Back when I was still in university, I worked at my school’s writing center which was basically a place where I’d help students with their essays, applications, etc… that required a heavy amount of writing. I learned quite a lot about academic writing through that position because I was able to spot what students were doing wrong and how to improve their essays. So, this isn’t fiction-based, but I feel like there needs to be a good guide on how to write an academic research paper, because these will be the majority of your writings in university, no matter your major. That’s why today’s post will focus on how to write an academic research paper, the best practices to get a good grade, and common mistakes to avoid.
What is An Academic Research Paper?
An academic research paper is basically just an essay that one must write in response to (typically) a prompted question, with the main objective being to analyze something in order to respond to the question. Oftentimes, you’ll see these in high school, but at the university level, nearly every program will have some level of assigned reports to write.
Research papers are not standard essays not because they require an insanely different format, but because the level of work required to put into it is higher. The expectation is that as a student, you will go out of your way to find credible, helpful, academic sources to respond to your prompt. It is also strict on the ideas of plagiarism and citations, but we’ll get into all of that soon.
Check out this post to learn more about writing an alternate history book!
What Makes a Research Paper Different Than a Regular Essay?
A regular essay tends to have more leeway in what resources and information can be included. An academic research paper is very clearly assigned with the intention of getting students to research and synthesize their ideas together. An essay can be related to one story or one topic, without any outside resources coming in. Meanwhile, a research paper implies that you will have many resources to cite in the essay.
How to Write an Academic Research Paper
Analyze Your Prompt First
In most scenarios when you are assigned something like this, your professor will give you a prompt and rubric. These two things are essential to your success in the assignment, more than just what the professor says to do.
The rubric is the professor’s way of telling you as the student precisely what he is grading your essay for and what he is going to be picking on the most. The prompt itself is the actual assignment with instructions on what to do, what to write about, and what expectations the professor has for the paper’s quality and more.
You have to read the prompt carefully first and break down every part of it. Try to see what sort of purpose your paper has (analytical, argumentative, persuasive, etc…) and try to understand how many sources you’ll need (some have limits). If you find yourself confused, this is where it’s important to ask the professor or your TA questions because if you wait on it and don’t get anything cleared up, you might find yourself the night before your essay is due, confused on what you’re supposed to be doing.
Some research papers are open-ended and allow the student to get a chance to explore a topic of interest.
If it’s Open Ended, Pick a Topic of Interest
Assuming your essay is open-ended, just for the sake of this post, you have to now actually pick a topic. Sometimes, you may get choices between different topics or you may have the whole playing field open to yourself. Whatever it may be, what you want to do is to ensure that you’re picking something that you find you can easily write about and that you are interested in.
You want to pick a topic that is not too broad or too narrow because something that is too narrow might not have any sources that you can use and a topic that’s too broad may be a bit overwhelming to deal with.
Start Your Research
Now that you have a topic for your essay, you have to start your research process. I recommend you download the program Zotero at this point because Zotero lets you place all your sources into it and organize them. You can then select the ones you actually used and it will create the citations for you, making your life much easier.
Just do a quick browse online or using whatever resources you have available to you and see what sort of sources will be available to use in your essay. Don’t do anything too specific right now because you still need to work on some other things before you get started with this. However, keep track of the sources that you do find in case you want to use them in your essay.
Create a Thesis Statement
The thesis statement is one of the most important things that you need to work on. I have always said that that thesis statement is essentially the broad overview of what your essay is actually going to look like. It should only include major points and it should include precisely what your argument or focus is for the essay. The thesis also needs to be clear and it needs to make sense in the context of your essay.
The thesis is not something like this: I think the American Revolution was impactful.
That’s not a thesis statement and you can’t include this in a research paper. Instead, your thesis should sound something like this: The American Revolutionary War had a long-lasting impact on history, providing the foundations for the French Revolution and creating the basis for the War of 1812.
This is a thesis statement and it includes specific details, it tells the reader what I’m going to be talking about (French Revolution and War of 1812) and it sets up what my argument is (American Revolutionary War is impactful).
You want to make sure you can actually answer your thesis statement and that you can find resources for it as well.
Start Your Intensive Research
Now that you know precisely what your thesis statement will be, it’s time to actually find sources to back up your main points. The big ideas you present in your thesis will create the foundation for your body paragraphs. In my case, it’s the French Revolution and the War of 1812, so I know that my research needs to focus on those two points and their connection to the American Revolutionary War.
