How to Write a Research Paper: Valuable Tips with 15 Topic Examples


How to Write a Research Paper: Valuable Tips with 15 Topic Examples

“According to Toptal, a shocking 88% of people will not return to a site they had a bad experience with UI/UX Design. The paper attempts to analyze the causes of such shocking truth by setting the experiment, analyzing the collected data, and interpreting the results of the study.”

If you wish to understand how to write a research paper, such good examples should be the starting point. A research paper is an advanced type of college assignment. It requires much more skills than a typical college essay. To learn how to write a research paper without missing any section, turn to this article full of useful tips from the university professors.

In case of any problems with the college research papers, a student should turn to the qualified writers & editors from the top US colleges & universities!

How to Write a Research Paper: Deciding on the Interesting Topic!

Freedom of choice is the best part of being a real human. It sucks when a student has no right to pick a research paper topic from the field of his interest on a competent topic. Choosing where to eat a hamburger during the lunchtime decides the rest of the working day. Choosing the topic predetermines the success of the research paper. Students who don’t value the freedom of choice will not understand how to write a research paper. Choose wisely! Do not fall of the main subject of the studied course.

Obey these rules of choosing the research paper topic to investigate:

  • Check whether there is enough information on the target topic by collecting the related sources
  • Evaluate how competent you are in the chosen field
  • Think about the plot development
  • Does the topic make sense in the context of surrounding community?
  • Is the research paper topic relevant to people living around?
  • Ask the teacher to approve the selected topic

Put ticks in front of the claims that are true. Once the checklist is full of the ticks, a student can start.

How to Write Research Paper: The Process of Research Itself

The process of research involves collecting primary sources to select evidence able to support the arguments of the future paper. The primary sources include:

  • Textbooks
  • Scientific magazines
  • Academic journals
  • Official reports
  • Newspapers
  • e-Books
  • Websites
  • Documentaries
  • Films

The secondary resources may provide the author with the plenty of valuable information. They are not as reliable as the primary sources. Those are facts the researcher collects from the ordinary citizens:

  • Interviews
  • Polls
  • Surveys
  • Questionnaires
  • Quizzes

One of the basic things to remember if you wish to learn how to write a research paper is the value of primary resources. Would you believe a person of your age in everything he/she says? A subjective opinion is never appreciated without being supported by the credible, related information gathered from the objective & trusted sources. Which sources are not acceptable?

Students often pick Wikipedia and some other open-sources to be the primary things to rely on while defending the point of view. Every internet user may fix the information from open-source websites on their own. Teachers do not treat open-source encyclopedia available online as something the student can rely on while working on a research paper.

How to Write a Thesis for a Research Paper: Getting Ready

While at the party, many guys try to take down the phone number of the most beautiful girls to call them later and call for a date. A student should do the same with his research paper.

The best way to understand how to write an outline for a research paper is to take notes during the process of in-depth research. It is impossible to keep every detail in mind. Skip the irrelevant details and focus only on the relevant information related to the specific field of study taught by the college. The details will distract the readers from the main point.

Speaking about the main point, it is called a thesis statement. The first thing to keep in mind when learning how to write a thesis for a research paper is that this sentence is the major part of the entire research paper. It summarizes the primary argument, which has to be defended throughout the writing process.

Wrong example: There is a lot of patients suffering from the depressive syndrome living in New York.”

A correct way to form the thesis statement is: “People who suffer from the depressive syndrome in New York should obtain access to services, such as constant psychological support because it would improve the quality of the city’s life and reduce the number of suicides.”

Compare these two statements. The 1st sentence is informative stating the truth without any specific intentions while another sentence contains a specific purpose/recommendation based on the research.” Further, in the text, it would make sense to include the data in numbers obtained during the research. A research paper is nothing without strong evidence.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Unlike other academic papers, a research paper can use a lot of passive constructions.

How to Write an Outline for a Research Paper?

Here is how to write a research paper in general. There is no need to worry about the size of the research paper: college professors tend to specify the quantity of pages to include. Be ready that a research paper is twice or even three times longer than an ordinary essay. An abstract is a single part of the research paper. Its length is known from the start without any specific instructions – it is 1/3 of the page (approximately 200-150 words). Keep in mind: the length limit does not count appendices and references.

Planning to prepare a research paper to publish in the academic or scientific journal requires checking the samples of outlines & full texts of the successful papers published online in free access. The complexity of the research paper or having a bit more words/pages than required is not a failure. Providing irrelevant, outdated information is much worse; if there is any information, which overloads your research paper but is important, move it to the appendix.

If the student works on a longer report, college professors recommend breaking it down into subsections to make it user-friendly. An outline will help to understand the logical flow of thoughts.

Those who wish to learn how to write a research paper must begin with the research paper’s outline listing its integral sections:

  • Title - Author(s)
  • Abstract
  • Table of Contents/Outline
  • Introduction
  • Equipment and Methodology
  • Findings & Discussion
  • Conclusions
  • List of References 
  • Appendices

There is a plenty of work to do. The last section is not required all the time. It appears at the end in case the author uses different graphs, tables, images, and other visual elements to explain the research paper topic in details. The experts recommend inserting visual elements to make the complex parts easier to understand.

