I scream, you scream, we all scream when we have to write a long paper and how to write a research paper. But, with the right process of how to write a paper research, we might not have to scream quite as loudly. It’s pretty safe to assume that, no matter what your major, large writing projects and how to write a paper research are going to be a part of your academic career, and, honestly, when you have to say something interesting, juggle multiple sources, and write compelling sentences on top of that, it can all be more than a little overwhelming. Luckily, with a good process of how to write a paper research in mind for working on a project, you can break a huge, complicated task into more manageable phases. Then, instead of trying to do everything all at once, you can focus on doing one thing at a time, letting each step build on the one that came before it. Today we’re going to talk about my process for writing an academic paper and how to write a research paper, and I want to emphasize that this is my process of how to write a paper research: everybody will work and write in slightly different ways, so this is a place to start—not an outline of the one true way to write an academic paper and how to write a research paper. As you gain more experience in writing and how to write a paper research, you can adapt this process to suit your own needs and preferences. Of course, it could go without saying that each of these points could be a video on its own, so don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments if there’s something you’d like me to talk about in greater detail in the future. And, also, if you haven’t already, I’d encourage you to subscribe: it’s helpful to us, and it’s a great way to make sure that you don’t miss out on all of the endless fun that we have to offer. And, with that, here’s a look at my academic writing process and how to write a paper research. A lot of my process of how to write a paper research is honestly pretty invisible. Most of the work that goes into writing a good paper and how to write a research paper isn’t actual writing. But it’s all important, and it starts with paying attention. You see, one of the very first things that you need to do is decide what your paper and how to write a research paper is even going to be about, and paying attention is the best way I know of to find that initial direction.
Usually big writing assignments come at the end of a class, so, by then, you will have spent a lot of time reading, doing various assignments, and participating in classroom discussions and how to write a paper research. If you pay attention to what’s happening in class, you’ll have a pretty good idea of the various options that are available to you as you settle on a general topic for your paper and how to write a research paper. It’s also valuable to pay attention to what’s going on in your real life, too. What catches your interest? What bothers you? What sorts of things are showing up in the news or in your community? If you can find a connection between the real world and what’s going on in class, you’ll be in an even better position to how to write a paper research. Good ideas are all around you and writing teachers are probably more flexible when it comes to picking topics than you might think for how to write a paper research, so pay attention and be receptive to the good ideas that will meet you along the way. Okay, so paying attention in general is a good start, but there will, of course, come a time when you have to commit to something, and that involves narrowing your general idea into a more specific topic. Now, a lot of writing teachers—including me—tell their students that they should pick a topic that they’re genuinely interested in because that investment will help them to enjoy the writing process more and will probably facilitate their writing a better paper and how to write a research paper. Of course, to be really honest, that’s not totally necessary. I myself have written a lot of paper and how to write a research papers that I wasn’t particularly invested in because I had to write something. No,w was it a particularly fulfilling writing experience? Well, no, not really, but it did get the assignment done on time, and that’s really what counts in the end. And now that’s not to say that you shouldn’t pick a topic that you’re genuinely interested in—just know that you don’t have to be especially invested in your topic to write a good paper and how to write a research paper. When it comes to academic writing, sometimes done is more important than fun.
Now, what does narrowing look like? In one writing class I took, I had the assignment to write a paper and how to write a research paper on the general topic of food. Now, I had paid attention in class, so I knew some things about nutrition and food availability and stuff like that. And I was also paying attention in the real world, so I had noticed that how to write a paper research, on certain days of the week, there was a farmers market on my way to and from campus. So, based on paying attention, I had some general ideas about food and a more focused direction related to farmers markets. Now, I wasn’t especially fascinated by farmers markets, but it was something I could still see myself writing about. Then I had to think about the requirements of the assignment to how to write a paper research. I only had five pages, so I couldn’t write about all farmers markets in the world: there just wasn’t enough space. And it probably wouldn’t make a lot of sense to write an argument to a specific vendor at a farmers market because that also probably wouldn’t take up five pages. So I decided to write something about the farmers market at my university in how to write a paper research. Now I didn’t know yet exactly what I was going to say about it, but I figured that was something I could cover effectively in five pages. And, with that, I started on my research. Like other phases in my writing process, gathering or research isn’t really writing: it’s an important part of knowing about things, but it’s also its own thing. Additionally, because formal research isn’t really necessary for all writing projects and how to write a paper research, I like to think in terms of gathering rather than researching. Especially for academic writing, gathering involves collecting sources—that is, using library databases and search engines to find books and articles related to your topic. For example, for my farmer’s market paper and how to write a research paper, I spent some time discovering articles in the school newspaper and how to write a research paper, researching similar programs at other institutions, and even learning about farmers markets and nutrition in general.
