Step 1 - Choose a Topic
This means you've got to focus and come up with a topic you’re:
Topics are tricky and can change during the course of your research. Sometimes they change a lot, sometimes a little; it just depends on what information you find.
Choose a topic that interests you! Writing a paper that bores you is an easy way to make your life way harder than it needs to be.
Make sure you can find enough information on the topic for your assignment. However, you need to take care not to pick something too broad. Too narrow of a topic will make it difficult to write as much as you need for your assignment, but too broad a topic can be just as frustrating when you're trying to narrow down sources or accurately explain all of the information without leaving anything out. Determining a topic’s scope can be a fine line, and it takes practice. Don't get discouraged if it takes a couple tried to find the right topic, or if your topic shifts during one of the other steps! It's all a part of the process.
Step 2 - Start Brainstorming
Before you start doing any kind of research you need to do a little brainstorming.
What do you think your search terms would be to find information about your topic? You may discover that you’re actually looking for something else, or that your search terminology is different from what the databases use.
For example: if you’re looking for women’s rights you might also look for women’s suffrage, women’s liberation, gender equality, etc. This is when things like encyclopedias come in handy, even the dreaded Wikipedia. So long as you don’t cite the wiki as a source it’s great for coming up with ideas, clicking on links, traveling around, etc.
Another suggestion would be keep your search terms and phrases short. Often, using full sentences gives a search engine too much information, so using just fragments of the sentence works better.
For example: If you're topic is "Women should have the right to vote", try looking for "women's right to vote" or "women and voting". You'll likely need both sides of any argument you're making, regardless of your stance, so keeping the argument you're wanting to make out of the search will get you better results. That way you're getting information on the topic as a whole, rather than a specific stance about it.
Write all of those ideas down. Maybe come up with a question or two for things you’re curious about. Those questions will help you focus your paper.
Step 3 - Start Research
Come to the library, or go online and get familiar with databases that cover your main subject of interest! For example:
Take your topic ideas and start plugging them into a database—NOT Google. This way you'll be able to make sure your sources are scholarly and appropriate for college-level research (need help figuring out what databases to use? Check out our How to Use Catalogs & Databases guide!). See which topics work and which don’t. Take the ones that work and use them to find the actual database Subject Terms. These are terms the database recognizes and will use to find all of the articles with those same subjects.
Also, don’t forget about books! They’re still relevant, even in today’s world. The All-in-One Search automatically searches for books and journal articles, making it a great place to find the resources to fit your various topics.
Need help with research methods and search strategies? Take a look at our subject guides and how-to’s.
Step 4 - Narrow Your Topic
Now that you’ve done some brainstorming and looked at some of the stuff in the databases, it's time to really focus. Get the topic into a form that is specific enough to research without having mass amounts of articles, but still general enough to have some articles.
Back to our example of women’s rights. What part of women’s suffrage are you looking into? There are a lot of them.
There are a lot of areas to look into. Find your niche, preferably one that you like and can be researched.
Step 5 - Research
This step has a couple smaller steps, so we'll take them one at a time.
Source Selection
This is where you select possible sources for your paper. Now, we don’t mean you have to read every single line of the article or book at this stage. Find the abstract or summary and read it, and maybe take a look at a few sections of the sourcce if you have any questions about it. It’ll give you a good idea of the piece’s contents so you can make an informed decision to include it (or not) with the other sources you have collected. We recommend initially selecting twice the number you’re required to have for the paper (if you need 10 sources, select 20) because you’re going to be eliminating some of your sources later.
Getting the sources you need from the initial research you’ve already done makes the process a bit more efficient. And it means you won’t have to go back later to do it again.
In-Depth Research
Now is when you really start digging into the articles you’ve chosen. This is when you read beyond the abstracts. As you read the articles and books, look for information that relates to your topic. Not there? Move on to the next piece. You’ll find some of the articles don’t really fit what you’re doing. DON’T force it. If you selected more articles than you needed, you can just move on to one of your other articles.
If none of the articles contain the information you’re seeking, the terms may not have been a perfect fit. That’s okay. Go back into the databases and try again. Use some of the new terminology you’ve found in your reading. Ask a librarian for help. Sometimes the information doesn’t exist yet, but it never hurts to ask for help.
