You write research papers to persuade. An argumentative essay persuades readers to agree and accept the writers’ conclusions. A writer develops a claim or a thesis then backs it up with concrete evidence from diverse sources. As a writer, you will tailor your augments to be in line with the thesis of the research paper. A thesis has to be debatable or controversial for the writer to make a good argumentative essay.

Research papers also teach more on the topic under study. It’s the key target of any analytical research paper. It’s the main reason why teachers offer research papers as assignments. If you are tackling a new topic, your teacher will give homework in the form of a research essay. You will have to go through the available resource materials on the subject and then compose a paper. When the paper is overwhelming to do, you can choose to struggle with it. You can also use an online writer to have it done on your behalf.

Research papers help in debates. In an argumentative research paper, you organize your ideas for a crucial argument. After doing thorough research, you will have a chance to support or oppose the research topic. You will be in an excellent position to get prepared to counter your opponents.

They help in critical thinking and the teaching of logic. The current world is full of fake news, and it’s free to post anything on the internet without paying any fees. The free posting has led to information overload. It means that there is plenty of information in circulation. It would help if you had critical thinking before you accept anything that you meet on the internet. The paper will train you in evaluating and checking many information sources. It will also teach you to use critical thinking and logic in connecting conclusions. It’s essential since you meet different analogies online.

The paper will help you in decision-making in case you get stuck between two concrete options. You can write a long research paper to solve the dilemma that you have. The research paper preparation process is vital. You have to decide what you will write and what you will not write. Analyzing different sources enables testing their decisions and form your concrete decision.

A research paper will train you to prove a point when you argue with anyone about any topic. You will know how to present a point to prove you know what you are talking about. You will learn how to organize your facts for them to make sense to your opponent.

Conclusion

A research paper is not a summary of a specific topic. It would help if you had critical thinking about the subject. You then interpret the information you gather from all the sources that you have. The last thing is to come up with a uniform conclusion.

Annotations are evaluations and summaries. Annotated bibliographies are summaries or assessments of each source. Depending on the assignment or project, annotations serve the following functions:

• Summarize. Some annotations summarize the source material giving the main arguments of the article. They also offer your take on the aim of the book or project. The length of the annotation will depend on the details covered.

• Assess. It’s essential to test a summary giving its essence. Compare it with other bibliography sources you have used. Talk about information reliability and the aim of the original.

• Reflect. After summarizing and assessing a source, ask yourself if it fits in the research. How was the source material helpful? How did it affect your arguments? How will you use it in a research project? How did it change your thinking about your topic?

A good annotated bibliography may include any of the above ideas or, at times, all.

A perfect annotated bibliography has several functions. It’s an excellent means to prepare for the research project. It’s helpful to collect bibliography sources. As you make an annotated bibliography, be keen when reading the original. You have to read critically at the expense of just assembling information. Professional annotated bibliographies will allow you to view what to do in literature. You will know how your scholarship or research will fit. While formulating a good thesis, a perfect research paper should be an argument. The research purpose is to state and back up the thesis. Making a thesis current, debatable, and engaging is an essential part of the research. Making a perfect annotated bibliography helps gain a better perspective about the topic. When you read and respond to different topic sources, you will see the real issues and how people argue them. You will also be in a position to craft and build your point of view.

An annotated bibliography also helps other researchers. Scholarly and extensive bibliographies are at times published. They give comprehensive overviews of all essential things said about the topic. You might fail to get your annotated bibliography published anywhere. As a researcher, you will always look for one published about your research topic.

Format

An annotated bibliography format varies. It makes it essential to ask for guidelines if you are doing it for class purposes. You write the annotation for each source in paragraph form. The length varies depending on the goal, from a few sentences to some pages. The size will also depend on the purpose. In writing source summaries, annotations are not lengthy. They may be longer if you use the summaries of the primary sources. An extensive analysis of every origin, then you will use more space.

Conclusion

Your own needs will make you focus on the needs of the annotated bibliographies. To make a better draft, use few sentences of a general summary. You have to back up the summary with several sentences on how you will work on the larger project or paper. 

• The essential research questions in your discipline. Are there any other concrete areas that need extra exploration?
• Will your research improve the understanding of readers? Will it fill the gaps present in the current knowledge?
• Is your literature review turning up rich content in this subject?
• Are you replicating an existing study? If yes, in which ways will you refine and improve the research?
• Is your research question going to have a positive impact in the field?

If you are writing a short-term research paper, there is no need to answer yes to all these questions. A thesis or a dissertation, the above are possible questions. For a research scientist, even affirmative answers to the questions may not win a grant.

The general research question usually bases on how or why certain phenomena happen. A viable example for a general research statement can be: 

what are the reasons behind deforestation in the rainforest of the Amazon? 