Once I gather articles and other sources, I also like to spend some time gathering specific quotations from those sources that I might use in a paper and how to write a research paper. Not only does this help me to understand my sources better, but it also saves me the trouble of trying to track down those quotations later when it comes time to write the paper and how to write a research paper. But library research isn’t the only way to gather information for a writing project. If you’re doing a rhetorical analysis paper and how to write a research paper, you might be gathering a list of details in the thing you’re analyzing and your rhetorical interpretations of them for how to write a paper research. Or, for another project, you may be gathering survey responses, participant interviews, or scientific data. In any case, what you’re doing when you’re gathering is collecting information that will help you to understand your topic well enough to write about it. Ultimately, the goal of gathering involves learning enough so that you have something worthwhile to say. That means knowing what other people have said so that you don’t just repeat them, and it also involves knowing what other people haven’t said so that you can find your unique contribution to the discussion for how to write a paper research. Then, once you have your knowledge gathered into one spot, it’s time to process it. Before we go much further, it’s worth pointing out that these steps for how to write a paper research don’t necessarily happen in order, nor do they have to happen only once in the process. Really, processing happens throughout the project, and, sometimes, it even leads to more gathering. At any rate, when I say “processing,” in how to write a paper research I mean thinking through what you already know and what you need to accomplish in order to finish your assignment. Processing really means putting the pieces together into a single coherent idea. The processing stage for me doesn’t usually involve a lot of writing: it’s something that happens when I’m driving or walking or brushing my teeth.
It’s a practice of reflecting on what I’ve collected through the gathering stage and then trying to connect the various dots. So, to illustrate, when I was writing my farmer’s market paper and how to write a research paper, I gathered a lot of interesting sources. I had an interview from the director of dining services at my university. I had some studies about farmers market nutrition programs. And I even had a recipe from the farmers market at my university. So I had to spend some time seeing how those different pieces fit together. The director of dining services in the interview that I had said that he hoped that the farmers market would be a way of getting more nutritious food into the hands of students, but the recipe that I had from the farmers market was really complicated and time-consuming. When I looked at similar programs for how to write a paper research at other places, they had simpler recipes, and I even read how one article talked about incentivizing seniors to participate in farmers markets by giving them coupons for their first visit. As I put all those pieces together, I started to settle onto my central argument: I wanted to find a way to help the dining services people to bring more students into the farmers market in a more meaningful way. When it comes to academic writing, planning well saves me a lot of the pain of trying to figure out what I’m even going to say. If you’ve ever stared at a blank page and a stack of resources and then tried to crank out 10 to 30 pages of academic prose, the gap between where you start and where you need to end up can be pretty daunting. So, for me, the difference between just winging it and writing with a plan is kind of like the difference between just walking out your front door and wandering around until you find somewhere to get ice cream versus walking out your door with GPS guidance to the best ice cream shop in town. With a good plan, you’ll know where you’re going, and you’ll also know when you’ve gotten there.
Writing a paper and how to write a research paper the night before it’s due, is really hard. Now, writing that paper and how to write a research paper and making up your argument and trying to figure out how to use all your sources all at the same time is even harder. So do yourself a favor and take some time to plan your paper and how to write a research paper first. For me, planning almost always takes the form of an outline: I write out my central argument or thesis, and then I think about what I will need to tell my audience in order to get them on the same page. It’s important to keep your audience in mind as you plan because they’re the ones you really need to persuade. So make sure that your argument will make sense for them in how to write a paper research. For example, it just wouldn’t have made a lot of sense for me to try to persuade the dining services people to spend millions of dollars to expand the farmers market: they just wouldn’t have had the budget for that, and so they wouldn’t have been very responsive to my argument. Instead, I tried to persuade them to simplify their recipe suggestions and to consider giving students a voucher for their first visit so that they could familiarize themselves with the farmers market and its offerings. That was a much more doable and, consequently, much more persuasive thing to argue. Now, if you ask me, writing is nothing more and nothing less than putting words on the page. Everything that we’ve talked about up to this point supports writing, but it isn’t writing. Because of that, a lot of the work that you do before actually writing might feel like a waste of time because, after all, it’s not writing. But it will make the process of writing so much easier. Once you have your sources gathered and you have your thoughts straightened out and you have a plan in place, you already know what you’re going to say. Then, all you have to do is say it. When I sit down to write, it’s mostly a process of taking my outline and putting it into words. I’ve already figured out what my main points are and where they go—all I have to do is explain them to my reader.
