Best Ways to Improve Your Research Paper

Higher education is a milestone that many of us wish to accomplish. When you go into it, though, you’ll find plenty of requirements as to what you should do, present, learn, etc. Multiple times, you’d need to do academic research and compile it into a research paper. But usually, you won’t be told what exactly makes a good research paper. So, you’d be left wondering how to make yours good.

Sometimes, people turn to professional writers with the request ‘write my paper’. They do so for several reasons, mainly because they don’t have the skills and experience it takes to put into good writing one’s academic research results. That’s why we are here – to offer you help with research papers in an easy and comprehensive way.

Tips on writing research paper

1. Choose your sources wisely and always cite them

Academia is all against plagiarism, all for giving people credit for their published material, and gives a lot for creative and innovative thought. Thus, if you give material where you’ve put someone else’s work for a basis or explanation, but you don’t cite the source, you can easily be accused of plagiarism – a big NO in the academic fields. As Butte College writers put it,

‘For each source, write down on an index card (or on a separate page of your notebook) the publication information you will need for your works cited (MLA) or bibliography (APA) page… […] more recent research may be more valuable than older research. Avoid relying too heavily on internet sources, which vary widely in quality and authority and sometimes even disappear before you can complete your paper.’

1. Remember the abstract

The abstract consists of about 300-500 words, briefly describing the main area of work put into your research, summarizes the findings, and gives a brief glimpse into the most important aspect.

1. Methods

It’s important to put the methods behind your research. This is a specific part of your paper where you need to outline what methods you use, how you use them, what criteria you selected, etc.

1. Introduction

Following the structure of a good research paper, you’d need to write an introduction. It outlines the main points of the theme you are researching, as well as why there needs to be more research done on it.

1. Be clear and concise

Try not to use too complex sentences where the reader forgets what it’s all about. Keep it simple. Yes, indeed, there is no simple in academia, but try to at least format the sentences and structure in a way that enhances comprehension. Be concise, too, wherever you can be. Of course, whilst describing your findings, your experiments, your research, etc., you’d need to go into more detail. But there is no need to go overboard.

1. Try not to repeat yourself unless it’s to make a point

Redundancy is a big no in all forms of writing unless it’s used strategically to highlight the main point or some statement. Thus, try not to repeat yourself over and over. If, for instance, several other papers have reached a similar conclusion and you wish to highlight this, don’t repeat the conclusion. Simply put into the citations that there are several research papers from which you’ve gained that insight and results.

1. Don’t use slang, idioms, or street language

This is a research paper. As such, it will be held to the highest standards. Both in terms of how you’ve done your research and how it pertains to its description of writing. So, avoid slang, idioms, or street language. Try to be professional academic, and use the proper terms, structure, and grammar, and punctuation.

1. Spell check

Once again, a research paper – highest standards, you got the point, but if you think this is an unnecessary repetition, see above to understand why we say it once again. Moving on, simple spelling mistakes can ruin the appearance of the paper, and the credibility of you as a writer and researcher or, sometimes, change the meaning entirely. So, make sure you’ve done a spell check at least once.

1. Plagiarism check

Few things hurt your academic development as much as plagiarism accusations. Yes, you might have written your paper all on your own. Yet sometimes we tend to phrase certain structures and words, combinations, etc. in similar ways. Thus, there exists the chance that someone somewhere has written something that looks like your paper. There is a simple solution to that, and it is to change your paper a bit. But you cannot do it if you don’t know that. And if you don’t make the change, you might get accused of plagiarism, even though it was accidental. Thus, never skip the plagiarism check.

1. Finish strong

The final part of your research paper needs to highlight what your research has contributed to the general piece of knowledge in the field of your work. Make sure to briefly summarize your findings (there is a specific part of the structure for that) and draw conclusions that are logical and supported by the evidence at hand. Here is your chance to shine with all the contributions your research makes to forwarding your field of work.

Conclusion

There is, of course, a lot more to be written on the topic. Yet, no single source can hand you all the information about a particular point of interest, even if it is a whole book. Thus, we summarized the most important tips that are usually misunderstood or not clear enough. Some of those tips are frequently overlooked which leads to results that could be better.

So, with those things in mind and armed with a great topic of research, methods, and strategies, you are all set to succeed in the field of your interest. Keep in mind to stay up to the point, be clear, explain places that might be unfamiliar to readers, put citations, read and reread the text, and never copy-paste directly out of sources. Academic writing is hard and we understand that but it is totally achievable with the right approach to it.