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How professors grade a research paper.

This sheet is designed for grading research papers. Scores range from 1 (low) to 5 (high).

Higher Order Concerns

What’s working: tell the writer the best features of his or her text here

Focus 1 2 3 4 5

A focus is the thesis or main point of your writing. Is it clear? Is the whole paper on the focus? Write out the focus right here.

Development

Development refers to the support you give your focus.

Comprehensiveness 1 2 3 4 5

Are there enough quotes, paraphrases, examples, inferences, reasoning, opinions, forecasts? Has the writer given a reasonable number of sources to be comprehensive on this subject for this assignment?

Background Information 1 2 3 4 5

Has the writer from the beginning of the paper introduced the research cited appropriately (i.e. full name, year of book/article, general goals of research, context for research)? Do any definitions or histories need to be given before the body of the paper begins?

Integration of Sources 1 2 3 4 5

How well has the writer paraphrased and quoted so that the voice of the writer, not the sources, guides the text? Is the in-text citation done well?

Audience Adaptation 1 2 3 4 5

Is the text written for a college-level audience with appropriate vocabulary and length of explanations? Are appropriate materials explained well? Some potential problems occur when writers write seemingly for themselves without addressing an audience (and the text can be too personal or informal), or sometimes writers address only experts, making the text too dense and short.

Argument 1 2 3 4 5

If the writer presents an argument, is it a full one? Does it lack any information? Does the argument follow through to a conclusion? Does it include a rebuttal? Is the rebuttal a fair one? Has the writer respectfully treated the views of all sides?

Organization 1 2 3 4 5

Has the writer organized or structured the paper in the way that the discipline suggests? That is, if it is a lab report, does it adhere to the proper structure? If an argumentative essay, is it organized to present an argument? Can the reader follow individual paragraphs—are they well organized? Does the writer use meta-discourse (language about language) to direct the reader through the text?

Lower Order Concerns

Style 1 2 3 4 5.

Style can be considered in terms of sentence patterns and diction. Are the sentence patterns varied or all the same? Variety produces more interesting reading. Is the diction appropriate for a college-level assignment? Is the diction appropriate for the discipline? Has the writer included too many informal elements (e.g. cliché, contractions, the use of you or I, informal diction)?

Mechanics 1 2 3 4 5

Mechanics refer to punctuation, spelling and grammar. Could the writer benefit from a brush up on some grammatical points? Could the writer learn new punctuation strategies?

Return to WAC index

How To Write A Research Paper

Step-By-Step Tutorial With Examples + FREE Template

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Expert Reviewer: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | March 2024

For many students, crafting a strong research paper from scratch can feel like a daunting task – and rightly so! In this post, we’ll unpack what a research paper is, what it needs to do , and how to write one – in three easy steps. 🙂

Overview: Writing A Research Paper

What (exactly) is a research paper.

How to write a research paper
Stage 1 : Topic & literature search
Stage 2 : Structure & outline
Stage 3 : Iterative writing
Key takeaways

Let’s start by asking the most important question, “ What is a research paper? ”.

Simply put, a research paper is a scholarly written work where the writer (that’s you!) answers a specific question (this is called a research question ) through evidence-based arguments . Evidence-based is the keyword here. In other words, a research paper is different from an essay or other writing assignments that draw from the writer’s personal opinions or experiences. With a research paper, it’s all about building your arguments based on evidence (we’ll talk more about that evidence a little later).

Now, it’s worth noting that there are many different types of research papers , including analytical papers (the type I just described), argumentative papers, and interpretative papers. Here, we’ll focus on analytical papers , as these are some of the most common – but if you’re keen to learn about other types of research papers, be sure to check out the rest of the blog .

With that basic foundation laid, let’s get down to business and look at how to write a research paper .

Overview: The 3-Stage Process

While there are, of course, many potential approaches you can take to write a research paper, there are typically three stages to the writing process. So, in this tutorial, we’ll present a straightforward three-step process that we use when working with students at Grad Coach.

These three steps are:

Finding a research topic and reviewing the existing literature
Developing a provisional structure and outline for your paper, and
Writing up your initial draft and then refining it iteratively

Let’s dig into each of these.

Need a helping hand?

Step 1: Find a topic and review the literature

As we mentioned earlier, in a research paper, you, as the researcher, will try to answer a question . More specifically, that’s called a research question , and it sets the direction of your entire paper. What’s important to understand though is that you’ll need to answer that research question with the help of high-quality sources – for example, journal articles, government reports, case studies, and so on. We’ll circle back to this in a minute.

The first stage of the research process is deciding on what your research question will be and then reviewing the existing literature (in other words, past studies and papers) to see what they say about that specific research question. In some cases, your professor may provide you with a predetermined research question (or set of questions). However, in many cases, you’ll need to find your own research question within a certain topic area.

Finding a strong research question hinges on identifying a meaningful research gap – in other words, an area that’s lacking in existing research. There’s a lot to unpack here, so if you wanna learn more, check out the plain-language explainer video below.

Once you’ve figured out which question (or questions) you’ll attempt to answer in your research paper, you’ll need to do a deep dive into the existing literature – this is called a “ literature search ”. Again, there are many ways to go about this, but your most likely starting point will be Google Scholar .

If you’re new to Google Scholar, think of it as Google for the academic world. You can start by simply entering a few different keywords that are relevant to your research question and it will then present a host of articles for you to review. What you want to pay close attention to here is the number of citations for each paper – the more citations a paper has, the more credible it is (generally speaking – there are some exceptions, of course).

Ideally, what you’re looking for are well-cited papers that are highly relevant to your topic. That said, keep in mind that citations are a cumulative metric , so older papers will often have more citations than newer papers – just because they’ve been around for longer. So, don’t fixate on this metric in isolation – relevance and recency are also very important.

Beyond Google Scholar, you’ll also definitely want to check out academic databases and aggregators such as Science Direct, PubMed, JStor and so on. These will often overlap with the results that you find in Google Scholar, but they can also reveal some hidden gems – so, be sure to check them out.

Once you’ve worked your way through all the literature, you’ll want to catalogue all this information in some sort of spreadsheet so that you can easily recall who said what, when and within what context. If you’d like, we’ve got a free literature spreadsheet that helps you do exactly that.

Don’t fixate on an article’s citation count in isolation - relevance (to your research question) and recency are also very important.

Step 2: Develop a structure and outline

With your research question pinned down and your literature digested and catalogued, it’s time to move on to planning your actual research paper .

It might sound obvious, but it’s really important to have some sort of rough outline in place before you start writing your paper. So often, we see students eagerly rushing into the writing phase, only to land up with a disjointed research paper that rambles on in multiple

Now, the secret here is to not get caught up in the fine details . Realistically, all you need at this stage is a bullet-point list that describes (in broad strokes) what you’ll discuss and in what order. It’s also useful to remember that you’re not glued to this outline – in all likelihood, you’ll chop and change some sections once you start writing, and that’s perfectly okay. What’s important is that you have some sort of roadmap in place from the start.

You need to have a rough outline in place before you start writing your paper - or you’ll end up with a disjointed research paper that rambles on.

At this stage you might be wondering, “ But how should I structure my research paper? ”. Well, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution here, but in general, a research paper will consist of a few relatively standardised components:

Introduction
Literature review
Methodology

Let’s take a look at each of these.

First up is the introduction section . As the name suggests, the purpose of the introduction is to set the scene for your research paper. There are usually (at least) four ingredients that go into this section – these are the background to the topic, the research problem and resultant research question , and the justification or rationale. If you’re interested, the video below unpacks the introduction section in more detail.

The next section of your research paper will typically be your literature review . Remember all that literature you worked through earlier? Well, this is where you’ll present your interpretation of all that content . You’ll do this by writing about recent trends, developments, and arguments within the literature – but more specifically, those that are relevant to your research question . The literature review can oftentimes seem a little daunting, even to seasoned researchers, so be sure to check out our extensive collection of literature review content here .

With the introduction and lit review out of the way, the next section of your paper is the research methodology . In a nutshell, the methodology section should describe to your reader what you did (beyond just reviewing the existing literature) to answer your research question. For example, what data did you collect, how did you collect that data, how did you analyse that data and so on? For each choice, you’ll also need to justify why you chose to do it that way, and what the strengths and weaknesses of your approach were.

Now, it’s worth mentioning that for some research papers, this aspect of the project may be a lot simpler . For example, you may only need to draw on secondary sources (in other words, existing data sets). In some cases, you may just be asked to draw your conclusions from the literature search itself (in other words, there may be no data analysis at all). But, if you are required to collect and analyse data, you’ll need to pay a lot of attention to the methodology section. The video below provides an example of what the methodology section might look like.

By this stage of your paper, you will have explained what your research question is, what the existing literature has to say about that question, and how you analysed additional data to try to answer your question. So, the natural next step is to present your analysis of that data . This section is usually called the “results” or “analysis” section and this is where you’ll showcase your findings.

Depending on your school’s requirements, you may need to present and interpret the data in one section – or you might split the presentation and the interpretation into two sections. In the latter case, your “results” section will just describe the data, and the “discussion” is where you’ll interpret that data and explicitly link your analysis back to your research question. If you’re not sure which approach to take, check in with your professor or take a look at past papers to see what the norms are for your programme.

Alright – once you’ve presented and discussed your results, it’s time to wrap it up . This usually takes the form of the “ conclusion ” section. In the conclusion, you’ll need to highlight the key takeaways from your study and close the loop by explicitly answering your research question. Again, the exact requirements here will vary depending on your programme (and you may not even need a conclusion section at all) – so be sure to check with your professor if you’re unsure.

Step 3: Write and refine

Finally, it’s time to get writing. All too often though, students hit a brick wall right about here… So, how do you avoid this happening to you?

Well, there’s a lot to be said when it comes to writing a research paper (or any sort of academic piece), but we’ll share three practical tips to help you get started.

First and foremost , it’s essential to approach your writing as an iterative process. In other words, you need to start with a really messy first draft and then polish it over multiple rounds of editing. Don’t waste your time trying to write a perfect research paper in one go. Instead, take the pressure off yourself by adopting an iterative approach.

Secondly , it’s important to always lean towards critical writing , rather than descriptive writing. What does this mean? Well, at the simplest level, descriptive writing focuses on the “ what ”, while critical writing digs into the “ so what ” – in other words, the implications. If you’re not familiar with these two types of writing, don’t worry! You can find a plain-language explanation here.

Last but not least, you’ll need to get your referencing right. Specifically, you’ll need to provide credible, correctly formatted citations for the statements you make. We see students making referencing mistakes all the time and it costs them dearly. The good news is that you can easily avoid this by using a simple reference manager . If you don’t have one, check out our video about Mendeley, an easy (and free) reference management tool that you can start using today.

Recap: Key Takeaways

We’ve covered a lot of ground here. To recap, the three steps to writing a high-quality research paper are:

To choose a research question and review the literature
To plan your paper structure and draft an outline
To take an iterative approach to writing, focusing on critical writing and strong referencing

Remember, this is just a b ig-picture overview of the research paper development process and there’s a lot more nuance to unpack. So, be sure to grab a copy of our free research paper template to learn more about how to write a research paper.

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College Info Geek

How to Write a Killer Research Paper (Even If You Hate Writing)

C.I.G. is supported in part by its readers. If you buy through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Read more here.

Research papers.

Unless you’re a weirdo like me, you probably dread them. When I was in college, depending on the class, I even dreaded these.

It’s the sort of project that can leave even the most organized student quaking in their boots, staring at the assignment like they’re Luke Skywalker and it’s the Death Star.

You have to pick a broad topic, do some in-depth research, hone in on a research question, and then present your answer to that question in an interesting way. Oh, and you have to use citations, too.

How on earth are you supposed to tackle this thing?

Fear not, for even the Death Star had weaknesses. With a well-devised plan, some courage, and maybe a little help from a few midichlorians, you can conquer your research paper, too.

Let’s get started.

1. Pick a Topic

And pick one that interests you. This is not up for debate.

You and this topic are going to be spending a lot of time together, so you might as well pick something you like, or, at the very least, have a vague interest in. Even if you hate the class, there’s probably at least one topic that you’re curious about.

Maybe you want to write about “mental health in high schools” for your paper in your education class. That’s a good start, but take a couple steps to hone your idea a little further so you have an idea of what to research. Here’s a couple of factors to look at when you want to get more specific:

Timeframe : What are the most important mental health issues for high schoolers that have come up in the last five years?
Location : How does the mental health of students in your area compare to students in the next state (or country) over?
Culture or Group : How does the mental health of inner-city students compare to those in the suburbs or places like Silicon Valley?
Solution : If schools were to make one change to high schools to improve the well-being of their students, what would be most effective, and why?

It’s good to be clear about what you’re researching, but make sure you don’t box yourself into a corner. Try to avoid being too local (if the area is a small town, for example), or too recent, as there may not be enough research conducted to support an entire paper on the subject.

Also, avoid super analytical or technical topics that you think you’ll have a hard time writing about (unless that’s the assignment…then jump right into all the technicalities you want).

You’ll probably need to do some background research and possibly brainstorm with your professor before you can identify a topic that’s specialized enough for your paper.

At the very least, skim the Encyclopedia Britannica section on your general area of interest. Your professor is another resource: use them! They’re probably more than happy to point you in the direction of a possible research topic.