The statement bases on the literature review of the research. It shows that the surface area of the Amazon Forest is reducing at a fast rate. Only this fact can serve as a basic assumption and a starting point for building a research project.

Researchers have postulated many reasons for this phenomenon. There is no explicit agreement on which factors contribute to these environmental damages. You have to narrow down on these broad questions to make your thesis question or hypothesis.

Let’s look at these examples derived from the previous question:

• Is exhaustive agriculture the leading cause of Amazon deforestation?
• Is the timber industry the leading cause of Amazon deforestation?
• Is global warming a significant cause of amazon forest deforestation?

When you develop a research paper question, you can generate a research question. After this, you are now free to develop a research paper on this subject.

When the research ends, refer your discussion and results to your research question. You will add more data to the previous knowledge developed in that subject.

After formulating your research paper question, you now have to get facts. You will need these facts in your paper about the subject. Collect the vital points that will make your research paper unique. After this, it’s very vital to make a research paper structure. It will guide you through the writing process. In your structure, make sure you have the following sections:

• Title
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Methodology
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusion
• References

Conclusion

In conclusion, you need to have a good research paper question. You will have an easy ground to derive points for your paper.

College often encompasses academic writing, a stark difference to high school, and thus, aspects like sticking to a five paragraphed essay will not apply. Academic writing entails scholars writing articles or papers for their peers, and now that you have joined college, you qualify as a scholar. Additionally, it devotes to questions and topics of interest, especially to the community in academia. Finally, it should present your reader with informed arguments.

Essential Aspects of College Academic Papers

• Informed argument. It would help if you constructed an educated argument when writing an academic paper in college. Here, deliberate on what knowledge you have to pertain to the subject. It should include your knowledge concerning the subject. These critical aspects prove vital to you about the topic, how the subject relates to various things you know about, the elements you have no idea about the subject, and what your thought process entails.     
• Moving from individual response to writing analytically. It would help if you analyzed different aspects when writing a college paper critically, and thus you will have to vacate your response or perspective. Consider the following to transition successfully:

1. Summarize. You have to summarize the primary content and what it says. Here, you can come up with diverse summaries and pick one that aligns with your plan for the paper.
2. Evaluate. It always entails an ongoing process from the first time you encounter a text till you complete the writing process. It comes remarkably different from reacting to a piece of text.
3. Analyze. It’s a step that entails developing an educated argument by asking you to start by considering the diverse parts of your subject before examining how they all relate as a unit.
4. Synthesize. You have to break down your text into parts and search for connections in between concepts.

Picking an Ideal Subject

Students struggle with topic selections when it comes to their academic writing, especially when their professors require them to come up with one. However, it needs to be straightforward, especially when you get a prompt. You can elect to ask your instructor about their expectation to get it to write when you finally get to the writing bit. However, to come up with an excellent subject, consider asking yourself these questions:

1. Have you developed an intelligent question? Will the question elicits a thoughtful and complex answer?
2. Can you consider the question provocative?
3. Can you answer the question adequately by using a couple of pages?
4. Will your audience care about the question?
5. Can you consider the question as simultaneously addressing the context and the text?

Finding the Best Rhetorical Stance

It becomes essential to consider whom you want to address the same way you consider what you want to say when writing an academic paper. Because of this, your rhetorical stance has to reflect your position regarding the topic and your audience. Therefore, try and consider the following:

• Your position. It should involve your link to the subject and your stance about it as a consequence. It can either prove against or for the subject. Therefore, to make your stance analytical, try and interrogate yourself why you took that specific stance, prioritize some subject aspects as more crucial than others, etc.
• Your audience. A stance you take regarding a subject should not determine the rhetorical stance you hold on such a subject. You will also have to consider your audience.

Consider the Structure

You can have different ideas about structuring your paper from high school. However, in college, you have to consider a structure that supports your concepts. Ideally, you should have a properly constructed introduction, thesis sentence, body text with main points, and the conclusion.

Conclusion

If you want to write a college academic paper, it becomes crucial to comprehend the various aspects that prove critical in writing an academic paper at this level.

It is much easier to read an essay with well-structured paragraphs and citations than that which appears like plain text. It becomes easier to grasp the main points of your work. There are some critical skills for students to learn and will help the future carrier. It shows the abilities of the student’s to:

• Structure
• Make complex work to be easy
• Follow the rules
• Be disciplined

Understanding APA

APA stands for American Psychological Association. APA is frequently used in papers that are written to address humanitarian and social issues. There exist many specifications of referencing various sources, which may include articles, books, newspapers, pictures, or even videos.

Students and other writers should place the author’s name first, then the date, and finally secondary producers in case of one’s existence. Publication information is placed at the end.

