How To Write A Research Paper: Where To Get Started

It is time to dive in- into your essay that is, not the pool. You can’t avoid writing this research paper, so the best thing to do is face it head on. Your head may be swimming about where to get started, but just take a breath, sit down, and pull out your writing mechanism.

The Most Important Statement

Once you have an idea of what your research paper is going to be on, you can start crafting the one statement that is going to make the rest of the process fly by. It is ok if you only have a vague idea of the topic and don’t have much information yet. The key is to find the simple question that you are attempting to answer throughout your paper. This is your thesis statement, and you want to make it as specific as possible.

Sentence Relationships

Each sentence in your research paper is going to have a relationship with one another. Once you create your thesis statement, your next goal is to tackle the first sentence in each one of your body paragraphs. These are called your topic sentences. All they have to do is relate to your thesis in some way. For example, let’s say your thesis is that cats are better pets than dogs. Your topic sentences may cover three specific reasons why this is true. It is that simple.

Back It Up

All of those words in a body paragraph that follow the first sentence are just evidence to support it. You just provide the reader with more information. You can use statistics, proof found by other researchers (as long as you cite where you got the data from), or anecdotes to back it up. If it backs up your topic sentence, it will back up your thesis. Just make sure you keep similar evidence in the same paragraph so your paper doesn’t jump around.

Ask For Help

If you are having trouble starting a research paper, ask for help. Talk about your topic to other individuals to see what they have to say about it or see what questions they have about it. This is a great way of finding an interesting thesis that other readers may want to learn about. Writing a research paper may seem like an extensive or arduous task, but you can actually learn a lot about the topic you are writing about when you are done. You become a mini expert and it could open up doors that you never thought possible.