Of course, this is going to be highly dependent on your class and the criteria set forth by your professor, so make sure you read your assignment and understand what it’s asking for. If you feel the assignment is unclear, don’t go any further without talking to your professor about it.

2. Create a Clear Thesis Statement

Say it with me: a research paper without a thesis question or statement is just a fancy book report.

All research papers fall under three general categories: analytical, expository, or argumentative.

Analytical papers present an analysis of information (effects of stress on the human brain)
Expository papers seek to explain something (Julius Caesar’s rise to power)
Argumentative papers are trying to prove a point (Dumbledore shouldn’t be running a school for children).

So figure out what sort of paper you’d like to write, and then come up with a viable thesis statement or question.

Maybe it starts out looking like this:

Julius Caesar’s rise to power was affected by three major factors.

Ok, not bad. You could probably write a paper based on this. But it’s not great , either. It’s not specific, neither is it arguable . You’re not really entering any sort of discussion.

Maybe you rework it a little to be more specific and you get:

Julius Caesar’s quick rise to power was a direct result of a power vacuum and social instability created by years of war and internal political corruption.

Better. Now you can actually think about researching it.

Every good thesis statement has three important qualities: it’s focused , it picks a side , and it can be backed up with research .

If you’re missing any of these qualities, you’re gonna have a bad time. Avoid vague modifier words like “positive” and “negative.” Instead use precise, strong language to formulate your argument.

Take this thesis statement for example:

“ High schools should stop assigning so much homework, because it has a negative impact on students’ lives.”

Sure, it’s arguable…but only sort of . It’s pretty vague. We don’t really know what is meant by “negative”, other than “generically bad”. Before you get into the research, you have to define your argument a little more.

Revised Version:

“ High schools in the United States should assign less homework, as lower workloads improve students’ sleep, stress levels, and, surprisingly, their grades.”

When in doubt, always look at your thesis and ask, “Is this arguable?” Is there something you need to prove ? If not, then your thesis probably isn’t strong enough. If yes, then as long as you can actually prove it with your research, you’re golden.

Good thesis statements give you a clear goal. You know exactly what you’re looking for, and you know exactly where you’re going with the paper. Try to be as specific and clear as possible. That makes the next step a lot easier:

3. Hit the Books

So you have your thesis, you know what you’re looking for. It’s time to actually go out and do some real research. By real research, I mean more than a quick internet search or a quick skim through some weak secondary or tertiary sources.

If you’ve chosen a thesis you’re a little unsteady on, a preliminary skim through Google is fine, but make sure you go the extra mile. Some professors will even have a list of required resources (e.g. “Three academic articles, two books, one interview…etc).

It’s a good idea to start by heading to the library and asking your local librarian for help (they’re usually so excited to help you find things!).

Check your school library for research papers and books on the topic. Look for primary sources, such as journals, personal records, or contemporary newspaper articles when you can find them.

As you’re starting your research, create some kind of system for filing helpful quotes, links, and other sources. I preferred it to all be on one text document on my computer, but you could try a physical file, too.

In this text document, I start compiling a list of all the sources I’m using. It tends to look like this:

Remember that at this point, your thesis isn’t solid. It’s still in a semi-squishy state. If your research starts to strongly contradict your thesis, then come up with a new thesis, revise, and keep on compiling quotes.

The more support you can find, the better. Depending on how long your paper is, you should have 3-10 different sources, with all sorts of quotes between them.

Here are some good places to look for reputable sources:

Google Scholar
Sites ending in .edu, .org, or .gov. While it’s not a rule, these sites tend to represent organizations, and they are more likely to be reputable than your run-of-the-mill .com sites
Your school library. It should have a section for articles and newspapers as well as books
Your school’s free academic database
Online encyclopedias like Britannica
Online almanacs and other databases

As you read, analyze your sources closely, and take good notes . Jot down general observations, questions, and answers to those questions when you find them. Once you have a sizable stack of research notes, it’s time to start organizing your paper.

4. Write an Outline

Even if you normally feel confident writing a paper without one, use an outline when you’re working on a research paper.

Outlines basically do all the heavy lifting for you when it comes to writing. They keep you organized and on track. Even if you feel tempted to just jump in and brain-dump, resist. You’ll thank me later.

Here’s how to structure an outline:

You’ll notice it’s fairly concise, and it has three major parts: the introduction , the body , and the conclusion . Also notice that I haven’t bothered to organize my research too much.

I’ve just dumped all the relevant citations under the headings I think they’ll end up under, so I can put in my quotes from my research document later as they fit into the overall text.

Let’s get a little more in-depth with this:

The Introduction

The introduction is made up of two main parts: the thesis and the introduction to the supporting points. This is where you essentially tell your reader exactly what sort of wild ride they’re in for if they read on.

It’s all about preparing your reader’s mind to start thinking about your argument or question before you even really get started.

Present your thesis and your supporting points clearly and concisely. It should be no longer than a paragraph or two. Keep it simple and easy to read.

Body Paragraphs

Okay, now that you’ve made your point, it’s time to prove it. This is where your body paragraphs come in. The length of this is entirely dependent on the criteria set by your professor, so keep that in mind.

However, as a rule, you should have at least three supporting points to help defend, prove, or explain your thesis. Put your weakest point first, and your strongest point last.

This doesn’t need a lot of outlining. Basically, take your introduction outline and copy it over. Your conclusion should be about a paragraph long, and it should summarize your main points and restate your thesis.

There’s also another key component to this outline example that I haven’t touched on yet:

Research and Annotations

Some people like to write first, and annotate later. Personally, I like to get my quotes and annotations in right at the start of the writing process.

I find the rest of the paper goes more smoothly, and it’s easier to ensure that I’ve compiled enough support for my claim. That way, I don’t go through all the work of writing the paper, only to discover that my thesis doesn’t actually hold any water!

As a general rule, it’s good to have at least 3-5 sources for every supporting point. Whenever you make a claim in your paper, you should support it with evidence.

Some professors are laxer on this, and some are more stringent. Make sure you understand your assignment requirements really, really, really well. You don’t want to get marked down for missing the correct number of sources!

At this stage, you should also be sure of what sort of format your professor is looking for (APA, MLA, etc.) , as this will save you a lot of headache later.

When I was in college, some professors wanted in-text parenthetical citations whenever I made a claim or used my research at all. Others only wanted citations at the end of a paragraph. And others didn’t mind in-text citations at all, so long as you had a bibliography at the end of your entire paper.

So, go through your outline and start inserting your quotes and citations now. Count them up. If you need more, then add them. If you think you have enough (read: your claims are so supported that even Voldemort himself couldn’t scare them), then move on to the next step:

5. Write the First Draft

Time to type this thing up. If you created a strong enough outline, this should be a breeze. Most of it should already be written for you. All you have to do at this point is fill it in. You’ve successfully avoided the initial blank-screen panic .

Don’t worry too much about grammar or prose quality at this point. It’s the rough draft, and it’s not supposed to see the light of day.

I find it helpful to highlight direct quotes, summaries, paraphrases, and claims as I put them in. This helps me ensure that I never forget to cite any of them.

So, do what you’ve gotta do . Go to a studious place or create one , put on an awesome playlist, close your social media apps, and get the work done.

Once you’ve gotten the gist of your paper down, the real work begins:

6. Revise Your Draft

Okay, now that you’ve word-vomited everywhere in a semi-organized fashion, it’s time to start building this thing into a cohesive paper. If you took the time to outline properly, then this part shouldn’t be too difficult.

Every paper has two editing stages:the developmental edit , and the line edit.

The developmental edit (the first one, at least) is for your eyes only. This is the part where you take a long, hard look at your paper and ask yourself, “Does this make sense, and does it accomplish what I want it to accomplish?” If it does, then great. If it doesn’t, then how can you rearrange or change it so that it does?

Here are a few good questions to ask yourself at this stage:

Is the paper well-organized, and does it have a logical flow of thought from paragraph to paragraph?
Does your thesis hold up to the three criteria listed earlier? Is it well supported by your research and arguments?
Have you checked that all your sources are properly cited?
How repetitive is the paper? Can you get rid of superlative points or language to tighten up your argument?

Once you’ve run the paper through this process at least once, it’s time for the line edit . This is the part where you check for punctuation, spelling, and grammar errors.

It helps to let your paper sit overnight, and then read it out loud to yourself, or the cat, or have a friend read it. Often, our brains know what we “meant” to say, and it’s difficult for us to catch small grammatical or spelling errors.

Here are a couple more final questions to ask yourself before you call it a day:

Have you avoided filler words , adverbs , and passive voice as much as possible?
Have you checked for proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation? Spell-checker software is pretty adept these days, but it still isn’t perfect.

If you need help editing your paper, and your regular software just isn’t cutting it, Grammarly is a good app for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Chrome that goes above and beyond your run-of-the-mill spell-checker. It looks for things like sentence structure and length, as well as accidental plagiarism and passive tense.

7. Organize Your Sources

The paper’s written, but it’s not over. You’ve still got to create the very last page: the “works cited” or bibliography page.

Now, this page works a little differently depending on what style your professor has asked you to use, and it can get pretty confusing, as different types of sources are formatted completely differently.

The most important thing to ensure here is that every single source, whether big or small, is on this page before you turn your paper in. If you forget to cite something, or don’t cite it properly, you run the risk of plagiarism.

I got through college by using a couple of different tools to format it for me. Here are some absolute life-savers:

EasyBib – I literally used this tool all throughout college to format my citations for me, it does all the heavy lifting for you, and it’s free .
Microsoft Word – I honestly never touched Microsoft Word throughout my college years, but it actually has a tool that will create citations and bibliographies for you, so it’s worth using if you have it on your computer.

Onwards: One Step at a Time

I leave you with this parting advice:

Once you understand the method, research papers really aren’t as difficult as they seem. Sure, there’s a lot to do, but don’t be daunted. Just take it step by step, piece by piece, and give yourself plenty of time. Take frequent breaks, stay organized, and never, ever, ever forget to cite your sources. You can do this!

Looking for tools to make the writing process easier? Check out our list of the best writing apps .

Image Credits: featured

How to Do Research With a Professor

By jason eisner (2012).

This is a bit of advice for lucky students who get to do research with a professor.

Take this opportunity seriously. Either you make it your top priority, or you don't do it at all. That's the message. Read the rest of the page if you want to know why and how.

Why This Webpage?

I'd find it awkward to say these things directly to a nice undergrad or master's student I was starting to work with. It would feel like talking down to them, whereas I like my research collaborators—however junior—to talk with me comfortably as equals, have fun, and come up with half the ideas.

Still, it's important to understand up front what the pressures are on faculty-student collaborations. So here are some things to bear in mind.

How the Professor Sees It

[If the professor is female/male, click here .]

Your research advisor doesn't get much credit for working with junior students, and would find it easier and safer to work with senior students. It's just that someone gave him/her a chance once: that's how he/she ended up where he/she is today. He/She'd like to pay that debt forward.

But should it be paid forward to you ? Choosing you represents a substantial commitment on your advisor's part, and a vote of confidence in you.

Time Investment

The hours that your advisor spends with you, one-on-one, are hours that he/she no longer has available for

So he/she does expect that you'll pay him/her back, by working as hard as he/she did when he/she got his/her chance.

Research Agenda Investment

Your advisor is not only devoting time to you, but taking a risk. You are being entrusted with part of his/her research agenda. The goal is to make new discoveries and publish them on schedule. If you drop the ball, then your advisor and others in the lab will miss important publication deadlines, or will get scooped by researchers elsewhere, or will be unable to take the next step that was depending on you.

So, don't start doing research with the idea that it's something "extra" that may or may not work out. This is not an advanced course that you can just drop or do poorly in. Unless your advisor agrees otherwise, you are a critical player in the mission—you have a responsibility not to let others down. Remember, someone is taking a chance on you.

Opportunity Cost

I heard once that your boyfriend or girlfriend will ask increasingly tough questions as your relationship ages:

Your advisor may also ask these questions. At first, he/she'll be happy that he/she attracted a smart student to work on a problem that needed working on. But he/she may sour if he/she comes to feel that he/she's wasting his/her time on you, or would have been wiser to assign the project to someone else.

What Do You Get Out Of It?

You too are giving up time from your other activities (including classwork!) to do this. So what do you get out of it?

Most important, you get research experience. This is exceptionally important if you are considering doing a Ph.D.

The Ph.D. puts you on a track to focus on research for the next 5+ years and possibly for your whole life. Are you sure you want to get married to research? Maybe, but try dating research first before you commit.

Ph.D. programs are looking for students who are already proven researchers. Grades are not so strongly correlated with research success. The most crucial part of your application is letters from one or more credible faculty who can attest—with lots of supporting detail—that you have the creativity, intelligence, enthusiasm, productivity, technical background, and interpersonal and intrapersonal skills to do a great Ph.D. with your future advisor.

A good friend of mine in college was taken under the wing of a senior professor in a different department. She was a demanding taskmaster, and my friend ended up spending much more time working in her lab than he expected. But it changed his life. She insisted that he apply to grad school in her field, and she got him accepted to a top Ph.D. program. He became a professor and is now the chairman of a department at a highly respected school, where he enjoys doing research with his own undergraduates.

Even if you are not considering a Ph.D., you will learn a great deal from working closely with a professor. Often you may be working with the world's leading expert on a particular topic— that's the main criterion for tenure here. (So our tenured faculty have passed this bar at some point, and most of our untenured faculty are successfully building a case that they will do so.)