Different Sections of A+ Research Paper!

The title/cover page should include the main details about the paper. They should appear in the following order: the title of the research paper, student’s name, course, and date (sometimes, professor’s name is added). Do not forget to come up with a good heading. It does not always sound the same as the full title: long titles must be narrowed down to the attractive, eye-catching heading. The main goal is to include the keywords in the heading.

Methodology & Equipment section is what makes the answer to the question, “how to write a research paper” more obvious. It is what makes this type of academic assignment stand out from the rest of homework tasks. The primary purpose of the section is to list the equipment & professional tools used to collect and analyze the relevant information. The secondary goal is to develop an explanation of the way the row data was evaluated. The process allows other scientists to analyze your findings.

The quality of the results depends on the properly chosen equipment & tools, so it is impossible to underestimate the value of computers, lab equipment, and other stuff that made it possible to conduct research. A multiple-choice questionnaire is a good example of the secondary source. It helps to collect public opinions. Check whether your methods section contains the following elements:

  • The description of the materials, tools, & equipment necessary to set the experiment
  • The explanation of the way the examples were collected, randomization methods list, the way samples were created
  • The interpretation of the evaluations and calculations done by the row data
  • The summary of the statistical techniques applied to the collected data

Brief Example of Methodology Part

Need an example to see how it works? The research paper topic is shopping preferences. If the research on the shopping preferences of the US customers was based on a single case study, it would possess little external validity in contrast to the same paper grounded in several different cases. The target audience would perceive the findings with the contempt that the author deserves. The author risks falling down face in the dirt without providing enough cases & examples. In the example, a researcher could use the equipment like different processors to analyze the collected data and tools to gather information (questionnaires, surveys, polls, etc.).

Other people have no idea about the Discussion & Results section. It is easy as ABC: the Results paragraph sets out the major findings of the experiment (including the statistical analysis, research, & the significance of the results). The Discussion section covers the research paper’s topic based on the obtained results to state whether the experiment was successful.

Results & Discussion Section: What Is It?

In the Results, focus on the literature chosen to support the interpretation of significance. The students should write the paragraphs of the Results part in the past tense – the research/experiment has been conducted.

Expert recommendation! Prepare a summary of the findings in the text, relying on the figures, images, graphs, and tables to provide an overall picture of researched points. These visual elements must be complementary. Refer each time you include one of the possible visual elements like you do when citing specific primary sources cited in the paper. Such data goes into Appendix.

A Discussion paragraph sets 4 main goals:

  1. Interpretation and explanation of the findings
  2. Answer to the main question of the experiment
  3. Justification of the approach
  4. Critical analysis of the research

The author has to review the results in the context of the chosen bibliography and personal experience in the studied field. A student must prove he understands the restrictions of the study. Compose the Discussion section in the present tense.

Tip from an expert: Separate educational institutions like some colleges & universities in the US assign another section on recommendations concerning policies & practice to come up with the future research. Other colleges are okay with including this information in the Discussion. Check whether your college/university belongs to the first group before writing.

How to Write a Conclusion for a Research Paper: The Ending Sections

Now, a reader may have a question: what in the world a conclusion should contain? It is simple: summarize the Results & Discussion sections by highlighting the main points, recommendations, and some forecasts. A conclusion is the last stage of writing a research paper…almost the last.

Appendices & the list of references are not a writing process of full value. These parts are critical in acknowledging the authors of the cited sources, proving the student’s competence/understanding of the topic, and make it possible to find the used sources to continue the study. It is a way to check whether the student has the required knowledge of the specific academic writing style:

  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago/Turabian
  • Harvard
  • IEEE
  • AMA
  • ACS
  • ASA
  • Vancouver
  • Oxford

Many different referencing styles exist. Do not confuse them by reading corresponding manuals or using online citation generators.

15 Outstanding College Research Paper Topic Ideas

  1. The most critical health threats every woman should be aware of
  2. Females have a right to participate in extreme sports based on the retrieved statistics
  3. The main reasons for massive abortions in the US
  4. The role of Search Engine Optimization in promoting a website
  5. What is the future of e-Commerce?
  6. What is the impact of outsourcing on the US businesses?
  7. How does birth order influence people working in offices?
  8. Reasons to become serial killer
  9. Ex-prisoners cannot find a worthy job: things employers are scared of
  10. Several types of sports that should appear on the list of Olympic Games
  11. Consequences of the child’s rape
  12. Benefits of the companies that set flexible work schedule
  13. Should DUI laws be the same across the country?
  14. Do university graduates teach at the same high level as the tenured faculty?
  15. The comparison of the old Olympic Games to nowadays

Those are several examples of the possible ideas to help every student understand how to write a conclusion for a research paper and which problems to cover. Analyze the current issues within your society. This process will help to highlight essential problems to research in college study. We can help with the research papers better than anyone else in the world by offering an affordable academic writing service to the US and UK students in trouble!