Did you know that every student needs to write at least one research paper in their academic life? In most curriculums, students must submit research papers to graduate. Thesis writing is one of the biggest college requirements, which can cause some anxiety.
Reading, interpreting, and analyzing information about a niche topic can be challenging. If you submit a substandard paper, you risk failing and not graduating on time. To write an excellent academic paper, learn and understand the research process.
By knowing the steps in conducting research, you can create an excellent paper. Read on to learn more about the research process and how to write the best research paper.
1. Understand the Assignment
Many students start their papers without reading the guidelines. This can result in fatal errors in your research. Before you begin, ensure you understand the assignment task sheet.
If you have questions about the assignment, clarify them with your professor. Next, identify the paper format, length specifications, and submission date. By doing so, you can prevent committing technical errors in your paper.
Finally, create a timeframe to do your research. Ensure you have time to study, write, and check the paper.
2. Choose Your Topic
After understanding the assignment guidelines, it’s time to choose your topic. Identifying the subject is crucial in the research process as it directs your study. But how do you choose a topic?
When selecting your research area, it’s best to pick what interests you. Choosing a topic that has nothing to do with your profession or passion can make the whole process hard. When you find a subject that intrigues you, go for it.
Consider if the topic can provide enough content. It’s best to avoid general subjects as it can get hard dissecting them.
3. Identify the Problem
If the topic directs the study, the research problem drives your paper. It’s a statement that questions the gap in knowledge or challenge in your field of study. Researchers create problems to determine and define the objectives of their paper.
A good research problem identifies concepts, broad questions, and variables. In addition, it guides you in formulating the hypotheses and interpreting the results. With this, you can come up with the correct conclusions.
Decide whether you want to contribute to change or add new knowledge to an existing topic.
4. Create the Hypotheses
Do you know what hypotheses are in a research paper? A hypothesis is a statement based on facts explaining why or how something works. However, it’s a claim not yet proven.
These are assumptions telling the possible outcome of the study. With this, you must create testable hypotheses. Formulating hypotheses involves determining the relationship between the independent and the dependent variable.
In research, you can write your assumptions as null or alternative hypotheses.
5. Review of Related Literature
Often, a research problem is vague in the beginning. To get a clearer picture of the study, read different publications, journals, and other studies. Among all the stages of research, the review of related literature is the longest.
A review of related literature explores other studies relevant to your paper. With the RRL, you can get a framework to build your hypotheses.
You can find information for your RRL in books, journals, online articles, and more. If you find this extensive, you can look for writers that can help you, more so for nursing students. Consider getting nursing writing services to help you complete your paper.
6. Prepare the Research Design
Collecting tons of data and information can get out of hand pretty quickly. Preparing a research design will help you keep your paper organized. In addition, it serves as the blueprint of the whole study.
Your research design is the strategy you apply in the different areas of the study. It will help you collect, measure, and analyze data.
7. Experimentation and Gathering of Data
After identifying your data collection method, start the actual experimentation. In this step, you must conduct tests to prove the validity of your hypotheses. It includes the procedure you used to follow in the study.
When done with the experimentation process, gather data from significant resources. Next, measure them on variables of interest. Then, analyze the data collected to answer the problem, test the hypotheses, and assess the results.
8. Results and Discussion
In a research process, you explain the findings of your study in the Results and Discussion. You report the results without theorizing them. For better visualization and organization, you can use tables and graphs.
In the discussion part of the paper, you explain your interpretation of the results. Contextualize them and explain their significance to the study. Use the visualizers to relay your findings of the research.
9. Come Up With Your Conclusions and Recommendations
In the last stage of the research process, you must give conclusions and recommendations. Present a statement concluding the solution to the research problem. It must tell whether your experiment worked or not.
In this part of the paper, you must answer the hypotheses and the research problem. It must also cover the limitations of the study and suggestions to improve it.
10. Cite Sources and Check for Errors
Wrap up your paper by citing sources, correcting grammatical errors, and checking for plagiarism.
By citing sources, you acknowledge the studies of other researchers and avoid plagiarism. Correcting grammatical errors is vital as the structure can affect the reader’s comprehension. If you fail to omit the mistakes, people can have a different understanding of your study.
As for plagiarism, a high percentage indicates you copied the content of your paper. You lose credibility when you copy others’ work, which is crucial for researchers. As a student, you can fail if your professor flags your research paper plagiarized.
The Research Process: How to Write a Paper?
Unlike an essay, a research paper is a form of academic writing based on facts. With this, students need to investigate, gather data, and analyze information.
Do you want to learn more about the research process? Check out our other blog posts to learn more great tips!