Students don't always realize how respected and innovative our faculty are within their own subfields, but that's why you chose to attend a highly-ranked research university. Your advisor may or may not be a great classroom teacher, but he/she has shown himself/herself to be extremely good at working with graduate students to produce papers that advance the field. What you'll learn from doing that is quite different from what you'll learn in the classroom.

What You Can Do to Succeed

Here's some basic advice targeted at new research students. There are also many webpages about how to be a "good grad student," which should also be useful to undergrads doing research.

Time Commitment

Make plenty of room. In order to make research your first priority, you may need to reduce your courseload or extracurriculars. This is worth discussing with both your academic advisor and your research advisor.

Find out what the deadlines are. For example, there may be a target for submitting a paper to a particular conference. When planning for deadlines, bear in mind that everything will take twice as long as you expect—or four times as long if you've never done it before. Often a paper takes roughly a year of work for a grad student (if it includes experiments), although they may be working on other things during that year as well.

Be honest. If you suspect that you may not have time to do justice to the project after all, don't string your advisor along. Take a deep breath, apologize, and explain the situation. Then your advisor can make an informed decision about whether to suspend the project, give it to someone else, get a grad student involved, etc. This is better than a slow burn of agitation on both sides.

Time Management

Make weekly progress. Set goalposts, and be sure you make real progress from week to week. Use your meeting time or email each week to make sure that you agree on what the goal for next week is.

" Write the paper first. " The evolving paper is a way of organizing and sharing your thoughts and hammering out details. New ideas (including future plans) can go into that document, or appendices to it.

Experimental logbook. This is a file recording the questions you asked, the experiments you ran to answer them (including the command-line details needed to reproduce them perfectly), the results, and your analysis of the results.

Notes on your reading, including reading you plan to do. This should be organized by paper and/or by topic, aimed at helping you quickly recover the important points.

Working With Others

Again, be honest. Be very clear at all times about what you do and don't understand. Don't fake it. It's okay to say you're confused or don't know something; you need to ask questions to get unconfused. Also be clear about what you have and haven't done.

Pick a topic of mutual interest that you can handle. This is a matter for careful discussion at the start of the relationship.

Be explicit about what you need from your advisor. You can take some initiative in shaping the kind of advising relationship that will work best for you. Every advisor has a typical advising style, which is some compromise between his/her advising philosophy, his/her personality, your personality, and the realities of limited time. But if you need a different kind of guidance or a different way of organizing your relationship, ask for it. Most advisors will appreciate the initiative and can adapt to some extent.

Know how to ask for help. If you feel you would benefit from closer guidance, say: "Please tell me exactly what you want me to do by next Wednesday and I will have it done." If you get stuck technically, ask your advisor to help you get unstuck! He/She can write out a more detailed plan for you, give you things to read, ask a senior grad student to work with you, point you to software libraries, etc. Asking the right person can be 100 times faster than doing it yourself.

Your value to the project lies in how much you get done—it doesn't matter whether you invented it all yourself. This is not homework and getting help is not cheating. Anything that is already known in the field is fair game to reuse (with citations). And people can also help you invent the new stuff, as long as you acknowledge their help appropriately (possibly with co-authorship). Getting them to help you is part of the research.

Get right as much as you can. Before you hand off a piece of code or writing to someone else -- including another student, your advisor, or a reviewer -- you ought to catch all the problems you can catch by yourself. For a problem that you intend to fix later, include a note to this effect. This allows the other person to focus their limited time on spotting the problems that were beyond your own horizon.

Be a team player. If there are other people on the project, find out what they're working on. Ask plenty of questions. Get a broader sense of the project beyond your own little corner. Help out where you can.

Share what you do. Back up your work, comment your code, log your experiments, and be ready to hand off your code and notes at any time. The project may live on after you. It's not necessary to keep private files. The best plan is to keep everything valuable in a shared version control repository that you, your advisor, and any other collaborators can browse and edit at any time. (A README file in the repository can describe the layout and list any additional resources, e.g., the URLs of a wiki, a Google Doc, etc.) An issue tracker is also useful. Discuss with your advisor how to set up this kind of project infrastructure, e.g., on github.

Avoid diffusion. As a matter of etiquette, try not to spread your work over many different local directories, repositories, email threads, chat logs, Google documents, etc. For example, when sending email, try to continue on an existing thread where appropriate, rather than starting a new one. Your advisor is juggling more email and projects than you, so will find it helpful to keep related things together.

But I Don't Have a Project Yet!

Now that you've read this page, you understand more about how to ask a professor about research opportunities.

When to ask (not too early). Usually you'll need to have taken at least a 300- or 400-level course in the appropriate research area. If you don't know basic concepts and terms, then it is hard to even discuss the research problem. Don't expect the professor to teach you the basics in his/her office: that's what the course is for.

Who to ask. If you are doing extremely well in an upper-level course, then talk to the professor about whether he/she knows of any research opportunities in that area. It helps if the professor already has a high opinion of you from good interactions in class and through office hours. (You did go to office hours just to chat about ideas, right?) Even if he/she doesn't have anything for you, he/she may be able to hook you up with a colleague.

How to ask. Advice from Marie desJardins: "Ask the professor about his/her research. Professors love to talk about their research. But don't just sit there and nod. Listen carefully to what he/she's saying, think about it, and respond." He/She is trying to get a conversation going to assess where you can contribute meaningfully.

To help the professor decide where to start the conversation, be sure to show him/her your resume and your transcript. Also describe the kinds of problems you excel at. Special skills or a remarkable track record may give you a foot in the door. For example, although my main research area is NLP, occasionally I do have problems that don't require much NLP knowledge. Rather, I'm looking for someone who can develop a particular theorem or algorithm, or build a solid piece of system software, or design a beautiful user interface. So in this case, I might consider working with a great student who hasn't taken my NLP course.

How to ask early. If you're not ready to start research yet, it's certainly still okay to ask a professor (or a senior grad student) how you could prepare to do research in his/her area. This might involve taking courses or MOOCs, reading a textbook or papers, or building certain mathematical or programming skills.

When to ask (not too late). Timing is important. Research may not fit neatly into a semester. So approach the professor at least a year before you graduate. This gives you a couple of semesters plus summer and intersession. Hopefully, that's enough time for the professor to find an appropriate role for you and for you to get up to speed, define the problem and approach, do some initial work, refine the ideas, do some more work, fail, think hard, try again, succeed, write and submit a conference paper, revise the paper after acceptance, and present the paper at the conference. It's very common for a research project to take over a year even for a grad student who is doing research full-time!

Speech Communication

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Alumni and Friends
Mind Work/Brainstorming
Constructing a Thesis
Writing an Introduction
Supporting a Thesis
Developing Arguments
Writing a Conclusion
Punctuation
Style and Organization
What's the purpose of a style manual? How do I choose a style manual for my paper?
How do I get started planning a research paper? How do I select a topic?
How does research fit into my writing plan?
When I write a research paper, what resources should I have on hand?
Bibliographic Information
Citation Information
Title Pages, Headings, Margins, Pagination, and Fonts
Internet Links/Resources
OSU Writing Center
Communication Journals
Tips on In-Class Writing
Sample of a Professor's Remarks on a Student Paper

This section includes a response written by a professor to a student who was working on an independent study project. Reading through the response may provide you a better understanding of the application of concepts mentioned elsewhere on this writing web site. You may be able to apply the professor's comments to your own paper as you edit one of your rough drafts. Always remember: Your professors in Speech Communication are interested in your questions and writing problems. They can be useful resources. If you are invited to contact them for further help, do not hesitate to do so.

Professor's reply to a rough draft written during an independent study:

To the student: Use the following comments to guide you through a close reading of the first few paragraphs of your paper. Edit these paragraphs, and then keep the comments in mind as you read the rest of your paper; apply the comments to other paragraphs when you see similar problems. Avoid simply reading the comments and changing the particular sentence or paragraph named; use the comments to learn how to closely edit your work.

You may have a good idea for an argument in this paper, but the form of the paper is interfering with the reader's ability to understand what constitutes your claim and your support. The argument is not clear. Providing a better organization for the paper can improve the reader's ability to identify the claims you are making and the evidence you present to support those claims. Perhaps some of the following comments will help improve the organization of the paper and make clearer the ideas you are presenting.

Reread the first paragraph of the paper. Rewrite the paragraph to clarify whether this paper is focusing on the rhetoric of the event (eg "lies" and "gave the message that. . . .") or the sociological aspects of the event (eg "not allowing outsiders to participate"). The two are related; rewrite the paragraph to make clear the specific focus and make evident the relationship between the sociology and the rhetoric.

The second paragraph. Notice that the first and second sentences are about the messages of "American society" toward "outsiders." Notice that the third, fourth, and fifth sentences are about something else--a related idea, but not the same idea. Divide this paragraph into two; develop each paragraph completely, but each with a clear central idea.

The third paragraph. Revise this paragraph to repair the following:

Make the meaning clearer in the first sentence. What do you mean by a parody? Make your intention more explicit.
Repair the second sentence. It doesn't make sense right now partly because of the "issues" error.
Repair the third sentence. You begin the sentence with "The questions" but you have not introduced anything as "questions" so the reader doesn't know what you are referencing.
Rewrite the paragraph either in the third person (where you would refer to "the society" and "Americans") or in the first person (where you would refer to "we"). Don't mix the two.

In the first paragraph on page 2, revise the sentences to use parallel structures. For example, look at the first sentence. When you list the items the paper will cover, you use very different structures for each item. You need to use the same grammatical structure for each. You name the items as "the development of the a new way of life," "what it meant to insiders," "the white versus the black perspective," and "how competition emerged into discontentment." If you use the construction "the development of . . ." in the first item, you need to use a similar construction in all the other items. For example, if you use "the development of . . ." in the first item, you might use "the discrepancy between . . ." in the third item. The point of using like constructions is to help the reader know that these four items all are weighted similarly, that they all are significant parts of the paper, and that they all are components of the rhetorical issue you will discuss. Revise the sentence you wrote in this fourth paragraph to make those four items parallel.

Transitions between paragraphs must be strong to help the reader move from one idea to the next. Look at the beginning sentence in Paragraph 5 ("Competition is a story of . . ."). Rewrite this paragraph to include a better transition from the previous section to this one. Perhaps you will decide to make a division here and use a heading to start this next section. Perhaps you will add a sentence that ties these ideas (the one in Para. 4 and the one in Para. 5) together. Revise the transition between this paragraph and the next.

Paragraph 5 also lacks cohesion. Cohesion is the quality of a paragraph that helps a reader stay on track throughout the idea presented in the paragraph. You can test the cohesion of a paragraph in an easy way. Separate the sentences of the paragraph onto another piece of paper, listing each sentence on a separate line. See if they fit together in any other way. A paragraph with well-developed cohesion cannot be constructed in any other sentence order than the one used without changing words around. In this paragraph, the leaps between sentences are too large; the sentences do not seem to follow one another in a particular order. Part of the problem is that too many ideas are being tied together without explanation of their relationship to one another. Rewrite the paragraph with the intent of improving the cohesion.

Look again at the quotation you used in the third paragraph on the second page. Notice what you said in the sentence just preceding the quotation. Does the information in that sentence agree with the information in the quotation? Revise this paragraph to better match the comments you are making to the comments you are quoting.

One reason your transitions are not working is that the organization of material is not clear. Using these first two pages, write a one-sentence summary of each paragraph. You have 7 paragraphs, so you should have 7 sentences. As you look at these 7 sentences, what pattern do you see? Are the ideas represented in these 7 sentences somehow related? Are some sub-ideas of others? Do they create a star shape? A pyramid? A straight line? Figure out how these ideas relate to one another and then present them in that pattern in the paper. Rewrite these first two pages in an organizational pattern that makes sense to you. Be sure the transitions between the paragraphs reflect that organization. For example, if you see all the ideas equally important, you will want to introduce them saying something like, "Five historical pieces are important to the development of . . ." Then you would present the five pieces, using transitions like, "next," "following that development," or "the last development."

Look back again at the thesis for this paper. Check each of these 7 paragraphs to determine how the idea presented in each paragraph relates to the thesis. Look for signals in the paragraph that tell the reader how to hook this idea to the thesis. If no signals occur, revise the paragraph to include them.

Now look over the first two pages as a whole. See if you can find a direction in which they move. Overall, as a reader reads from page one to page two, where have you moved that reader? Look to the end of your paper. Have you moved the reader far enough in those two pages? Have you moved over the material too quickly? How do you assess the progress you have made in the first two pages toward the goal of the paper?

I hope these comments help you revise your organizational plan to better serve your thesis. Cohesion, transitions, and paragraph development all are important toward making an effective argument in your paper. I believe you have the makings for the argument embedded in this paper; clearly you have thought about this topic and have developed some good ideas. The expression of that argument is not clear; as a consequence, the argument is not effective. It could be. Let me know if I can be of other help.

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How to Write a College Research Paper (With Examples)

by Daniel Friedman
9 minute read

Want to know how to write A+ essays from an A+ student? This guide will show you how to write a college research paper perfectly!

Some of the most common assignments you will receive in college are essays. They can be intimidating and time consuming, but they don’t have to be.