As I write, I quote from my sources, explain their relevance, and I show my work to my readers so that they know where my thinking comes from. When you do the work to think and plan before you sit down to write, your first draft really isn’t going to be a rough draft because you’ve already worked through a lot of the issues that typically show up in a rough draft. At the same time, though, this also isn’t the time to get too worked up about things like word choice or sentence structure: the main purpose of the writing phase is just to get your thoughts out on paper and how to write a research paper. As long as you have a few hours left before class, there’s still plenty of time to get things polished up. Okay let’s take some time for some real talk. First, revision is an essential part of the writing process, and you will always end up with a better paper and how to write a research paper if you take some time to revise it. Second, school doesn’t always give you time to revise. I’ve written a lot of paper and how to write a research papers at the last minute—not because I procrastinated, but because the last minute was the first chance I had to work on them. That’s why thoughtful pre-writing can be so valuable: do the early work well and write with a good plan in mind, and then, if you only have time to write one draft, it will probably be a lot stronger than if you just tried to start writing everything in a single nightmarish last-minute binge. Hopefully, though, you will have some time to revise, and, if you do, here are some things to consider. Before I turn a paper and how to write a research paper in, I’ll always read it out loud. You’ll notice things about your writing when you say it out loud that you might never notice if you only read it silently. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had discouraged students come into my office with really confusing paragraphs. When I ask them to forget about writing and to just explain their ideas to me, they always do a really great job.
And so then I always have to ask, “Why don’t you just write what you just said?” People like to make a big deal about how writing and speaking are really different things, but they’re not all that different. So, if it doesn’t make sense or sound right when you’re saying it, you probably shouldn’t be writing it either. If you can take some time to ignore your paper and how to write a research paper and go do something else, do. It’s much easier to find what’s not working in your paper and how to write a research paper when you’ve given yourself a break and taken some time off. And, of course, keep in mind that revising isn’t just editing. This isn’t about fixing commas—it’s about making your paper and how to write a research paper better—that is, making sure that you’re actually saying what you mean to say and ensuring that your audience will understand it in the way that you hope they will. Really, revision is the process of learning to see your paper and how to write a research paper the way a reader would see it, so don’t bore them, don’t waste their time, don’t talk down to them. Instead, focus on giving them the least that they need in order to be persuaded by the argument that you’re trying to make. Revision is the hard but rewarding process of putting your feelings on hold in order to make your paper and how to write a research paper as strong as it can be. So you might love that paragraph about the random fact you discovered when you did your research, but if that fun fact isn’t moving your paper and how to write a research paper forward, it’s doing more harm than good. Be willing to make those kinds of sacrifices so that your paper and how to write a research paper can really shine. And, after all that, it’s finally time to turn it in and to get some ice cream and maybe to consider changing majors. Whatever happens, though, you can be certain that you wrote a paper and how to write a research paper, and you can have some confidence that it was a good paper and how to write a research paper because you used a good process to produce it. When it comes to writing an academic paper and how to write a research paper, a good process can really save you a lot of time and anxiety. Of course, this process doesn’t have to be your process exactly, but whatever you end up doing specifically, an effective writing process will probably include these steps: 1.
Paying attention to what’s going on so that you can find an idea. 2. Narrowing that idea to a more specific topic. 3. Gathering information and understanding on your chosen topic. 4. Processing all that you have gathered to develop a coherent argument. 5. Planning your paper and how to write a research paper so that you can write with purpose 6. Writing well because that’s why we’re here, and 7. Revising so that your paper and how to write a research paper can be as strong as possible. Give this process a try and feel free, of course, to adapt it to your own needs and workflow. If you liked this video, like this video, and, if it was helpful to you, be helpful and share it with a friend or a classmate. Catch you next time! Additionally formal research isn’t really necessary for some writing projects and because of that i like to think of this face as… “this face…” …Oh, I’m cracking myself up…