You can certainly start with Google and research from there, but you can’t use things like Wikipedia in your essay. Even if Wikipedia synthesizes all the information, it’s just not a source that is acceptable in most classes. You can use it to find other resources though!
Either way, you want to take advantage of things like your university’s library and websites like JSTOR and the like. For an academic research paper, you’ll likely need academic, peer-reviewed sources on top of things like the news and more.
Get a paperback copy of Malware, Book 1 of The Fallen Age Saga today!
Outline the Essay
One of the most helpful things I’ve often seen helped students in university is the idea of an essay outline. The most common format for an essay is the following:
- Introduction Paragraph:
- Hook
- Background on the topic being researched
- Thesis Statement
- Body Paragraphs:
- Introductory sentence
- Main point to be discussed
- Evidence
- Transitions
- Conclusion:
- Restate Thesis in a different way
- Summary of Main Points
- Closing Thought
First Draft
Using the outline as a guide, you want to start your first draft. I recommend that you actually start this part by just filling out the guide and not worrying about grammar and writing complete sentences yet. Just get your ideas down and see if you can actually answer your own thesis statement properly. If you find yourself getting stuck, you can at least go back and change something before you’ve started writing out full paragraphs.
The first draft is not going to be perfect so just use it as an opportunity to try out your own thesis statement and work on your main points. Make sure to keep track of the sources you’re using and to mark when a point includes a certain source.
Revisions and Edits
After your first draft, you should start to write out the full essay, taking care to keep track of your sources again. Sources and citing those sources has to be one of the most important parts to remember because if you’re not citing, you will be flagged for plagiarism! I’ll talk about this more in a minute though.
At this point, you want to revise and edit your essay, ensuring things like correct grammar, flowing sentences, points that make sense, and that your essay relates back to the thesis. Basically, the thesis is your overview so your essay should be answering the thesis.
Additionally, you want to try and get some feedback from other students or even try getting feedback from the professor. Oftentimes, you’ll find that they’re willing to help but you need to ask for that help early in the essay’s cycle because they won’t help you if the essay is due in five hours.
Citations, Citations, Citations!
Citations and sources are a big part of the academic research paper writing process. The general rule of thumb is that anything you have directly quoted or paraphrased from a third-party MUST be cited in your essay. Do not include a sentence that is clearly not your own work and not add a citation because you will set yourself up to be flagged for plagiarism even if you haven’t committed plagiarism.
Cite your sources when in doubt.
Formatting
Most university classes will tell you what citation style and format you need to use for your essay. These are different as you have things like MLA, Chicago, APA, etc… Make sure you know which one you have to use because you will get docked points if you use the wrong format. If you need help figuring out how to format per a specific style, check out Purdue Owl, it’s a really helpful resource that I used in university.
Proofreading
Once you’re done and you think that you’ve got everything ready to go, you want to do a final sweep of your essay. Proofread, try to look out for small technical details like citations, formatting checks, grammar, and those sorts of things.
At this point, you shouldn’t be making any major content changes unless you realize you made a mistake somewhere crucial.
Tips for Success
I was a chronic procrastinator back in university, but I will say that if you can avoid procrastination, just avoid it. The sooner you get started with your work, the sooner you’ll be done, the easier it will feel. You can also ask for feedback and get help if you start early.
Additionally, you want to make sure that you are staying focused on your topic in your essay. It may feel tempting to branch out, but don’t do that. Stay focused. The more you go on tangents, the less your essay will feel cohesive.
Don’t rely so much on the sources that your essay starts to feel like a summary of the sources. You have an argument or a point that you are trying to prove or analyze and if you’re just talking endlessly about the sources without adding your own personal analysis, then you are missing the point of the paper. If your professor wants a summary, the professor will ask for one.
Also, this one should be obvious but I noticed this happening sometimes: Don’t stray from the guidelines. I’m just telling you as a cautionary warning, your professors don’t care if you go above and beyond. Stick to the guidelines. They are grading per a structured style and they expect you to follow it so they know what to look for in your paper. Answer the prompt, follow the rubric, and that’s it.
Conclusion
Writing an academic research paper is definitely a daunting task and I know that it may seem complicated at first, but it’s effectively not that different compared to a standard essay you have probably written many times in your life. The only difference is that you need to seek out sources and try to come up with more things on your own.
Before you head on out, be sure to check out my sci-fantasy series, The Fallen Age Saga, and don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter to get updates on my latest posts, WIPs, book releases and more!