I’m going to share with you how I approach essays, from the initial preparation, to how I create an outline which basically writes the essay for me.

Let’s get started!

Before you write your college research paper, it’s essential that you review the guidelines of your essay.

Create a document with the following basic guidelines of the paper:

The number of sources needed
Where your sources have to come from

This gives you an easy place to refer back to without reading the whole page of guidelines everytime.

I recommend using the same document to write your outline so you have everything in one place at all times.

How to Research for a College Paper

To write a college research paper, it boils to down to one main thing… the research.

Often professors will give you guidelines as to where your research must come from. Remember to pay attention to these guidelines and use the databases your professor suggests.

Use databases provided by your university library’s website that match the genre you’re writing about. If it’s a history paper, be sure to use a historical database. Same for political science, english, or any other subject.

Research Example

With the example we’ve been working with, let’s say we chose the Cuban Missile Crisis as our event. I would then type the Cuban Missile Crisis into my database and see what academic papers come up.

There will be LOTS of options with a topic like the Cuban missile crisis which is good.

It can also be a bit daunting, so it may help to add something a little more specific to your search.

For example, searching “Cuban Missile Crisis long term effects on the United States” may give you a better pool of options for the “effects” portion of your essay. Doing the same for each section will help you find the right research papers for your essay.

You will need to read through several research papers. I say need because this is what will help you write MUCH better papers. By reading through a good few papers, you not only gain a much better understanding of what your topic is about, but it helps you figure out which papers are the best for your topic.

How to Create an Effective Outline

Once you know the instructions, the topic, and which research you’ll be pulling from, the next step is an outline. Each outline differs based on what your professor asks of you, but I will give you several examples of different outlines.

Always begin an outline by writing out the basic structure of your paper. Most papers will start with an introduction, followed by several sections/paragraphs depending on the length of your paper, and ending with a conclusion.

For longer essays, the best approach is to create sections. Sections will be titled based on the content, and split up into paragraphs within the section.

Sample College Research Paper Outline

If we continue with the aforementioned example prompt, this is how the sections would be split up:

Introduction
Background/history
The Cuban Missile Crisis (a description of the event and how it impacted the United States)
Effects of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Your introduction and conclusion should be short. Most professors don’t want a lot of information in those two sections, and prefer instead that you put the bulk of your essay into the main sections.

Your introduction should include the following:

Your research question/topic
The context of the event (what’s going on in the United States around the time of the event)
A brief overview of what your paper talks about.

This includes your thesis!

Your conclusion is merely a summary of what you spoke about in your paper. Do not include new information in your conclusion! Doing so takes away from what the paper was really about and confuses the reader.

In your outline, bullet point these things so you know exactly what to write out in your essay.

Theories and Hypotheses

Some research papers require you to come up with a theory made up of hypotheses. Your hypothesis will be based on your research question if this is the case.

Here’s an example of a research question, and a practical theory created from it:

Research Question – What are the causes of the use of terrorism by the Palestinians and how has its use affected Arab-Israeli relations?

Hypothesis of causes are: a sense of abandonment from the Arab world, humiliation at the hands of Israelis, and demands falling on deaf ears, all of this caused Palestininans to utilize more drastic measures in order to get their needs heard and acted on.

Hypothesis of how its use affected Arab-Israeli relations: Terrorism created more distrust and fearfulness between Israel and Palestine wherein Israelis didn’t and don’t feel comfortable trusting any group of Palestinians due to the extreme actions of several groups, and utilize harsher retaliation or countermeasures as a result of the Palestinian terrorism, pushing both sides farther from cooperation.

A hypothesis is essentially coming up with what you believe the research will prove, and then supporting or contrasting that hypothesis based on what the research proves.

How to Write a Thesis for a College Research Paper

Getting a clear idea of your sections and what they’re about is how to write a college research paper with an effective thesis.

By doing so, your thesis will include the main points of your sections rather than just the names of your sections, which gives a better overview of what your paper is actually about.

You don’t have to create it at the end though. You might find often that you’ll write a thesis at the start and just correct it as your essay points change while writing.

Here’s an example of an A+ thesis in an introduction of an essay:

In the example above, I’ve highlighted the main issue of the poem in blue and the main argument of the poem in red.

Keep in mind, the whole point of a thesis is to explain what your entire paper is going to be discussing/arguing for within 1 or 2 sentences.

As long as you get the issue across along with (more importantly) the main argument of discussion, then your thesis will be formatted perfectly.

How to Cite Properly to Avoid Plagiarism

In my experience most professors won’t ask for a specific format in their essay guidelines. This means you’ll want to use whatever you’re most comfortable with.

MLA format is very common amongst most classes. If you didn’t have a clear format you learned in class, or don’t feel particularly comfortable with any one format, I suggest you use MLA.

A quick google search will give you the basic guidelines of MLA. Use this MLA format tool if you’re confused about how to cite sources properly.

Parenthetical Citations

An important part of citing is including parenthetical citations, AKA citing after a quote or paraphrased section.

It’s crucial that you cite ANY quote you use. This also goes for any section where you paraphrase from a source.

Both of these need parenthetical citations right after the direct quote or paraphrase.

Daniel Friedman

Hey, I'm Daniel - The owner of Modern Teen! I love sharing everything I've experienced and learned through my teen and college years. I designed this blog to build a community of young adults from all around the world so we can grow together and share our knowledge! Enjoy and Welcome!

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Research Paper Outline: Designing Your Research Narrative

Table of contents

1.1 What is an outline in college papers?
2.1 Formatting
2.2 Length and detail
3 How to Make an Outline for a Research Paper: 4 Essential Tips
4 Example of a Research Paper Outline
5 How to Make a Research Outline: Final Words

Starting work on the student research paper can be daunting, especially if you have doubts about a topic. A meticulously organized outline serves as a guide through the extensive landscape of knowledge. In this article, you will discover how to make a research paper outline quickly and effectively. These steps will streamline your research and creative process. It will ensure a cohesive and compelling final assignment.

This article delves into the essential aspects of crafting a research paper outline, a foundational tool in academic writing.

We will explore its primary purpose, providing structure and clarity to your research.
Key components of a research paper outline, such as formatting with Roman numerals, maintaining a parallel structure, and choosing the right citation style.
Additionally, we’ll offer insights into balancing the outline’s length and detail to meet assignment requirements and provide effective tips for refining your outline.

Keep reading and find the answers to the most complicated questions about your academic research. Following our advice will give you a high-quality and robust outline for your research paper.

Purpose of the Research Paper Outline

The purpose of an outline for a research paper is paramount to guiding a comprehensive scholarly document. It serves as a roadmap, delineating your research path and ensuring every aspect is noticed. The primary function is to provide a clear and helpful research paper layout.

What is an outline in college papers?

This type of document allows you to present thoughts in a proper order and get needed readers’ reactions. Such an approach helps you avoid confusion while presenting a persuasive case.

Moreover, a customizable research paper outline template proves invaluable for students. It offers a structured format that can be adapted to individual needs. This adaptability enables students to concentrate on the substance of their analysis. Recognizing that activity when you create a research paper outline can be challenging. However, having all the facts and results empowers you to create essays quickly and effectively. That’s why there is no basic research paper outline. This piece of paper is always unique!

Crucially, the utility of an assignment extends beyond mere structural guidance. It serves as a record-keeping tool, allowing you to track and manage the citations mentioned in your essay meticulously. A well-crafted outline of a research paper becomes an indispensable tool. In the subsequent sections, we will discuss the intricacies of constructing a good research paper outline. It will meet the main criteria and elevate the quality and impact of your academic results.

Key Components of Research Paper Outline

Writing a research paper outline is a pivotal phase in the creative process. It furnishes a guide to navigating the complexities of students’ work. The foundational framework often comprises three main elements: a draft, a list of cited works, and an abstract. The comprehensive plan encompasses various elements crucial for a well-rounded and organized academic document. Title page: This page includes the title, author’s name, educational institution, and publication date. It serves as the first impression, offering an academic snapshot. Abstract: This part shows essential discoveries and their connection to earlier research. A well-crafted abstract is concise, focusing on the primary thoughts described in the study. It provides a brief yet comprehensive overview, enticing readers to delve deeper into the text. First part: Sets the stage with background information leading to the central argument. The opening should engage the reader’s curiosity and offer a background for studying the subject. Body: Encompassing various sections such as methods, materials, discoveries, and your views and suggestions, this segment constitutes the essence of the college paper. Here, you will find an exposition of the investigation methods employed, the gathered discoveries, the obtained results, and a reflective discussion of the new information. Last part: Restates the argument, reaffirming the study’s importance and relevance. It should convey that the research has achieved its mission and summarize key takeaways. References/Bibliography: Lists all cited works, encompassing both directly quoted and paraphrased sources. Obviously, adherence to a specified formatting style (e.g., MLA format research paper outline, APA, Harvard) is crucial. Additional resources: Incorporates additional elements such as tables, charts, figures, and specialized terminology. These additions enhance the presentation of data and help a deeper discussion of the topic.

Research essay outlines can be formal or informal. Formal ones are typically submitted to professors during the early stages of writing. Informal outlines serve as drafts where students jot down their initial ideas.

Clarity and organization are paramount when you set up a research paper. A meticulously organized plan is a foundational tool for guiding the writer through the intricacies of academic inquiry. Besides, it streamlines the process of writing an outline for a research paper, it also makes your assignment emerge as a compelling and great contribution. If you need help, you can always ask for support from research paper writers .

Formatting is crucial to crafting a research paper outline and creates a framework for your thoughts. Here are key considerations for the outline format for the research paper:

Roman numerals, letters, and numbers: use Roman numerals (I, II, III) for main sections, capital letters (A, B, C) for subsections, and Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3) for further divisions. This tiered structure visually arranges the outline, offering a guide for the reader.
Sustaining parallel structure: guaranteeing grammatical structure and formatting uniformity across the outline, heightening readability and coherence. Thus, it will foster an easier comprehension of the progression of your ideas.
Selecting a citation style: select a specific citation style as per the requirements set by the professor. For example, the teacher tells you to use a research paper outline in Chicago style. Common styles include APA, MLA, Chicago, and others. Adhering to a particular style maintains consistency in referencing sources. It contributes to professionalism.

There are several standards you need to consider during formatting. Have you written everything according to the APA research paper outline style? Look at the research paper format numbering. For example, by employing Roman numerals, letters, and numbers, maintaining parallel structure, and adhering to a designated citation style, you not only enhance the visual appeal of your plan but also demonstrate a commitment to precision and scholarly standards. Indeed, constant style is integral to presenting your research cohesively and professionally.

Length and detail

Striking a delicate balance between consciousness and information is critical, particularly when creating an outline for a research paper. Besides, tailoring the level of detail to match assignment requirements is essential too. Some projects call for a comprehensive and detailed outline. They provide a thorough roadmap for the entire research paper. Conversely, other assignments may benefit from a more brief approach.

If you don’t have time and need help with outline specifics, you can always purchase a research paper online from well-versed professionals.

How to Make an Outline for a Research Paper: 4 Essential Tips

Creating an effective plan for a research paper is an unfast process. It requires a focus on detail and adaptability. There is no basic outline for a research paper. Yet, it must be specific. Here are some tips to enhance your outline-writing skills:

Frequent Revisions:

Treat your research outline as a dynamic document. Frequently review and revise it as your research advances and your comprehension deepens. This iterative method guarantees that your plan stays in sync with the evolving structure of your research paper .

Be Specific:

Add specificity to your topic outline for the research paper. Accordingly, begin a research paper with the main idea. Precisely express the primary concepts in each section, strengthening them with relevant particulars. Thus, understandable subpoints steer your writing process, contributing to the coherence and depth of your research paper.

Detail or Conciseness:

Strive for a balance between detail and conciseness. That is why adding sufficient information to guide your writing is crucial. Avoid overwhelming your detailed outline for a research paper with unnecessary information. Consequently, keep it focused on the key elements to maintain clarity and coherence.

Be Flexible:

Adapt if discoveries or information arise, and be flexible enough to alter the outline accordingly. Flexibility enables your outline to adjust to the nature of the research journey.

By incorporating this advice into your outline-writing strategy, you can create a dynamic and practical roadmap for your research paper. Moreover, frequent revisions and a balanced approach to detail contribute to developing a great outline, setting the stage for an impactful final paper.

Example of a Research Paper Outline

A research paper outline lists key points and sub-topics you want to cover in your writing. It will help you structure your essay and ensure you cover all the information you need to include.

To put this all into practice, here is a short research paper outline example on psychology:

Topic: The influence of anxiety disorders on an individual’s social skills.

Thesis: Anxiety disorders have become more common among young people, affecting their social skills and personalities. Understanding how to tackle diverse anxiety disorders helps improve the quality of life and avoid serious psychological issues.

One of the most important things to remember when creating an outline for a research paper is that it should be as detailed as possible. It means including all the necessary information, such as any relevant background information, references, and other facts or details.

However, don’t overdo it by making your outline too long or complicated. It should be simple enough to read and understand quickly, especially compared to your paper’s length.

If you still have hesitations or doubts regarding your writing skills, PapersOwl pros will gladly assist with research paper writing help. Get your “A” today by using this article as an example (and maybe inspiration) for future research papers!

