers through the project
 step by step and be sure to use subheadings (if allowed in the discipline) that
keep your readers on track. Consider these common organizational structures:
● chronological
● simple to complex
● more familiar to less familiar
● less contestable to more contestable
● more important to less important
● earlier understanding to new or alternative understanding
● general analysis to specific examples or applications
● theoretical framework to case study or critical interpretation

Make the conclusion count. Readers should gain something by reading the
conclusion. Often a recapitulation of the research method and findings, many
conclusions include a discussion section where the writer explains why the
research is important, or perhaps acknowledges some limitations or potential
problems that other writers may want to address. In some fields in the
humanities, it is increasingly acceptable for the writer to formulate a call to action
that follows from the paper’s findings or main argument.

Adhere to your discipline’s citation style

Different academic displines use different citation styles, so you want to make sure you
are using the citation style that is expected for the assignment you’re working on. The
Internet is full of citation guides, instructions, and templates. Some are better than
others, and it is easy to get overwhelmed by the volume of information about citing
sources. Use these links for guidance on correct citation style:

Thomason Library Citation Guide

Purdue OWL
References
Booth, Wayne C. and Gregory G. Colomb. The Craft of Research. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 2008.

Dr. Philip Perdue

Presbyterian College Writing Center
Fall 2023

This document is adapted from a 2015 version produced by Allison Cooke and published on the PC
Writing Center website.