Common difficulties encountered to write my research paper
November 2, 2009; 0What obstacles will I come across when I write my research paper?
At some point in their educational stint, every student has faced the following question: How and what am I going to do to write my research paper successfully? Research papers are an important part of the academic curriculum and they are essential for the students to understand a particular subject in detail.
Research paper writing involves a lot of thought, work and effort. Some of the major steps in writing a research paper or term paper are:
- Identifying a topic of interest
- Performing research on the chosen topic
- Formulating a thesis statement
- Presenting your findings and concluding
- Citation of literature
In each of the above mentioned stages of research paper writing, students tend to face certain difficulties.
The major difficulty lies in the initial step of topic selection. The student has to do a lot of ground work to determine the research paper topic. The student must evaluate the following: Will I be capable of researching and gathering sufficient information of the chosen topic in order to write my research paper? Will this topic interest me and will I be able to do the required analysis on it? Will I be able to gain access to all necessary resources on this topic? Choose a research paper topic that has “Yes” to most of the questions above.
On finalizing the topic, the next major difficulty that is faced by most students is to do the actual research. There are always chances that the students are misled and they end up widening their scope of research too much. If this is done, the student loses focus and finally is unable to determine an objective for the research. The best approach is to run through research paper samples on similar areas and formulate limits to your scope of research. This will help the student to restrict themselves from collecting unnecessary information and stay focused on their research.
On completion of information collection, the next major step lies in defining a thesis statement. Many students tend to falter here and write a completely irrelevant thesis statement and struggle on to match their research with their thesis statement. To avoid this, it is better for the student to ask “What is it that I want to present as my findings while I write my research paper”. The answer to this question will help the student to define a suitable thesis statement for their research paper.
The next major step is to present the findings. This is the toughest part and students find it difficult to relate their finding to the thesis statement. The trick is to organize your paper well. Substantiate your statements with as many samples as possible. Try to relate your discussions with your thesis statement wherever possible in your research paper. A good research paper format helps the reader to relate to your research, understand your arguments or justifications, as well as to understand the logic behind your conclusion.
The next difficulty faced is in clear literature citation. Ensure that you note down details of all books, magazines, journals, etc that you gathered information from. This will help you in citing the literature clearly and concisely.
Anxious students who worry on “how am I going to write my research paper successfully” will be relieved of their stress if they follow the above guidelines.
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