How to Make a Research Outline: Final Words

In summary, creating a research paper outline is essential for a streamlined writing process. This guide emphasizes the importance of ongoing edits, subpoint clarity, and conciseness. Here you find an outline example for research papers and some tips. Your research’s progress ensures its continued relevance and usefulness. A well-structured outline serves not only as a roadmap but as a useful tool, facilitating the transformation of ideas into a coherent and impactful research paper. As you embark on this intellectual journey, recognize that the thoughtful construction of your outline is not just a precursor; it’s a dynamic foundation shaping the trajectory of your scholarly contribution.

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The do’s and don’ts of contacting professors about research.

Sometimes, the “etiquette” for contacting an expert in your field can be mystifying, and sometimes downright intimidating. Here are some tips from the URO to ease the pressure and increase the chances that you will get the response you’re hoping for.

Identify yourself! Don’t write a generic message and sign with only your first name. Tell them who you are, including major and year in school. If you took a class with this person, mention that. If you were referred to this person by someone else, mention that too.
Sell yourself! You are, in a sense, trying to advertise yourself a little bit in the initial email to a faculty member. Identifying what sparked your interest in doing research is a good way to personalize your message and give them a reason to believe your interest is genuine (just don't go overboard or write too much).
But…the research that faculty members publish is difficult to understand! That’s OK. You don’t have to understand everything you read, but you can look for some of the key terms of the study that would catch the professor’s attention in that initial email. Make a list of questions as you read…professors will be impressed by your curiosity and the time you’ve taken to investigate their work, as much as they would be impressed by your comprehension.
Make it easy to set up a meeting . It is helpful to close your email by listing the specific days and times you are available. It reduces the number of email exchanges needed to settle on a face-to-face meeting and makes things easier for both you and the professor.
diverse, that’s a perfectly appropriate strategy, so long as you keep your email messages from looking like form letters! Here is a good rule of thumb: ask yourself, “Could I change the name of the addressee in the salutation of my message and keep the body of the message same?” If the answer is “Yes”, then you have a problem. Remember, you want to personalize the emails (see ‘ DO: your homework ’) and raise questions around which you can build a more in-depth conversation. These initial emails should be all uniquely framed for the person to whom you are writing.
Neglect proofreading . Silly grammar errors do not make good first impressions.
Give up! Finding the right faculty mentor for your research may take some time. Professors are very busy…but they also have enough experience to know when they are not a good fit for your research interests. You may not get a positive response the first or second or fifth time you send an email. Keep trying! Also, don’t be afraid to ask professors who turned you down if they can refer you to another faculty member.

Learn from current students about the steps they took to obtain their research positions on the URO’s “ Reasearch Spotlights ” page.

Adapted from http://www.undergraduateresearch.osu.edu/getstarted/involvedcontact.html .

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How to Find Research Opportunities with College Professors

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Alexandra Johnson in a CollegeVine Livestream. You can watch the full Livestream for more info.

What’s Covered:

Consider your age and experience, how to reach out, highlight your qualifications.

Research experiences can set you up for success during college and beyond. If you can secure an opportunity with a professor, not only will you develop a relationship with a potential mentor, but you’ll also have hands-on exposure to real-world work.

So, how do you find research opportunities with college professors? And how and when can you reach out? Is high school too early to start?

It’s certainly possible — you just have to find the right professor who has the availability to take you on. It helps if you have some experience, even just in the classroom. For example, if you’ve completed AP Biology and AP Environmental Science, then you might have a case for demonstrating your readiness for real research.

That said, a professor isn’t going to want to have to hold your hand and take you through every step of the research process. You need to think of it not as a guided project, but as a job— you’ll essentially be doing independent research with them as the mentor. You may even be in charge of coming up with the idea and concept.

Networking will come in handy here. You may not end up doing research with a professor at all, but they can direct you to someone with more time and willingness, such as a graduate student. In fact, graduate students tend to have more availability to mentor you.

For instance, they might be able to give you small tasks here and there where you can contribute and learn the ins and outs.

Bear in mind that you’ll need to send a lot of emails. Keep at it. Some people might tell you to reach out at a later date, so make sure you mark your calendar to contact them again.

When you do reach out, be ready to demonstrate your qualifications. Perhaps you’ve taken a certain class that’s relevant to their work and the field that interests you. Include plenty of details — that will make it more likely for them to see it as a real proposal and take you seriously.

Even though you’re in high school, be professional — you want to show them why you have potential and why they should want to work with you. It’s a mutual relationship, and it’s one that will serve you well now into the future, as you gain more and more experience with research.

Why Must Professors Publish?

A few weeks ago, I received a flattering email from one of my MBA students. After an engaging class session, this student had gone home, Googled me, and then spent several hours reading “all of my essays” that he could find online.

Aside from one doctoral student who requested more information about one of my journal articles, I’ve never had any other student express interest in my academic research.

Before I bite the hand that feeds me, I must say that I have nothing against scholarship. It’s just that I have a love/hate relationship with the type of scholarship that professors, including professors in my field of management, are supposed to publish—and I’m not the only one, either .

I have been told by colleagues that I should spend less time writing for the Pope Center, the National Association of Scholars, and Phi Beta Cons. My blogging and essay-writing did nothing to increase my standing as an academic, my colleagues said—even though one of my first ever essays (on students taking a gap year ) led to an hour-long interview on National Public Radio.

Apparently, the dictum is that I need to spend more time producing work that no one will read, and less time on work that people will. Oh, the irony.

Quite frankly, when I poll my classes on their knowledge of professors’ scholarship, most students admit they had no idea their professors did anything other than teach. Some acknowledge that they know professors perform “research,” but they only alluded to it in vague terms.

Before I stepped into the academic world, my views were the same as the majority of my students.

Ten years ago, I naively entered a Ph.D. program in a Florida school with the goal of teaching at the college level when I had finished. This first foray into a doctoral degree ended after six weeks, because I thought the management theory I was studying was a bunch of gobbledygook. I couldn’t understand why scholars would assert ideas with pages upon pages of unreadable prose when a concise paragraph or two would suffice. I once saw a 50-page study provide evidence for the effects of alcohol consumption on someone’s perceived intelligence level. Thomas Paine took far fewer pages to lay out the case for American independence.

In that program, doctoral students were to teach as little as possible in order to focus on “scholarly pursuits.” That is quite common. I eventually settled in at a doctoral program at Temple University one that let me engage in the “risky” action of actually teaching a course or two per semester.

As a business school professor, I live with the reality that (at best) only a handful of academics will read the type of articles I am expected to publish. Successful businesspeople are far more likely to cite Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People as an influential read than anything published in a journal on management.

“The International Quarterly Journal of Management Pursuits” (name changed to protect my career) may have studies that reach the same conclusion as Covey’s thoughts and anecdotes, but that package has too much unnecessary wrapping for busy managers to open.

Moreover, producing such work requires years to get into press, thus taking time away from more meaningful teaching and writing pursuits.

To take this point a step further, how much ground-breaking research do management scholars really need to produce? The entire discipline can be replaced by the careful study of a few timeless works: the classic Chinese Art of War by Sun-Tzu, Baltazar Gracian’s seventeenth-century Art of Worldly Wisdom , the Bible, and a few others. Much as management professors may think otherwise, strategic planning and employee motivation are not twentieth-century, Ivory Tower discoveries.

How I wish that I could spend more time studying those texts in order to share their relevance to leadership and management. Many of my first-generation students would actually enjoy deciphering and applying such work. Engaging undergraduates is not always easy, especially business students who are just in school for the credential. Yet, I’ve had rewarding discussions with students regarding their interpretations of Sun-Tzu’s “All warfare is based on deception and Gracian’s maxim that “there is no higher rule than that over oneself, over one’s impulses; there is the triumph of free will.”

It’s amazing what can happen when students are challenged to think about what an author is saying and to personally apply that author’s advice. Imagine how we’d encourage the love of learning if we did more of that.

But among my peers, if I were known for my quality interpretations of how these classic texts translate into modern management practices, the only rub I’d get would be a bump in my own job satisfaction. Weigh that against the possibility that I could be denied tenure if my cv’s publication section isn’t weighty enough.

That “pubs” section as nothing more than an academic bodybuilding contest. I know. In my previous identity as a personal trainer, there was a saying about lifting for vanity: “It’s not how much you lift, it’s how much you look like you lift.”

That logic often applies to a scholar’s productivity. Journal articles are written for other academics as a way of flexing muscles. It’s not how meaningful your work is, but just how bulky your cv looks.

I’m rarely evaluated on what I wrote, but only on how many peer-reviewed published articles I completed. (I doubt that the evaluators actually read the articles.) It’s hard to spend so much time writing papers that have such little benefit beyond my own vita.

What’s wrong with the novel idea of letting bright, passionate professors disseminate knowledge and wisdom to students instead of researching topics where common sense already tells us the answer? After all, isn’t “profess” the root of professor?

To go out on a limb, I would happily teach five classes (as opposed to three) per semester if publications were banished from my performance appraisals. I’d even increase my “service” (e.g., student advising, professional organization leadership) activity. While I cannot speak for anyone but myself, I suspect that many of my peers who love teaching feel the same way.

UNC Can’t Ban Its Way to Civility

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Harvard professor who studies dishonesty is accused of falsifying data

Juliana Kim

Francesca Gino has been teaching at Harvard Business School for 13 years. Maddie Meyer/Getty Images hide caption

Francesca Gino has been teaching at Harvard Business School for 13 years.

Francesca Gino, a prominent professor at Harvard Business School known for researching dishonesty and unethical behavior, has been accused of submitting work that contained falsified results.

Gino has authored dozens of captivating studies in the field of behavioral science — consulting for some of the world's biggest companies like Goldman Sachs and Google, as well as dispensing advice on news outlets, like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and even NPR .

But over the past two weeks, several people, including a colleague, came forward with claims that Gino tampered with data in at least four papers.

Harvard releases report detailing its ties to slavery, plans to issue reparations

Gino is currently on administrative leave. Harvard Business School declined to comment on when that decision was made as well as the allegations in general.

In a statement shared on LinkedIn , the professor said she was aware of the claims but did not deny or admit to any wrongdoing.

"As I continue to evaluate these allegations and assess my options, I am limited into what I can say publicly," Gino wrote on Saturday. "I want to assure you that I take them seriously and they will be addressed."

The scandal was first reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education earlier this month. According to the news outlet, over the past year, Harvard had been investigating a series of papers involving Gino.

University Of South Carolina President Resigns After Plagiarizing Part Of Speech

The university found that in a 2012 paper, it appeared someone had added and altered figures in its database, Max H. Bazerman, a Harvard Business School professor who collaborated with Gino in the past, told The Chronicle.

The study itself looked at whether honesty in tax and insurance paperwork differed between participants who were asked to sign truthfulness declarations at the top of the page versus at the bottom. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , which had published the research , has retracted it.

Shortly after the story, DataColada , a group of three investigators, came forward with similar accusations. After examining a number of Gino's works, the team said they found evidence of fraud spanning over a decade, most recently in 2020.

Acclaimed Harvard Scientist Is Arrested, Accused Of Lying About Ties To China

"Specifically, we wrote a report about four studies for which we had accumulated the strongest evidence of fraud. We believe that many more Gino-authored papers contain fake data. Perhaps dozens," DataColada wrote.

The group said they shared their concerns with Harvard Business School in 2021.

Gino has contributed to over a hundred academic articles around entrepreneurial success, promoting trust in the workforce and just last year published a study titled, "Case Study: What's the Right Career Move After a Public Failure?"

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 113 great research paper topics.

General Education

One of the hardest parts of writing a research paper can be just finding a good topic to write about. Fortunately we've done the hard work for you and have compiled a list of 113 interesting research paper topics. They've been organized into ten categories and cover a wide range of subjects so you can easily find the best topic for you.

In addition to the list of good research topics, we've included advice on what makes a good research paper topic and how you can use your topic to start writing a great paper.

What Makes a Good Research Paper Topic?

Not all research paper topics are created equal, and you want to make sure you choose a great topic before you start writing. Below are the three most important factors to consider to make sure you choose the best research paper topics.

#1: It's Something You're Interested In

A paper is always easier to write if you're interested in the topic, and you'll be more motivated to do in-depth research and write a paper that really covers the entire subject. Even if a certain research paper topic is getting a lot of buzz right now or other people seem interested in writing about it, don't feel tempted to make it your topic unless you genuinely have some sort of interest in it as well.

#2: There's Enough Information to Write a Paper

Even if you come up with the absolute best research paper topic and you're so excited to write about it, you won't be able to produce a good paper if there isn't enough research about the topic. This can happen for very specific or specialized topics, as well as topics that are too new to have enough research done on them at the moment. Easy research paper topics will always be topics with enough information to write a full-length paper.

Trying to write a research paper on a topic that doesn't have much research on it is incredibly hard, so before you decide on a topic, do a bit of preliminary searching and make sure you'll have all the information you need to write your paper.

#3: It Fits Your Teacher's Guidelines

Don't get so carried away looking at lists of research paper topics that you forget any requirements or restrictions your teacher may have put on research topic ideas. If you're writing a research paper on a health-related topic, deciding to write about the impact of rap on the music scene probably won't be allowed, but there may be some sort of leeway. For example, if you're really interested in current events but your teacher wants you to write a research paper on a history topic, you may be able to choose a topic that fits both categories, like exploring the relationship between the US and North Korea. No matter what, always get your research paper topic approved by your teacher first before you begin writing.

