Introduction
Writing skills are essential for succeeding
in high school, college, and at a job.
Writing is not just an end result, but
also a process that helps us develop our
ideas and think logically. Begin by brainstorming
topics, collecting information, taking
a lot of notes, and asking a lot of questions.
Keep your notes and sources organized
as you go.
When developing a topic,one should look
for patterns and relationships, try to
draw conclusions, try discussing one's
ideas with classmates, teachers and parents.
A new os diffrent perspective can help
shake up ones thinking.
How to get Started
The first step towards writing a quality
research paper is to organize what is
to be written. It is always nice to develop
an outline to help to stay on track as
we write, identifying the main points
and what is to be the conclusion. The
introduction should give your reader an
idea of the essay's intent, including
a basic statement of what the essay will
discuss. One should always keep the basic
outline of a simple easy first and follow
it , further changes can be made as required
but the basic layout is followed always.
The following are the parts of the basic
layout of an essay or a research paper:
- The Introduction
- The Body
- The Conclusion
The introduction should give the reader
an idea of the essay's or papers intent,
including a basic statement of what the
essay will discuss. The body presents
the evidence that supports the writers
idea. Here concrete examples should be
used and generalities should be avoided
as much as possible. The conclusion should
summarize and make sense of the evidence
presented by the writer in the body (The
Keys to Effective Writing, 2005).
These are the steps to be followed before
writing any kind of paper or essay. After
these basic guidelines are followed ammendments
can be made according to the nature of
the research paper and according to the
different writing styles. Writing College
research papers
College courses demand many different
kinds of writing that employ a variety
of strategies for different audiences.
During college, it may be required to
write long essays or short answers in
response to examination questions or one
may be asked to keep a journal, write
a lab report, and document the process
one uses to perform research. College
writing or writing college research papers,
also called academic writing, is assigned
to teach the critical thinking and writing
skills needed to communicate in classes
and in the workplace. The quality of one's
writing depends on the quality of the
thinking one does about his topic or his
assignment.
The whole writing process is divided
into three steps namely prewriting, writing,
and rewriting or revising phases.
- Prewriting: In the prewriting phase
one ponders over the questions like
what he has to write about, what are
his feelings about the topic to be written,
how is the topic to be approached, how
to organize the materials and the audience
who will be reading the paper.
- Writing: In this phase the plan is
implemented by working out the details
and fine-tuning thoughts.
- Rewriting: In the phase of rewriting
or revising, the material or paper written
is reviewed and techniques to for improving
it are applied.
During these steps, there are some phases,
which also take place before the final
draft of the research paper is ready.
The first phase would be understanding
the assignment or research topic, which
has been explained as prewriting earlier.
Understanding the assignment or the research
topic includes thinking over the fact
that what kind of research topic it is
and what is the main purpose of the research
topic. Then in this context comes the
issue of using systematic techniques such
as the use of classic strategies, these
strategies are ways to develop or organize
a research paper, these include definition,
division and classification, comparison
and contrast, cause and effect, and process
analysis.
Another important factor is looking at
the topic from a multiple perspective,
when a topic is viewed from multiple points
of view; relationships which have not
occurred before are visible. This approach
invites the writer to look at the topic
as an entity, as a process or a part of
a process, and as a system or part of
a system (The Writing Process, 2005).
Doing exploratory research is included
here with the prewriting techniques because
library research often is a way to generate
ideas. As we review the literature on
a subject or read in a particular area,
we may note ideas that will help us get
started with the writing. Analysis, the
basis of many other strategies, is the
process of breaking something into its
parts and putting the parts back together
so that one can better understand the
whole. When we focus on understanding
something better by comparing and contrasting
it to something else, we identify and
analyze the similarities and differences.
Synthesizing information, all the opinions
and research in support of the thesis
or research paper are incorporated together.
The relevant facts, statistics, expert
opinion, and whatever can directly be
observed with your own opinion and conclusions
to persuade the audience that the thesis
is correct is integrated. Synthesis is
used in supporting the thesis and assembling
the paper. In applying the strategy of
evaluation after synthesis, first, the
criteria to be used to evaluate the subject
will be established and then applied to
the specific parts of the subject that
is being judged, and conclusions would
be drawn that whether it meets the criteria.
The final draft is what we hand in as
the completed paper. Before turning in
the final draft, we should read what we
have written all the way through at least
once more. a black pen on the final paper.
Choppy sentences, poor or nonexistent
transitions between paragraphs, grammar
and spelling errors, and other characteristics
of a first draft should all disappear
Bibliography
The Writing Process, 2005. Retrieved
on October 5th 2005 from: http://www.umuc.edu/prog/ugp/ewp_writingcenter/writinggde/chapter2/chapter2-20.shtml
Evaluating Internet Research Sources.
Retrieved on October 5th 2005 from: http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm
This article was posted on October
29, 2005
