Writing a Research Paper

An informative essay focuses on gathering new and relevant information that adds value to your readers in an interesting way. Choosing good informative essay topics is easy if you know how to go about it. Creating an outline before writing your paper will make organizing your thoughts a lot easier. For research papers, an outline may help you keep track of large amounts of information. For more information, visit this article: http://www.mailonline.co. An outline (even just some jotting down some main ideas) will be beneficial to your writing process. Be ruthless! Evaluate all resources (or at least as many as time will allow) at your disposal. Narrow your subject down to a clearly-defined area of interest that can be thoroughly investigated. Write a coherent, unified essay in order to teach readers about a specific topic using a unified essay to do so. For example, if you are writing a report about any Stevens-related issues, a primary research study would be best, rather than secondary research, then a combination of primary and secondary research would be appropriate. Too many students just pick a general subject and stop to begin the research. If you narrow down your subject to a specific topic, you are automatically eliminating sources that you won’t have to waste time to review. Avoid topics that are worn out from overuse, like abortion, death penalty, and gun control. Use search engines to search for relevant online sources and to find relevant sources that don't work for you. Use the Internet to help students find relevant online resources. Use a simple angle that always seems to work: How is your subject different, altered, or affected by technology? You can apply this concept to just about every college paper you will write in college. Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing and Bing are the top three search engines. Subject or topic directories arrange search engine sites into manageable categories. Use double quote marks around words that are part of a phrase: “Broadway musicals” Use NOT in front of words that must not appear in a document: Titanic NOT movie. Use parenthesis to group a search expression and combine it with another: (cigarettes OR tobacco OR \n\nsmok\n) AND lawsuits) Use asterisk as a substitute for letters that might vary: ‘marine’, ‘biolog’ and ‘tobacco’ are common synonyms for longer searches.

The steps in creating a research essay are outlined. Consider the kinds of sources available to you, how many you will need to find, how reliable the information must be. Use library sources to help point you in the right direction. Popular sources are generally available outside of libraries and are found at newsstands or from a home Internet connection. Some older sources are classics but others are simply dated and should be avoided. Catalogs: Library catalogs (both card catalogs and online catalogs) indicate what source the library has and how to find it. Indexes and databases list resources by author, by subject, and/or by publication. Reference works include encyclopedias, almanacs, digests, and atlases. Bibliographies are lists of sources in books or articles related to a topic. Other resources might include audio, video, multimedia, artworks, and government documents.

The steps in creating a research essay:

Determine your topic
Consider the context: These factors include purpose, audience, your stance towards topic, kinds of sources to find, length of project, time needed to produce it, and when project is due.
Formulate a research question and hypothesis: Work from a general topic to a narrowed topic to a statement of the issue to a hypothesis. Refine the hypothesis into a working thesis.
Plan the research: Consider the kinds of sources available to you, how many you will need to find, how current they are, and how reliable the information must be.
Primary versus secondary sources: Primary are sources you provide firsthand, like observations and interviews. They also include the raw information you come across: films, photographs, works of art, and historical documents. Secondary sources report on or analyze the research of other people. They consist of descriptions or interpretations of primary sources.
Scholarly versus popular sources: Nonacademic sources like magazines can be helpful if the articles are written by knowledgeable and credible people, but you will usually will want to depend upon the authorities in a field, those whose work has been vetted by others and whose work is well known in scholarly or academic sources, like journals.

Scholarly sources often have the word journal in the title of the source. They are usually available through libraries and library databases. There are few commercial advertisements in them. The authors have academic credentials (i.e., they are professors in their subject areas). A summary (called an abstract) appears on the first page of the article; the articles themselves are fairly long. The articles have citations and provide bibliographies of sources that the authors refer to in the articles.

Popular sources are generally available outside of libraries and are found at newsstands or from a home Internet connection. They contain many advertisements (their chief form of income and profit). The articles are written by journalists or reporters hired by the publication, not academics or experts. There is no summary (abstract) preceding the article. The articles are fairly short. The articles use quotations but do not cite sources or provide bibliographies.
Older versus more current sources: Most projects can benefit from both older, historical sources and more current ones. Some older sources are classics but others are simply dated and should be avoided.
Using library sources:
Make use of the librarians. They are trained to help point you in the right direction.
Catalogs: Library catalogs (both card catalogs and online catalogs) indicate what sources the library holds and tell you where to find the source in the library.
Indexes and databases: These resources, often available online, list resources by author, by subject, and/or by publication. This information is not likely to be accessed in a general web browser (Google) search. Some databases will include the entire article from newspapers, magazines, journals, and other works.
Reference works: These include encyclopedias, almanacs, digests, and atlases, help to provide overviews of your topic, identify subtopics, find more specialized sources, and identify keywords for searches.
Bibliographies are lists of sources in books or articles related to a topic, which can lead you to other valuable resources.
Other resources might include audio, video, multimedia, artworks, and government documents.
Finding credible Internet resources: Because anyone can publish just about anything on the Web, you need to take special care that any information you get online is reliable and trustworthy.

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