This stage of writing a college research paper is no less important than all previous and subsequent ones. Correct design is essential for success of a scientific project, since there are standard and obligatory requirements. They distinguish this assignment from essays and other short papers. Here is what should be done to make your text look great:
- Ask a teacher about preferable font, spacing, and margins, ask them to provide a template of a title page.
- Compile a table of contents in a form of a detailed plan with a list of structural elements of a paper (introduction, chapters and sections of a body, conclusion, list of references) and indicate page numbers next to all section titles.
- Names of chapters and sections from the table of contents should coincide with headers.
- Only conventional abbreviations are allowed.
- It is recommended to sort literature by categories: research papers, publications (magazine and newspaper articles), educational and reference literature, governmental acts. Observe alphabetical order. Indicate an author, full title of a source, place and time of publication for each item.
- Check a paper for uniqueness. Most universities have a very strict plagiarism policy. Non-unique text can become a reason for a low mark or returning a project for a revision.
Structure of a research paper
Research paper writing service from writers adhere to a classical outline:
- Introduction substantiates relevance and novelty of a study, explains its purpose. A thesis is formulated in this part. The main goal of your project is to prove it. Main part consists of chapters divided into sections. Each chapter should highlight some aspect of a topic. Each section is focused on one aspect of a chapter to which it belongs. It is advisable to draw brief intermediary conclusions at the end of each chapter.
- Conclusion presents general findings on a topic, summarizes research, suggests possible ways of practical use of results obtained.
Recommendations on taking notes from literature
As work with literature on a chosen topic takes most of a preparatory stage, skilled research paper writers try to organize this process effectively. Read some tips to make your scientific activity more fruitful.
Today there is no need to sit in a library for hours. Necessary material can be simply copied, photographed or downloaded from the Internet. But in any case, you have to analyze it and highlight most important facts. It is better to rewrite meaningful data to a draft in order to reflect on it deeper. Transferring information to a notebook gives room for correcting a material in accordance with research purpose, adapting it to your needs.
Among various forms of records (annotations, extracts, abstracts, summaries, detailed plans), an outline is the most convenient and common one. A properly written outline allows a student to cover a large volume of essential material. Such a draft should meet the following requirements:
- It is necessary to specify an author, a full title, other information about a book or an article which you will use when compiling a bibliography.
- All quotes must be accompanied by links to pages from which they were cited.
- Theories of reputable researchers should be supplemented by your own reasoning and remarks, analysis of what has been read.
- Include all significant facts, figures, charts, tables from a considered source in your draft. Mark points of a plan to which they refer.
Compilation and subsequent elaboration of an outline, synthesis of materials collected may be simplified by using the rules:
- Leave free space for your comments near each item of an outline.
- Compile a list of unfamiliar terms and names, find definitions.
- After a while, you may not understand the meaning of your records due to incomprehensible abbreviations. So do not be lazy to write full words.
- Highlight particularly significant information by underlining, exclamation or question marks. It will be easier for you to formulate main ideas while writing a text of a research paper.
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