Research is not only about investigating, proving a theory, or discovering scientific novelties; it is also about sharing these findings and discoveries with fellow researchers and other interested parties. To achieve this, researchers must write and publish the implications of their research findings.
Writing a research paper requires a completely different skillset from writing an essay or drafting an email to your professor and friend. Hence, it is a good idea for every researcher to keep learning how to improve research writing. Moreover, even native English speakers struggle to write a standard research paper. Visit https://seomagnifier.com/online-paraphrasing-tool to obtain the best rewriting tool for writers.
From the researcher’s point of view, there are five standard steps that need to be considered for writing a quality research paper in order to achieve research funding, publication in a renowned journal, university credit or other professional goals. They are:
- Choosing a topic
- Understanding the topic and creating a list of relevant research topics
- Preparing an outline
- Preparing the first draft
- Proofreading and finalizing the draft
- Choosing a topic
Selecting a topic is the first step of writing the paper. Notably,a good and relevant topic must be selected with a narrow and interesting focus area, and yet wide enough to find sufficient data.
- Understanding the topic and creating a list of relevant research topics
To understand a topic, a list of keywords must be created. Keywords can be located in search engines (Google Scholar) or databases (PubMed, SCOPUS, Elsevier, etc.) and background information may be found in thesis libraries or eBooks. After creating the keywords list, relevant research and review papers can be searched in the article databases. The most relevant articles must be selected and sorted as the references, which will help in the writing process.
- Preparing an outline
Once the list of relevant articles is created, it is important to note down all the information or ideas that must have come to mind while going through the articles. Moreover, while conducting the research,tons of great ideas also must have appeared. Now it should be organized as an impressive presentation. This is a vital step for making a paper more focused and this will further help you revise the draft later.
Key points must be noted down to support the research statement. These key points can be used as subheadings for the body of the paper. Make sure you include only the relevant information that fit under your sub-headings and directly support your research implications.
- Preparing the first draft
The next step is to organize the information collected. A rough draft must be prepared where the ideas are written in an unfinished form. This step helps organize ideas and determines the final format of the paper. The draft must be revised as many times as possible to create a final product. The final document thus created is the first draft of the research paper. The next step requires citation of the sources (references). Citing the sources provides proper credit to the authors of the papers referred by you. As per the general guidelines of the most reputed journals, MLA and the APA styles are the most recommended citation formats.
- Proofreading and finalizing the draft
To prepare the final draft of the paper, the output, scientific knowledge, flow, and transitions must be checked. The paper can be revised by adding useful knowledge that might have been skipped or by rewriting and rearranging certain paragraphs for greater clarity. The ideas must be completely developed and all relevant references must be cited. After the revision of the paper, the next step is to edit the content to check and eliminate filler words and phrases and improve the overall word selection. The paper must also be proofread for errors in punctuation and grammar.
Finally, the paper should be sent to a friend or professor to go through and give their inputs.