What’s up everyone! Today, I’m showing you how to write a research paper step by step, starting with the research process, research paper format and going all the way until your final draft in proper research paper format. I’m also going to show you some real examples from a research paper I wrote in college, so make sure to watch the whole video to see those. Let’s get started. Before we dive into how exactly you can research, let’s define what a research paper is. In this paper, you’ll investigate a topic and develop your argument, perspective, or analysis. A research paper is really unique in that you can cover a lot of different disciplines following a particular research paper format. For example, your paper could describe the results of a scientific experiment, or it could simply be a literature review. It really is up to you. When you’re researching using outside information, it’s important that you find the most credible sources available, and one example of a credible source is a scholarly article, which is often published in an academic journal or a similarly reputable source. You can find these articles on databases including EbscoHost, JSTOR, Google Scholar, Bloom’s Literature, etc. And if you’re looking to find different pieces of literature, such as books, poetry, and short stories, if you can’t go to your local library, you can actually find a lot of these different types of literature online. For example, on Google Books, ProQuest, your own library’s ebooks , Poetry Foundation – their website is really great because it showcases different poets and their works – as well as anthologies, such as the Norton Anthologies, which often include lots of short stories and essays and the like. If you’re looking for auditory or visual sources such as interviews, speeches, TV clips, and documentaries, there are a couple of different sources that you can use. YouTube is obviously a really good one because you can often find different clips that people have published online. Archives, such as the Library of Congress or National Archives, are really good because they often include full clips or full video sources.
The History Channel, Discovery Channel, and PBS are also some really good sources that I’ve used pretty often in my own papers. And if you’re looking for newspaper and magazine articles, either in a historical sense or to get an opinion on current events, you can look at different sources such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Bloomberg. Magazines including Scientific American, Smithsonian. These are just a couple of different types of sources, but honestly, any reputable newspaper or magazine that you find online will do just as well. And lastly, for images such as photographs, art, political cartoons, you can find these types of images on National Archives, Library of Congress, and also on museums’ websites and digital tours, which include images of artifacts and photographs that you can actually browse through on your own. As you’re finding your sources, it’s important that you look into that source or read it over to actually gather information from those individual pieces especially about research paper format. So I like to compile all of my research onto a separate document, and note this is not my research paper format, this is simply a compilation of all of the research of all the research that I’m doing as I’m doing it. And what I’ll do is I’ll include a header that includes the name of a concept or a big idea that I want to focus on potentially in my paper, and under that header I will include the citation of the source in whatever style I’m using, such as MLA or APA. And what I like to do is to cite the source immediately as soon as I find it, and that’s because I don’t want to waste time going back at the end of my paper and trying to find all of my sources and cite them. Instead, if you cite them as you go along, it’ll save a lot of time for you in the long run. And under each source citation, I’ll include a brief description of that source, especially if I’m planning to write an annotated bibliography, and I’ll include quotes and paraphrased content, including page citations or page numbers, so that I can look back at those pieces of information and potentially draw from them in my research paper and I’ll also jot down a couple of notes on those quotes or on those excerpts to think of my own analysis.
And I’ll keep repeating this for different concepts and different sources until I have a really comprehensive research document. So now, let’s look at my own paper, which I’m going to be showing you some samples of in this video. For one of my college classes, I wrote a research paper comparing the factors that led to the successes of President John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election and President Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election following the proper research paper format. So let’s see how I went about going to write this paper in research paper format. After conducting research using a lot of the different types of sources that I described earlier and compiling my research, I drafted my thesis. I’ve included my thesis right here, and this is the actual thesis and research paper format I wrote for my research paper. So let’s read it over and break down how exactly I wrote it. Here it is: As reform-minded religious and racial minorities, Kennedy and Obama respectively tried to temper their progressive images with appeals to traditional American values. Although they sought the counsel of experienced members of the establishment, including their own vice presidential picks, both candidates also used revolutionary campaign tactics that capitalized on technological innovations. Moreover, their relative inexperience, youth, and initial lack of a nationwide following encouraged Kennedy and Obama to reach out to Americans of diverse political ideologies. First off, I the started research paper format by introducing the two central candidates. I explained that they were reform-minded religious and racial minorities, since Kennedy was the first Catholic president and Obama was the first Black president. But notice how I didn’t actually refer to them as President Kennedy and President Obama because in the context in which I was writing this paper, I was talking about them as candidates, as senators, so they weren’t actually president yet because I’m talking about them as they were campaigning to be presidents eventually.