Topic Evaluation
Did you find much on your original topic? Or are you rethinking it now because of what you’ve seen in the articles? This is where you take a moment to adjust your topic based on the evidence you've found, or how you’ve changed your mind, or how your professor changed their mind, or what have you.
Do you have the flexibility to change the topic? Do you want to? If you have the flexibility and desire, go for it! If not, go back a few steps and try again!
Rinse/Repeat
This where we enter the infinity loop.
Keep going through this process again and again until you are satisfied you have
Just because your assignment has a note for 5 sources at a minimum does not mean you should hand in just 5 sources. We have yet to see a professor subtract from a grade for having more relevant sources than the minimum.
Step 6 - Write an Outline
An outline is a way to organize your information into a series of well-ordered and coherent thoughts. You may also find you’ve got some holes in your outline. Better to find out now than when you start writing!
Use the outline to give yourself a better idea of what your paper is going to look like, or needs to look like, with the right sources.
Your outline doesn’t have to be a traditional one if you don’t want it to be (Unless your professor wants to see it). It could just be a series of notes or a ordered stack of note cards. Just be sure that those notes form a coherent writing strategy. That’s what an outline does.
Citations & References
Citations do a few things for you. They protect you from plagiarism. They give proper credit to the authors whose ideas you’re quoting or paraphrasing. Finally, they are academically required. All of your professors want you to cite your work so they can go back and find where you got the ideas, quotes, etc.
Not sure how to cite stuff? Head over to the Citing Sources guide
Annotated Bibliography (optional, sometimes)
Annotated bibliographies can work wonders for a paper. An annotated bib is a reference for a source followed by a short paragraph describing the source and how it interrelates to other sources you’ve selected. You can find an in depth guide to writing them on the Annotated Bibliographies page!
Now, do that for every source you think you might use (even if it’s more than the minimum). This way, you can see how they work together. Or if they don't! You’ll often find that you can eliminate more articles from your group of sources after writing an annotated bib.
Another cool side effect is that the sources you select will be the most relevant and important sources you collected. It may also show you gaps you need to fill.
Write a Rough Draft
Many students hear "rough draft", and they think "final draft." Let me assure you, this is not a good idea. A rough draft is you putting ideas to paper in a semi-logical order that might actually get a D.
A rough draft gives you the opportunity to screw up and fix it before you hand in a paper that sucks. Take that opportunity. The fact that your paper sucks at this point is a good thing. It puts less pressure on you, and you can just let ideas flow. Use it to make your paper better. This means yes, you will actually have to write a rough draft.
But instead of being upset about it, use it as a springboard to a better paper. The rough draft could show you where some holes exist in your research. Just because you're writing a rough draft doesn't mean you're done researching!
Edit
Proofread your paper. Don’t do it immediately after you write it, because you just wrote it, and you’ll miss things. Walk away and let the draft sit for a while before you try to digest it again. If having your paper actually printed on paper helps, do it.
Then come back to it and take a very critical look at it. Check sentence structures, citations (both in-text and reference page), tense, punctuation, spacing, EVERYTHING. This is where the devil is in the details. Make sure you get your details correct here.
Read your paper in ways you ordinarily wouldn’t:
Then, have someone you trust do the same thing. This can be a friend, a parent, a mentor, anyone! Be prepared for criticism or for them to catch something you missed. These are just an opportunity to think, "Awesome! More things to fix so I can hand in a paper I'm proud of." Then, do that all over again with ANOTHER person. The more you do this, the better (this is especially true if the people looking over the paper are taking it seriously and/or familiar with what you're writing about).
Rewrite (Repeatable)
Take that paper you’ve just spent however long editing and put it through its paces from beginning to end. There are two ways you can do this:
Mind you, you’re doing this while using the rough draft as a base. Once you’re done, go through the process of editing again. You’ll find it goes much easier this time. This can be repeated as many times as you need to feel like you have the best product possible. Finish that and you’ll have a **drum roll please** final draft.
Final Draft
This is actually the rewrite that you're proud of and feels like your best work. You don't find any errors when reading through it, anyone you've had help edit doesn't have any more suggestions, and there is no more you can add or take away. Do one final check for formatting, making sure you're following your professor's specifications, and you're all done!
Print it, submit it online, do whatever your professor has asked for, and save it for yourself! You put a lot of good work into this, so keep it in case you're ever working on something you want to reference it for. On to the next one!
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