113 Good Research Paper Topics

Below are 113 good research topics to help you get you started on your paper. We've organized them into ten categories to make it easier to find the type of research paper topics you're looking for.

Arts/Culture

Discuss the main differences in art from the Italian Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance .
Analyze the impact a famous artist had on the world.
How is sexism portrayed in different types of media (music, film, video games, etc.)? Has the amount/type of sexism changed over the years?
How has the music of slaves brought over from Africa shaped modern American music?
How has rap music evolved in the past decade?
How has the portrayal of minorities in the media changed?

Current Events

What have been the impacts of China's one child policy?
How have the goals of feminists changed over the decades?
How has the Trump presidency changed international relations?
Analyze the history of the relationship between the United States and North Korea.
What factors contributed to the current decline in the rate of unemployment?
What have been the impacts of states which have increased their minimum wage?
How do US immigration laws compare to immigration laws of other countries?
How have the US's immigration laws changed in the past few years/decades?
How has the Black Lives Matter movement affected discussions and view about racism in the US?
What impact has the Affordable Care Act had on healthcare in the US?
What factors contributed to the UK deciding to leave the EU (Brexit)?
What factors contributed to China becoming an economic power?
Discuss the history of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies (some of which tokenize the S&P 500 Index on the blockchain) .
Do students in schools that eliminate grades do better in college and their careers?
Do students from wealthier backgrounds score higher on standardized tests?
Do students who receive free meals at school get higher grades compared to when they weren't receiving a free meal?
Do students who attend charter schools score higher on standardized tests than students in public schools?
Do students learn better in same-sex classrooms?
How does giving each student access to an iPad or laptop affect their studies?
What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Montessori Method ?
Do children who attend preschool do better in school later on?
What was the impact of the No Child Left Behind act?
How does the US education system compare to education systems in other countries?
What impact does mandatory physical education classes have on students' health?
Which methods are most effective at reducing bullying in schools?
Do homeschoolers who attend college do as well as students who attended traditional schools?
Does offering tenure increase or decrease quality of teaching?
How does college debt affect future life choices of students?
Should graduate students be able to form unions?

What are different ways to lower gun-related deaths in the US?
How and why have divorce rates changed over time?
Is affirmative action still necessary in education and/or the workplace?
Should physician-assisted suicide be legal?
How has stem cell research impacted the medical field?
How can human trafficking be reduced in the United States/world?
Should people be able to donate organs in exchange for money?
Which types of juvenile punishment have proven most effective at preventing future crimes?
Has the increase in US airport security made passengers safer?
Analyze the immigration policies of certain countries and how they are similar and different from one another.
Several states have legalized recreational marijuana. What positive and negative impacts have they experienced as a result?
Do tariffs increase the number of domestic jobs?
Which prison reforms have proven most effective?
Should governments be able to censor certain information on the internet?
Which methods/programs have been most effective at reducing teen pregnancy?
What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Keto diet?
How effective are different exercise regimes for losing weight and maintaining weight loss?
How do the healthcare plans of various countries differ from each other?
What are the most effective ways to treat depression ?
What are the pros and cons of genetically modified foods?
Which methods are most effective for improving memory?
What can be done to lower healthcare costs in the US?
What factors contributed to the current opioid crisis?
Analyze the history and impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic .
Are low-carbohydrate or low-fat diets more effective for weight loss?
How much exercise should the average adult be getting each week?
Which methods are most effective to get parents to vaccinate their children?
What are the pros and cons of clean needle programs?
How does stress affect the body?
Discuss the history of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
What were the causes and effects of the Salem Witch Trials?
Who was responsible for the Iran-Contra situation?
How has New Orleans and the government's response to natural disasters changed since Hurricane Katrina?
What events led to the fall of the Roman Empire?
What were the impacts of British rule in India ?
Was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki necessary?
What were the successes and failures of the women's suffrage movement in the United States?
What were the causes of the Civil War?
How did Abraham Lincoln's assassination impact the country and reconstruction after the Civil War?
Which factors contributed to the colonies winning the American Revolution?
What caused Hitler's rise to power?
Discuss how a specific invention impacted history.
What led to Cleopatra's fall as ruler of Egypt?
How has Japan changed and evolved over the centuries?
What were the causes of the Rwandan genocide ?

Why did Martin Luther decide to split with the Catholic Church?
Analyze the history and impact of a well-known cult (Jonestown, Manson family, etc.)
How did the sexual abuse scandal impact how people view the Catholic Church?
How has the Catholic church's power changed over the past decades/centuries?
What are the causes behind the rise in atheism/ agnosticism in the United States?
What were the influences in Siddhartha's life resulted in him becoming the Buddha?
How has media portrayal of Islam/Muslims changed since September 11th?

Science/Environment

How has the earth's climate changed in the past few decades?
How has the use and elimination of DDT affected bird populations in the US?
Analyze how the number and severity of natural disasters have increased in the past few decades.
Analyze deforestation rates in a certain area or globally over a period of time.
How have past oil spills changed regulations and cleanup methods?
How has the Flint water crisis changed water regulation safety?
What are the pros and cons of fracking?
What impact has the Paris Climate Agreement had so far?
What have NASA's biggest successes and failures been?
How can we improve access to clean water around the world?
Does ecotourism actually have a positive impact on the environment?
Should the US rely on nuclear energy more?
What can be done to save amphibian species currently at risk of extinction?
What impact has climate change had on coral reefs?
How are black holes created?
Are teens who spend more time on social media more likely to suffer anxiety and/or depression?
How will the loss of net neutrality affect internet users?
Analyze the history and progress of self-driving vehicles.
How has the use of drones changed surveillance and warfare methods?
Has social media made people more or less connected?
What progress has currently been made with artificial intelligence ?
Do smartphones increase or decrease workplace productivity?
What are the most effective ways to use technology in the classroom?
How is Google search affecting our intelligence?
When is the best age for a child to begin owning a smartphone?
Has frequent texting reduced teen literacy rates?

How to Write a Great Research Paper

Even great research paper topics won't give you a great research paper if you don't hone your topic before and during the writing process. Follow these three tips to turn good research paper topics into great papers.

#1: Figure Out Your Thesis Early

Before you start writing a single word of your paper, you first need to know what your thesis will be. Your thesis is a statement that explains what you intend to prove/show in your paper. Every sentence in your research paper will relate back to your thesis, so you don't want to start writing without it!

As some examples, if you're writing a research paper on if students learn better in same-sex classrooms, your thesis might be "Research has shown that elementary-age students in same-sex classrooms score higher on standardized tests and report feeling more comfortable in the classroom."

If you're writing a paper on the causes of the Civil War, your thesis might be "While the dispute between the North and South over slavery is the most well-known cause of the Civil War, other key causes include differences in the economies of the North and South, states' rights, and territorial expansion."

#2: Back Every Statement Up With Research

Remember, this is a research paper you're writing, so you'll need to use lots of research to make your points. Every statement you give must be backed up with research, properly cited the way your teacher requested. You're allowed to include opinions of your own, but they must also be supported by the research you give.

#3: Do Your Research Before You Begin Writing

You don't want to start writing your research paper and then learn that there isn't enough research to back up the points you're making, or, even worse, that the research contradicts the points you're trying to make!

Get most of your research on your good research topics done before you begin writing. Then use the research you've collected to create a rough outline of what your paper will cover and the key points you're going to make. This will help keep your paper clear and organized, and it'll ensure you have enough research to produce a strong paper.

What's Next?

Are you also learning about dynamic equilibrium in your science class? We break this sometimes tricky concept down so it's easy to understand in our complete guide to dynamic equilibrium .

Thinking about becoming a nurse practitioner? Nurse practitioners have one of the fastest growing careers in the country, and we have all the information you need to know about what to expect from nurse practitioner school .

Want to know the fastest and easiest ways to convert between Fahrenheit and Celsius? We've got you covered! Check out our guide to the best ways to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit (or vice versa).

These recommendations are based solely on our knowledge and experience. If you purchase an item through one of our links, PrepScholar may receive a commission.

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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Do professors really read student's papers (The truth from a PROF)

As a former professor, I have graded thousands of papers, and I know that a lot of students wanted to know if I actually read all their papers.

You’ve work so hard on something, and you really want your professor to see your hard work. Or maybe you are hoping that your professor won’t take a really close look at your assignment and they will miss all your mistakes.

Either way, it seems impossible for a professor to be able to grade all those papers and actually read every single word.

And you probably want to know if your professor will actually read your long essays.

I will tell you everything I know to help you understand your professor’s grading. There isn’t necessarily one answer for every situation because assignments and professors vary so much.

But this is important to you because if you turn in an assignment, you might think you can get by without working so hard because your professor may not read every single line. Or you might wonder if you will put in all this work for your professor to barely look at your assignment.

Don’t worry. I will tell you what most professors do when they grade papers.

Will my professor actually read my research paper?

Yes, professors will actually read your research paper but they might be reading too fast to catch minor mistakes as they will be looking for major points of discussion only.

Professors have an expectation when they assign a paper and they know exactly what they are looking for when they are grading.

If I was grading a paper, I knew the major points I wanted students to make and I would look for those specifically. I didn’t care about much else except making sure they talked about the most important things for the topic I assigned.

It helped me stay on task so that I didn’t have to read every single word. I could skim an assignment and grade more efficiently. I knew when I needed to really slow down and take a better look at a student’s assignment.

I frequently used the find on page tool to see if they mentioned specific concepts in their paper. This helped me find those specific keywords that I was looking for and then I would move on.

Since I had so much experience grading students’ long papers, I knew how to skim them quickly without sacrificing results.

So, your professor is probably not reading every single word but they want to make sure that your paper makes sense and follows a logical sequence.

However, if I found a serious problem with a student’s assignment, I always took a closer look.

If you can organize your paper well, and follow all the formatting guidelines, your professor will think the rest of your paper is going to be pretty good too. And if they check sources , and yours are all legit, it gives you more credibility.

It’s the students who don’t follow instructions and don’t cite properly that are going to stand out. Also, if you cheated on your assignment , this is going to catch your professor’s attention and they’ll start to examine your paper more closely.

READ MORE : What to do if you got caught plagiarizing

And if you have a professor who is a tough grader , they are probably reading every single sentence and scrutinizing every word of your paper.

How do professors grade so many papers

When I was a professor, I was able to grade so many papers with efficiency because I knew exactly what students should be covering in their assignment and I would look for those specific topics.

Here are a couple of other ways professors are able to grade so fast.

Use find on page - Professors can simply search for certain words to ensure students are discussing certain topics as expected.

Teaching assistants - Most tenured professors will have a teaching assistant, who is a graduate student, that grades all the assignments for them.

Skimming papers - It can be acceptable to skim papers and look for relevant topics instead of reading every word of an assignment.

How do professors keep interested after reading so many papers

When I was a professor, I kept myself interested in reading so many papers because I assigned exciting topics and I took frequent breaks during grading.

If I had 100 papers to grade myself, I may grade 20 a day until I finished all the papers. And it helps to assign papers that you actually like reading.

Otherwise professors are going to get very bored and might slack in their grading as time goes on.

It is better for students to be patient and let professors take their time grading rather than rush them because you want them to take their time so you get the grade you deserve.

However, I understand that professors can take FOREVER to grade, and sometimes it can become a problem for students who need to know where they stand in the course.

Did your professor actually read your paper?

Students can determine if their professor actually read their paper by reviewing any feedback that their professors left them on their paper or in their online course.

If there is no feedback, you should really ask your professors to help explain your grade so you know why you got the grade they assigned.

If they don’t have any explanation for you, then it might not be a fair grade . But I find that most professors are going to be able to explain exactly why they deducted points from your assignment.

Do professors like grading papers?

Yes, as a former professor, I liked grading students’ papers because I learned so much information and it helped me see my students’ growth during the semester.

When students were required to use sources and do research, I got to learn about a lot of things in my field that I didn’t know about before.

I also got to see some amazing opinions and thoughts that students don’t normally get to discuss during the semester.

However, it can take a lot of time to grade so sometimes it wasn’t the most exciting part of my job.

Do professors really read 10 page papers?

Some professors will skim papers instead of reading every single sentence of a 10 page paper, but other professors will be very strict in their grading and will review every single word and even research the sources a student used.

As I mentioned previously, professors can vary a lot in their grading methods. Some professors are tough and do not want to miss an opportuntiy to critique a student’s work while others are looking for general topics in a students’ paper.

Once they see that a student is discussing the most important topics, they move on.

As a student, you will often know how your professors grades after the first or second assignment.

But I really don’t believe that professors read every word of long essays because it isn’t really necessary to effectively grade a paper.

Should I take the final if I’ll fail (PROF answers)

Will professors help me find a job (prof answers).

How to Write a Good Academic Biography (Part 1)

When your journal article gets accepted or you are preparing for a public presentation, you will often be asked for a short academic biography. For many people, these academic bios are more difficult to write than a dissertation. How do you sum up yourself and your work in 3-5 sentences? What do you need to include? What should you leave out?

What You Should Do

Start with your full name followed by your current position, your general interests, and your current project, keeping them all very brief.
If you are within a year of receiving a prestigious award, mention that as well.
Finally, finish with a sentence that’s personal: add a hobby, a pet’s name, the city you live in—whatever you are comfortable with that is personal but not too private.