After this, I’ve included a debatable claim in my research paper format, which is that I stated that they tried to temper their progressive images with appeals to traditional American values. In this claim, I’m trying to show this tension between convention and change and how both of these candidates tried to leverage that tension to create an image that was broadly appealing to Americans. Then after that, I’ve included multiple comparisons or parallels between the two candidates. I’ve stated in my research paper format that they both sought the counsel of experienced members of the establishment, they both used revolutionary campaign tactics, and then I’ve included some more comparisons stating how they were relatively inexperienced, young, and didn’t initially have a following, and these are just a bunch of different types of comparisons. And after stating all of these comparisons side by side, I wanted to explain the importance, the “so what,” or the consequence of these similarities. And what my ultimate conclusion was – was that these similarities allowed both candidates to reach out to Americans of diverse political ideologies. Once we’ve drafted our thesis, it’s time to outline in correct research paper format. Let’s ask ourselves a couple of questions first. How long do we want our research paper format to be? Do we have a required page amount that our professor has given us for our research paper format, or is it really up to us? And also, what information will we prioritize in the research paper format? With all the research that we’ve done, it’s pretty impossible to include all of that in a single paper, so we want to make sure that we prioritize the most important pieces of information and make sure that we include that in our research paper format. What sections are we going to have in our research paper format? Will we have sections such as an Abstract, Introduction, Methodology, Literature Review, Discussion, and Conclusion in the research paper format? Or are we just going to separate our paper into sections based on topic or big idea in the research paper format? Also, let’s estimate how long each section will be so that we make sure we hit a target amount of pages.
And lastly, what style are we going to use for our research paper format? Will it be APA, MLA, Chicago, or any other type of style? And also, we want to figure out how we are going to include quotes. Will we include block quotes or just integrate it directly into the paper and research paper format? And will we cite the quotes using parenthetical citations or are we going to include footnotes or endnotes in the research paper format? And how exactly are we going to structure our bibliography in the research paper format? Once we’ve answered all of these different questions, we’ll be more than ready to start outlining the research paper format. Now let’s see how I outlined specific parts of my research paper format. I started the research paper format with my introduction, and I included some background information on Senators Kennedy and Obama, before they became president, but note that the purpose of my paper was not to provide biographies of these two candidates; rather, I was hoping to analyze their campaigns and the factors leading to their success. And after I included this information, I put my thesis in my introductory paragraph outline in the research paper format. I also divided my research paper format based on specific topics, including presidential debates, foreign policy, domestic policy, and innovative campaign tactics. And under Innovative Campaign Tactics, you can see that I start out outlining in the research paper format every single paragraph with my topic sentence. This topic sentence says, “On thee campaign trail, John F. Kennedy leveraged polling methods and his own celebrity status to gain more support in an increasingly connected world.” So in the research paper format, I’m introducing the different claims that I want to talk about in this paragraph by stating those two tactics I’m going to focus on, which are polling methods and this idea of celebrity status. And I’m also explaining themes I want to describe, including globalization and communication. And there’s really no right or wrong way to structure your outline of research paper format.
Some people like a little bit more structure, some people prefer not to write too much, but I find that the typical format of claim, evidence, and analysis is really reliable, and you don’t necessarily always have to stick to it. I usually include three to five claims in my paragraphs in the research paper format, but again, it’s really up to you. This research paper format is very flexible. You can see in this research paper format that I’ve layered my claims, evidence, and analysis. Under my evidence part, I sometimes include statistics in the research paper format, and you can see that in this statistic here, I’ve included the name of the author in parentheses where this source came from, where this statistic came from. I actually used footnotes to cite my sources in my research paper format, but I just included the author’s name so that I knew that I would have to include a footnote when I referenced this statistic. And if we look down here, I’ve also included an excerpt from an article from Esquire in the research paper format, and I thought that this quote was really good because it effectively explained how Kennedy really appeared as a celebrity to the American public, And my analysis of this quote was that Kennedy transcended the stereotype of stodgy politicians with his youth and his frequent appearances on media outlets, and as a result, he became a star in his own right, like the celebrities he befriended. So that’s my point of analysis there. Next, in this section, I’m including a different paragraph in the research paper format, and the topic sentence for this paragraph is: “Like Kennedy, Barack Obama achieved celebrity status, but his campaign also revolutionized outreach efforts through its use of social media.” So not only am I comparing Obama to Kennedy, but I’m also drawing a distinction between them by explaining that Obama’s campaign was able to capitalize on social media and use it really effectively. So I’m both comparing and contrasting their campaigns in this topic sentence alone. And again, I just followed the same format of claim, evidence, and analysis, which you can see right here.
