What Does A Good Research Paper Look Like: Tips And Tricks

A good research paper should include:

  • A title page
  • Abstract
  • Introduction
  • Body
  • Conclusion
  • Reference page

The purpose of the research paper is to research a particular topic and present your findings on it. This means that you must be thorough in the works you review, and draw a unique analysis from what you have reviewed. If you are conducting a scientific experiment or social experiment as part of your research paper, your body should include the following sections:

  • Research problem
  • Methods and materials used
  • Results of the experiment
  • Discussion about the experiment
  • Conclusion

Of course, none of this is possible without a proper research topic.

What makes for a strong topic?

If you are tasked with a writing assignment, you will spend a great deal of time on the paper, and therefore it is important that you select a topic that you not only enjoy, but one that is strong. But what does that mean?

If you pick a topic you love and set out in the library to start your work, you might discover that there is too little about your topic available. This is a common problem that can waste your time and leave you unsure of whether you can pick a successful topic. Even if you really like your topic, if you begin preliminary research and find that there is not enough information on it, then you will need to give it up in exchange for something else.

You might find that your topic is great, and there is a lot of information out there about it, but all of that information supports the opposite side in your argument. This is a common problem that can leave you disappointed, especially after you spent a great deal of time trying to come up with exciting new ideas. If you see that the existing evidence refutes your topic, then pick something else.

Avoiding these two main pitfalls can be done by picking a handful of topics at the very beginning. If you pick three or four topics that are interesting to you, and then conduct a preliminary search on every topic, you can eliminate those which fall under these two categories. You want to determine which idea is supported by the most amount of published material. This will enable you to pick a final topic for your paper which is not only interesting to you, but is also feasible.