What You Should Avoid

Avoid speaking in the first person, i.e., don’t use “I.”
Don’t divulge details beyond your current position.
In a longer bio of multiple paragraphs, you may add more awards and information about your master’s and bachelor’s degrees, but not in a short bio. Moreover, don’t add anything that happened before grad school—including your place of birth. For example:

Hi! My name is Scott. I was originally born in Vermont and now I’m a professor at North Yankee University in Fargone, New York (in upstate New York). I study antelopes’ migration patterns and their impact of native grain growth. My interest in antelopes began as a teenager when I first saw one in the wild. I did my undergrad degree in biology at SUNY and my masters and UCLA and my PhD in Forestry at Hunter College.

Related: Finished drafting your academic biography and heading for an international conference? Check out this post now!

The above example is far too casual and Scott’s work and current position are overshadowed by all the other random details. This can be written in a much better way:

Scott Sampson is a professor of Wildlife Biology at North Yankee University. His work focuses specifically on the migration patterns of antelope and their impact on the growth of native grain. His favorite place to do research in his backyard, which opens to the Akron National Forest.

This improvised version is concise, relevant, and makes Scott’s bio appear professional while giving a short description of his personal details.

Longer Bios

For longer bios, follow the same basic rules, but go into a bit more depth about your work, your education, and your future projects or interests. You may also consider adding a line about your immediate family. But as always, leave the personal details for a short and friendly mention at the end of the bio.

Mostly, your bio will be used by someone to introduce you at a conference or public event so if you write your bio using these tips, you will help them give a smooth and accurate introduction. Remember that the bio is the first thing that people know about you so pack it full of the most important things about yourself!

If you would like to know more about different formats of academic biography, read the next article in this series!

Appreciating the dedication you put into your blog and detailed information you provide. It’s good to come across a blog every once in a while that isn’t the same out of date rehashed material. Fantastic read! I’ve bookmarked your site and I’m including your RSS feeds to my Google account.

Greeting from Enago Academy! Thank you for your positive comment. We are glad to know that you found our resources useful. Your feedback is very valuable to us. Happy reading!

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Comparing to my introduction and yours, there is a huge difference and mine is like grade R?. Thank you so much for developing such content and helping disadvantaged students like me, hence holding Honours. Once again thank you

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Volume 133’s Emerging Scholar of the Year: Robyn Powell

The Yale Law Journal is thrilled to announce Volume 133’s Emerging Scholar of the Year: Robyn Powell.

The Yale Law Journal ’s Emerging Scholar of the Year Award celebrates the achievements of early-career academics who have made significant contributions to legal thought and scholarship. It seeks to promote scholarship that has the potential to drive improvements in the law and to spotlight the exceptional work of its honorees. The Emerging Scholar of the Year is selected by the Journal ’s membership following an intensive, semester-long research and deliberation process.

Volume 133’s Emerging Scholar of the Year, Professor Powell, is an Associate Professor of Law at Oklahoma University College of Law, where she teaches in the areas of family law, disability law, professional responsibility, and public-health law.

Professor Powell’s work focuses on the intersection of family law, disability law, reproductive justice, and public-health law and how laws and policies affect disabled people’s decision-making about whether and when to have children. Her forthcoming article in the Georgetown Law Review , Forced to Bear, Denied to Rear , examines the effects of the Dobbs decision on disabled people, including the impact of forced pregnancy and potential subsequent denial of parental rights. Her other forthcoming article entitled Under the Watchful Eye of All , which will appear in the California Law Review , provides a novel analysis of the extensive surveillance targeted at disabled parents and their children by the family policing system. In Care Reimagined , a forthcoming book review in the Michigan Law Review , Powell examines the complex issues surrounding care and their relevance to people with disabilities and proposes a normative vision for reimagining care. In 2023, Professor Powell published Including Disabled People in the Battle to Protect Abortion Rights in the UCLA Law Review , arguing that the attack on abortion rights has acute effects on people with disabilities and proposes a blueprint to protect abortion rights in a way that fully includes people with disabilities. Professor Powell has also written a 2022 article, Disability Reproductive Justice , in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review , which looks at the broader scope of reproductive decision-making beyond abortion and proposes a vision to help support the coalescence of the disability-justice and reproductive-justice movements.

Professor Powell graduated with a B.S. in Social Work from Bridgewater State University, a J.D. from Suffolk University Law School, and a Master of Arts in Social Policy and a Ph.D. from Brandeis University. Before joining OU Law, Powell was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Stetson University College of Law and an Instructor at Boston University School of Law.

As a disabled woman, Professor Powell has dedicated her career to advancing the rights of people with disabilities. Prior to entering academia, she served as an Attorney-Advisor at the National Council on Disability, a Research Associate at the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy at Brandeis University, Disability Rights Program Manager at the Equal Rights Center, Assistant Director for Policy and Advocacy at the Disability Policy Consortium, and Staff Attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services.

The Journal is delighted to celebrate the achievements of Professor Powell. Please join us in congratulating her!

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NATURE INDEX
01 May 2024

Plagiarism in peer-review reports could be the ‘tip of the iceberg’

Jackson Ryan 0

Jackson Ryan is a freelance science journalist in Sydney, Australia.

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Time pressures and a lack of confidence could be prompting reviewers to plagiarize text in their reports. Credit: Thomas Reimer/Zoonar via Alamy

Mikołaj Piniewski is a researcher to whom PhD students and collaborators turn when they need to revise or refine a manuscript. The hydrologist, at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, has a keen eye for problems in text — a skill that came in handy last year when he encountered some suspicious writing in peer-review reports of his own paper.

Last May, when Piniewski was reading the peer-review feedback that he and his co-authors had received for a manuscript they’d submitted to an environmental-science journal, alarm bells started ringing in his head. Comments by two of the three reviewers were vague and lacked substance, so Piniewski decided to run a Google search, looking at specific phrases and quotes the reviewers had used.

To his surprise, he found the comments were identical to those that were already available on the Internet, in multiple open-access review reports from publishers such as MDPI and PLOS. “I was speechless,” says Piniewski. The revelation caused him to go back to another manuscript that he had submitted a few months earlier, and dig out the peer-review reports he received for that. He found more plagiarized text. After e-mailing several collaborators, he assembled a team to dig deeper.

Meet this super-spotter of duplicated images in science papers

The team published the results of its investigation in Scientometrics in February 1 , examining dozens of cases of apparent plagiarism in peer-review reports, identifying the use of identical phrases across reports prepared for 19 journals. The team discovered exact quotes duplicated across 50 publications, saying that the findings are just “the tip of the iceberg” when it comes to misconduct in the peer-review system.

Dorothy Bishop, a former neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, UK, who has turned her attention to investigating research misconduct, was “favourably impressed” by the team’s analysis. “I felt the way they approached it was quite useful and might be a guide for other people trying to pin this stuff down,” she says.

Peer review under review

Piniewski and his colleagues conducted three analyses. First, they uploaded five peer-review reports from the two manuscripts that his laboratory had submitted to a rudimentary online plagiarism-detection tool . The reports had 44–100% similarity to previously published online content. Links were provided to the sources in which duplications were found.

The researchers drilled down further. They broke one of the suspicious peer-review reports down to fragments of one to three sentences each and searched for them on Google. In seconds, the search engine returned a number of hits: the exact phrases appeared in 22 open peer-review reports, published between 2021 and 2023.

The final analysis provided the most worrying results. They took a single quote — 43 words long and featuring multiple language errors, including incorrect capitalization — and pasted it into Google. The search revealed that the quote, or variants of it, had been used in 50 peer-review reports.

Predominantly, these reports were from journals published by MDPI, PLOS and Elsevier, and the team found that the amount of duplication increased year-on-year between 2021 and 2023. Whether this is because of an increase in the number of open-access peer-review reports during this time or an indication of a growing problem is unclear — but Piniewski thinks that it could be a little bit of both.

Why would a peer reviewer use plagiarized text in their report? The team says that some might be attempting to save time , whereas others could be motivated by a lack of confidence in their writing ability, for example, if they aren’t fluent in English.

The team notes that there are instances that might not represent misconduct. “A tolerable rephrasing of your own words from a different review? I think that’s fine,” says Piniewski. “But I imagine that most of these cases we found are actually something else.”

The source of the problem

Duplication and manipulation of peer-review reports is not a new phenomenon. “I think it’s now increasingly recognized that the manipulation of the peer-review process, which was recognized around 2010, was probably an indication of paper mills operating at that point,” says Jennifer Byrne, director of biobanking at New South Wales Health in Sydney, Australia, who also studies research integrity in scientific literature.

Paper mills — organizations that churn out fake research papers and sell authorships to turn a profit — have been known to tamper with reviews to push manuscripts through to publication, says Byrne.

The fight against fake-paper factories that churn out sham science

However, when Bishop looked at Piniewski’s case, she could not find any overt evidence of paper-mill activity. Rather, she suspects that journal editors might be involved in cases of peer-review-report duplication and suggests studying the track records of those who’ve allowed inadequate or plagiarized reports to proliferate.

Piniewski’s team is also concerned about the rise of duplications as generative artificial intelligence (AI) becomes easier to access . Although his team didn’t look for signs of AI use, its ability to quickly ingest and rephrase large swathes of text is seen as an emerging issue.

A preprint posted in March 2 showed evidence of researchers using AI chatbots to assist with peer review, identifying specific adjectives that could be hallmarks of AI-written text in peer-review reports .

Bishop isn’t as concerned as Piniewski about AI-generated reports, saying that it’s easy to distinguish between AI-generated text and legitimate reviewer commentary. “The beautiful thing about peer review,” she says, is that it is “one thing you couldn’t do a credible job with AI”.

Preventing plagiarism

Publishers seem to be taking action. Bethany Baker, a media-relations manager at PLOS, who is based in Cambridge, UK, told Nature Index that the PLOS Publication Ethics team “is investigating the concerns raised in the Scientometrics article about potential plagiarism in peer reviews”.

How big is science’s fake-paper problem?

An Elsevier representative told Nature Index that the publisher “can confirm that this matter has been brought to our attention and we are conducting an investigation”.

In a statement, the MDPI Research Integrity and Publication Ethics Team said that it has been made aware of potential misconduct by reviewers in its journals and is “actively addressing and investigating this issue”. It did not confirm whether this was related to the Scientometrics article.

One proposed solution to the problem is ensuring that all submitted reviews are checked using plagiarism-detection software. In 2022, exploratory work by Adam Day, a data scientist at Sage Publications, based in Thousand Oaks, California, identified duplicated text in peer-review reports that might be suggestive of paper-mill activity. Day offered a similar solution of using anti-plagiarism software , such as Turnitin.

Piniewski expects the problem to get worse in the coming years, but he hasn’t received any unusual peer-review reports since those that originally sparked his research. Still, he says that he’s now even more vigilant. “If something unusual occurs, I will spot it.”

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01312-0

Piniewski, M., Jarić, I., Koutsoyiannis, D. & Kundzewicz, Z. W. Scientometrics https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-04960-1 (2024).

Article Google Scholar

Liang, W. et al. Preprint at arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2403.07183 (2024).

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MyU : For Students, Faculty, and Staff

Researchers create new chemical compound to solve 120-year-old problem

Image of Roberts Group in the Department of Chemistry.

Accessing these molecules can have major impacts on agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and electronics

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (05/01/2024) — For the first time, chemists in the University of Minnesota Twin Cities College of Science and Engineering have created a highly reactive chemical compound that has eluded scientists for more than 120 years. The discovery could lead to new drug treatments, safer agricultural products, and better electronics.

For decades, researchers have been investigating molecules called N-heteroarenes, which are ring-shaped chemical compounds that contain one or more nitrogen atoms. Bio-active molecules having a N-heteroarene core are widely used for numerous medicinal applications, lifesaving pharmaceuticals, pesticides and herbicides, and even electronics.

“While the average person does not think about heterocycles on a daily basis, these unique nitrogen-containing molecules are widely applied across all facets of human life,” said Courtney Roberts, the senior author of the study and a University of Minnesota Department of Chemistry assistant professor who holds the 3M Alumni Professorship.

These molecules are highly sought out by many industries, but are extremely challenging for chemists to make. Previous strategies have been able to target these specific molecules, but scientists have not been able to create a series of these molecules. One reason for this is that these molecules are extremely reactive. They are so active that chemists have used computational modeling to predict that they should be impossible to make. This has created challenges for more than a century and prevented a solution to create this chemical substance.

Image of inaccessible compound that researchers were able to make accessible.

“What we were able to do was to run these chemical reactions with specialized equipment while getting rid of elements commonly found in our atmosphere,” said Jenna Humke, a University of Minnesota chemistry graduate student and lead author on the paper. “Luckily, we have the tools to do that at the University of Minnesota. We ran experiments under nitrogen in a closed-chamber glovebox, which creates a chemically inactive environment to test and move samples.”

These experiments were accomplished by using organometallic catalysis—the interaction between metals and organic molecules. The research required collaboration between both organic and inorganic chemists. This is something that is common at the University of Minnesota.

“We were able to solve this long-standing challenge because the University of Minnesota Department of Chemistry is unique in that we don’t have formal divisions,” Roberts added. “This allows us to put together a team of experts in all fields of chemistry, which was a vital component in completing this project”

After introducing the chemical compound in this paper, the next steps will be to make it widely available to chemists across multiple fields to streamline the creation process. This could help solve important problems like preventing food scarcity and treating illnesses to save lives.