Here we have the actual introductory paragraph in the research paper format that I wrote for my research paper using my outline. I often find that writing the first sentence for this paragraph is the hardest because we feel this enormous pressure to impress our reader, but I just like to follow one simple rule, which is to avoid sweeping, generalized statements that start out with phrases including “throughout history,” “throughout time,” “it is a truth universally acknowledged,” or anything like that. Instead, I began the research paper format by drawing some parallels between the 2008 and 1960 elections. I stated that candidates would have to face economic recessions, ongoing global conflicts, and civil rights struggles. And in the midst of all of this, two young Democrats stepped forward as the new faces of their party. So this last phrase is meant to pique the reader’s curiosity, make them ask, “Who exactly are these two candidates?” And I went straight into describing who John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama were. I drew some more parallels between their careers and personalities, explained who their opponents were, and ultimately just stated how these two candidates defeated expectations through their revolutionary campaigns, and from there, I just wrote my thesis in research paper format. So this introduction of research paper format is very straightforward, less than a page, and the most important thing to keep in mind is to make your introduction very clear and concise and to the point. Now, let’s look at how to write your paper and cite your sources in correct research paper format. I know we just looked at our introductory paragraph of the research paper format, but there are a lot of different ways you can write an introduction. In general, you’ll provide background information, explain your topic, offer a roadmap for the rest of your research paper format, and provide a clear, debatable thesis. And I know we looked at my own thesis statement, but there are a million different ways to write a thesis statement. You can do what I did, which is describe an argument, or you can explain your original discoveries, which you might have found through original research, shed light on a previously overlooked issue, examine a topic through a new lens, or anything else that you feel is appropriate for your research paper format.
When it comes to the body of the research paper format, you want to make sure that you’re avoiding reciting information that you found. Instead, you want to construct a line of reasoning, so you’ll state claims that you found based on your own research and back them up with evidence. That might include quotes, paraphrasing, statistics, excerpts, images, and graphs, and you’ll evaluate that evidence in your commentary or analysis of research paper format. And again, this paper does not have to follow a specific structure, but as long as you are backing up everything that you’re saying with evidence and analysis, you’ll be fine. And lastly, in your conclusion of research paper format, you want to avoid summarizing your whole paper because chances are that your reader has just read the whole thing and doesn’t really want to read a regurgitation of what the paper is. Instead, you just want to answer a couple of questions, which are, “Why are my findings important?” and “What should the reader take away from the paper?” You can also include limitations of your research or potentials paths that you could take in the future in your research paper format if that’s something that applies to your paper. And ultimately, maybe even offer some food for thought. Leave the reader thinking about a question or an idea or an insight that will make them continue thinking about your topic even as they go about their day or finish reading your paper. To cite your sources in the research paper format, there are a couple of resources that you can use. I like to plug the name of the source or the link directly into two websites, which are Citation Machine and EasyBib. You just might have to check over your citations to make sure that you’re following all of the guidelines of the style that you’re using. If you want to cite your sources by hand, Purdue OWL is a great resource that I highly recommend for that. In general, when you’re writing a works cited or an annotated bibliography, you want to keep it double-spaced, put it in alphabetical order, and make sure that you indent the second line of your citation and onward. If you’d like to see an example of what this looks like, I highly suggest that you check out my video on how to write an annotated bibliography step by step. I’ll put a link to that in the description below.
Various great research journals such as Global Research Letters are a great option and way to help you look up research papers to understand the process of writing research papers and the commitment of a research scholar. With the help of which you will be able to read the papers and understand the commitment needed to write a good research paper. Here, you will find a number of various research papers that are provided and made available to you in the journal.
You can very easily find various kinds of researches by a number of scholar practitioners recorded in a number of research papers at Global Research Letters. This will help you with your own research work and understanding of what research paper asks of a researcher. With access to so many amazing research papers, you can practice and learn the process of writing research papers easily.
I hope you all enjoyed this video. Comment down below with your own research paper topics or any suggestions you have for future video topics. If you did like this video, please give it a thumbs up. Subscribe and tap the bell to receive notifications whenever I post a new tutorial. Stayed tuned, and I’ll see you next time.