Along with Roberts and Humke, the University of Minnesota research team included postdoctoral researcher Roman Belli, graduate students Erin Plasek, Sallu S. Kargbo, and former postdoctoral researcher Annabel Ansel.

This work was primarily funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Funding was also provided by four University of Minnesota-sponsored graduate research fellowships and start-up funding provided by the Department of Chemistry.

To read the entire research paper titled, “Nickel binding enables isolation and reactivity of previously inaccessible 7-Aza-2,3-indolynes”, visit the Science website .

Rhonda Zurn, College of Science and Engineering, [email protected]

University Public Relations, [email protected]

Opinion How to fix college finances? Eliminate faculty, then students.

Gary Smith is the Fletcher Jones professor of economics at Pomona College. His most recent book, written with Margaret Smith, is “ The Power of Modern Value Investing — Beyond Indexing, Algos, and Alpha .”

Two imminent threats to higher education are bloated bureaucracies and clever chatbots. Herewith, I humbly propose a straightforward way to solve both problems.

I will use Pomona College, where I have taught for decades, as a specific example of how easily my proposal might be implemented. In 1990 , Pomona had 1,487 students, 180 tenured and tenure-track professors, and 56 administrators — deans, associate deans, assistant deans and the like, not counting clerical staff, cleaners and so on. As of 2022, the most recent year for which I have data, the number of students had increased 17 percent, to 1,740, while the number of professors had fallen to 175. The number of administrators had increased to 310, an average of 7.93 new administrators per year. Even for a college as rich as Pomona, this insatiable demand for administrators will eventually cause a budget squeeze. Happily, there is a simple solution.

Pomona’s professor-administrator ratio has plummeted from 3.21 to 0.56. A linear extrapolation of this trend gives a professor-administrator ratio of zero within this decade. This trend can be accelerated by not replacing retiring or departing professors and by offering generous incentives for voluntary departures. To maintain its current 9.94 student-faculty ratio, the college need only admit fewer students each year as the size of its faculty withers away. A notable side effect would be a boost in Pomona’s U.S. News & World Report rankings as its admissions rate approaches zero.

And just like that, the college would be rid of two nuisances at once. Administrators could do what administrators do — hold meetings, codify rules, debate policy, give and attend workshops, and organize social events — without having to deal with whiny students and grumpy professors.

The college could continue to be called a college, since the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “college” as “an institution offering instruction usually in a professional, vocational, or technical field.” There would just be a shift in focus from young students looking to delay entering the job market to administrators looking to build their résumés as they move up the administrator ladder.

Colleges do not need traditional students or professors. In fact, these are generally a drain on resources in that student revenue does not cover faculty salaries. The elimination of professors and students would greatly improve most colleges’ financial position.

In general, administrators are paid for by a college or university’s endowment. As of December, Pomona’s endowment was $2.8 billion . The annual payout from its endowment is set at between 4.5 and 5.5 percent of the average value of the endowment over the preceding five years. A 5 percent payout would provide each of 310 administrators an annual allotment of $450,000, which would easily provide generous compensation, a wide variety of benefits, and frequent travel to conferences and workshops worldwide.

There would continue to be some expenses for clerical staff, cleaners and so on, but renting out the now-empty dormitory apartments and selling the now-empty classrooms to private businesses and government agencies would almost certainly not only cover these expenses but also add to the endowment and allow the hiring of additional administrators.

The college might slightly modify its mission statement , which currently begins: “Throughout its history, Pomona College has educated students of exceptional promise.” An updated mission statement might begin: “Pomona College is dedicated to sustaining and advancing the careers of administrators of exceptional promise.”

Obviously, each institution of higher learning would use its own endowment, properties and other assets to determine the equilibrium number of administrators that could be supported.

If all colleges and universities follow my suggestion, there will be a small problem in that college students will no longer have colleges to go to. This is easily resolved by tapping the second existential threat to higher education — ChatGPT and other chatbots. All higher-education courses could be done online via bots with no need for expensive classrooms, dorm rooms and other physical facilities.

Instead of paying college costs currently approaching $100,000 a year , students could earn their degrees conveniently and inexpensively from the comfort of their own homes. Moreover, they would be given access to bots that they can use to take tests and write any essays required by the instructor bots. The students’ test answers would no doubt be perfect, and their essays would be persuasive and error-free, which would allow all students to be given A grades without having to disrupt their lives by attending classes, listening to lectures or reading. Win-win.

College and universities would be places for administrators to advance their careers. Education would be student bots interacting with instructor bots.

Everything will be for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

About guest opinion submissions

The Washington Post accepts opinion articles on any topic. We welcome submissions on local, national and international issues. We publish work that varies in length and format, including multimedia. Submit a guest opinion or read our guide to writing an opinion article .

Opinion | Read Vladimir Kara-Murza’s Pulitzer Prize-winning commentary on Russia May 6, 2024 Opinion | Read Vladimir Kara-Murza’s Pulitzer Prize-winning commentary on Russia May 6, 2024
Opinion | Lifelong lessons in coping with fear and humiliation May 6, 2024 Opinion | Lifelong lessons in coping with fear and humiliation May 6, 2024
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How Professors Grade a Research Paper
How Professors Grade a Research Paper. This sheet is designed for grading research papers. Scores range from 1 (low) to 5 (high). ... Is the diction appropriate for a college-level assignment? Is the diction appropriate for the discipline? Has the writer included too many informal elements (e.g. cliché, contractions, the use of you or I ...
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Step 1: Find a topic and review the literature. As we mentioned earlier, in a research paper, you, as the researcher, will try to answer a question.More specifically, that's called a research question, and it sets the direction of your entire paper. What's important to understand though is that you'll need to answer that research question with the help of high-quality sources - for ...
How to Write a Research Paper: 11-Step Guide
Getting your research paper done in a timely, efficient manner usually takes about two weeks, depending on the length of the essay. Step 3: Choose a Research Paper Topic. Your professor may give you specific research paper topics to write about. Or, your research paper may need to answer a certain question.
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Choose a research paper topic. There are many ways to generate an idea for a research paper, from brainstorming with pen and paper to talking it through with a fellow student or professor.. You can try free writing, which involves taking a broad topic and writing continuously for two or three minutes to identify absolutely anything relevant that could be interesting.
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Once you've gotten the gist of your paper down, the real work begins: 6. Revise Your Draft. Okay, now that you've word-vomited everywhere in a semi-organized fashion, it's time to start building this thing into a cohesive paper. If you took the time to outline properly, then this part shouldn't be too difficult.
How to write research papers that impress your professors
Bonus: when it's time to write your paper, you can add footnotes and create bibliographies automatically. Select a focused topic that you care about. First things first: make sure you understand the assignment. If you have any doubts, discuss the assignment with your professor. Then, do some background reading to find a topic that interests ...
A Guide For Pursuing Independent Scientific Research ...
Recently, one of her students successfully partnered with a university professor to start a project on how jet lag affects intelligence and plans to finish a research paper by the end of the summer.
How to Do Research With a Professor
Make weekly progress. Set goalposts, and be sure you make real progress from week to week. Use your meeting time or email each week to make sure that you agree on what the goal for next week is. Take the initiative. Be somewhat self-directed—find readings, play around with code, do mini-experiments.
PDF Strategies for Essay Writing
Harvard College Writing Center 2 Tips for Reading an Assignment Prompt When you receive a paper assignment, your first step should be to read the assignment prompt carefully to make sure you understand what you are being asked to do. Sometimes your assignment will be open-ended ("write a paper about anything in the course that interests you").
How To Make A Paper
1. Write to the Rubric. The first important step in writing a paper is taking some time to understand what the professor is looking for. If you know that, you can write to the rubric and pick up easy points along the way. Universities mandate that professors given students rubrics or some form of assessment guideline.
Scribbr
Help you achieve your academic goals. Whether we're proofreading and editing, checking for plagiarism or AI content, generating citations, or writing useful Knowledge Base articles, our aim is to support students on their journey to become better academic writers. We believe that every student should have the right tools for academic success.
Sample of a Professor's Remarks on a Student Paper
Email: [email protected] College of Liberal Arts Student Services 214 Bexell Hall 541-737-0561. Deans Office 200 Bexell Hall 541-737-4582. Corvallis, OR 97331-8600. liberalartsosu
How to Write a College Research Paper (With Examples)
This will also allow you to create a more original essay because there's more research to choose from than merely 2 academic essays. How to Research for a College Paper. To write a college research paper, it boils to down to one main thing… the research. Often professors will give you guidelines as to where your research must come from.
Research Paper Outline: Designing Your Research Narrative
Here are key considerations for the outline format for the research paper: Roman numerals, letters, and numbers: use Roman numerals (I, II, III) for main sections, capital letters (A, B, C) for subsections, and Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3) for further divisions.
APA Sample Paper
Media Files: APA Sample Student Paper , APA Sample Professional Paper This resource is enhanced by Acrobat PDF files. Download the free Acrobat Reader. Note: The APA Publication Manual, 7 th Edition specifies different formatting conventions for student and professional papers (i.e., papers written for credit in a course and papers intended for scholarly publication).
The Do's and Don'ts of Contacting Professors about Research
Don't write a generic message and sign with only your first name. Tell them who you are, including major and year in school. If you took a class with this person, mention that. If you were referred to this person by someone else, mention that too. Address the individual you're emailing.
How to Find Research Opportunities with College Professors
Networking will come in handy here. You may not end up doing research with a professor at all, but they can direct you to someone with more time and willingness, such as a graduate student. In fact, graduate students tend to have more availability to mentor you. For instance, they might be able to give you small tasks here and there where you ...
Why Must Professors Publish?
Some acknowledge that they know professors perform "research," but they only alluded to it in vague terms. Before I stepped into the academic world, my views were the same as the majority of my students. Ten years ago, I naively entered a Ph.D. program in a Florida school with the goal of teaching at the college level when I had finished.
Ask a Professor: How to Ask Your Professor for Research
Step 1: Look for Posted Research Openings. Before sending a cold email to a professor to ask about research positions, search for posted openings. Many universities list undergraduate and graduate research opportunities on their websites. Review the list and learn more about the positions.
Harvard professor who studies dishonesty is accused of tampering with
The university found that in a 2012 paper, it appeared someone had added and altered figures in its database, Max H. Bazerman, a Harvard Business School professor who collaborated with Gino in the ...
113 Great Research Paper Topics
113 Great Research Paper Topics. One of the hardest parts of writing a research paper can be just finding a good topic to write about. Fortunately we've done the hard work for you and have compiled a list of 113 interesting research paper topics. They've been organized into ten categories and cover a wide range of subjects so you can easily ...
Do professors really read student's papers (The truth from a PROF
Yes, professors will actually read your research paper but they might be reading too fast to catch minor mistakes as they will be looking for major points of discussion only. Professors have an expectation when they assign a paper and they know exactly what they are looking for when they are grading. If I was grading a paper, I knew the major ...
How To Write A Good Academic Biography
Don't divulge details beyond your current position. In a longer bio of multiple paragraphs, you may add more awards and information about your master's and bachelor's degrees, but not in a short bio. Moreover, don't add anything that happened before grad school—including your place of birth. For example: Hi!
Four Alumni Are Co-authors on a Recently Published Biochemistry Paper
Professor of Chemistry Keri Colabroy, who co-directs the biochemistry program, is also a co-author, along with her Rhodes College collaborator Larryn W. Peterson and a Rhodes student. "The growth and confidence I developed was the most valuable experience that I took from doing this research during undergrad.
Volume 133's Emerging Scholar of the Year: Robyn Powell
The Yale Law Journal is thrilled to announce Volume 133's Emerging Scholar of the Year: Robyn Powell. The Yale Law Journal's Emerging Scholar of the Year Award celebrates the achievements of early-career academics who have made significant contributions to legal thought and scholarship. It seeks to promote scholarship that has the potential to drive improvements in the law and to spotlight ...
Plagiarism in peer-review reports could be the 'tip of the iceberg'
Paper mills — organizations that churn out fake research papers and sell authorships to turn a profit — have been ... Position Summary We seek an Associate Professor in the department of ...
Researchers create new chemical compound to solve 120-year-old problem
Accessing these molecules can have major impacts on agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and electronicsMINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (05/01/2024) — For the first time, chemists in the University of Minnesota Twin Cities College of Science and Engineering have created a highly reactive chemical compound that has eluded scientists for more than 120 years. The discovery could lead to new drug treatments ...
Faculty provide career advice, development to students
The new research found that faculty members at four-year institutions were more likely to have provided career advising (42 percent) to students than their two-year counterparts (38 percent), highlighting a larger trend of community college students not getting enough exposure to career preparation. The most common advice students are seeking ...
A modest proposal to save higher education
April 23, 2024 at 5:45 a.m. EDT. (Seb Agresti for The Washington Post) 5 min. Gary Smith is the Fletcher Jones professor of economics at Pomona College. His most recent book, written with Margaret ...
Assistant Professor of History in Batesville, AR for Lyon College
Employment Type: Full-Time Tenure-Track/Tenured Faculty. Internal Number: 1. Assistant Professor of History. Lyon College invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor of History position beginning in August 2024. All candidates should have their terminal degree. The History Department seeks candidates who specialize in any area ...