Citing a book

A writer should understand the three types of books, an e-book, the actual book, and that in the database. A writer ought to be extra careful with the font given and italicize the book’s title.

E-book referencing

Many publishers nowadays deliver their literature work in electronic version format. Publishers can freely access books found on the e-reader. There should be a unique format of referencing an e-book, and it may take a well-structured format:

Author, M.K. (Publication year). The work’s title and lastly, where it was retrieved.

Rules to reference a website

Most of the time, students reference websites and include articles containing some data and valuable information. Sometimes, the author may not be mentioned on the website hence forcing students to use some templates, which are as follows:

Author, C.B… (Year, month and date of publication)

Operating a periodical

Periodicals may include newspapers, academic journals, and magazines. Students or writers may obtain all these sources in print form as uploaded content, and they, therefore, have different citation rules.

Academic source referencing

Some coursework or thesis of another person may be serving as an essential source of data that a student or publisher can use. Some people may get information from conference papers or lectures, which serves them as an essential source of information in their writing. Publishers and students may find these papers in a specific database or website.

More sources of references

A student or publisher is at liberty of citing engraved sources and reference a radio broadcast, video, or photo. The first thing to write should be the author’s name, followed by the year of publication and then the title.

Conclusion

APA referencing is easy to use. A writer only needs to be very attentive, accurate, and able to circumvent mistakes as soon as possible and later compile a list of references. Writers are not supposed to forget the formatting rules that connect to the rest of the paper’s work and make it simple by also adding tables.

What are some of the forms of plagiarism?

• Unintentional Plagiarism

Did you know that even if you don’t intend to plagiarize, it can still happen? The fact is that many students don’t know how to write an academic paper. They have no idea what the guidelines are and how they should complete assignments. Even if you follow citation guidelines, it is easy to fall into the trap of unintentional plagiarism. For example, you might be reading a book you have used as a source, and you might take notes. If this is the case, make sure to put quotation marks around any of the phrases you are taking from your book. Also, ensure to keep track of how many quotes or phrases are included in your paper!

• Intentional Plagiarism

It often occurs when students hand in assignments that they have copied word for word from other sources. This type of plagiarism is extremely easy for professors to detect. Several websites provide a detailed description of the punishment that it will bring if you are caught plagiarizing. If you do not want to be caught doing this, be sure that you have all the necessary citations in your paper.

How can one Avoid Plagiarism?

One of the best ways to avoid plagiarism is to leave plenty of time when completing your work. If you don’t leave yourself enough time, you might rush through and accidentally use someone else’s work without even realizing it. Another way to avoid plagiarizing is if you know that you will be given many writing assignments in the future, invest in a good citation software program that will help format your papers correctly. There are plenty of free programs available. It is vital to make sure that your paper shows proper citations throughout the paper.

Be excellent at paraphrasing

In case you have limited time to write an article or any other paper, the best way out would be to paraphrase any decent and informative content available on the internet. This way, you will be able to:

1. To avoid any issue of copyright infringement since you are not copying any portion of a paper that belongs to someone else.
2. To maintain your writing skills which may be impaired due to bad habits such as copying and pasting content from online sources
3. To save a lot of time since you will not be required to write a paper from scratch.
4. To avoid any plagiarism issues as well.

Another way is writing an original paper based on your own ideas, even if they were discovered from other sources. In this case, you do not have to worry about plagiarism since you are not copying any portion of a paper that belongs to someone else. On the other hand, if you are the one who discovered some ideas, how can anyone else plagiarize them? However, the main disadvantage of this is that your knowledge will be limited compared to a student who uses original sources.

Cite your sources

• Don’t just copy words from another source. If you refer to some work, include a citation that specifically points out the original source.
• Be careful when using other people’s work because they may have copyright issues. Never forget to cite your sources, possibly using the Works Cited or Bibliography, and then give proper headings in your paper for all of them. You must make sure you cite your sources properly so that it is easy for the reader to find them again if they need a fact-checked.

Thesis statements are at the beginning of the essay. In your research, you have to write your thesis statement in the paragraphs of your research. Your thesis statement must identify the argument. You need to have an easily understandable thesis statement. And you need to have a thesis statement that is also debatable. It means that you do not have to get any facts and use it as a thesis statement. For example, everybody knows that water is life, right? A thesis statement that is not effective is, “water is life, and everybody knows it.” It is something that does not become debatable.

A thesis statement that would look debatable is, “the beauty of puppies comes from its nice-looking tail, ears, playfulness and small body.” These are some of the debatable things. Some people think that puppies get their cuteness from the fluffy body, others think that they get their cuteness from the ears, or maybe they follow you around. At least, this is debatable. You need to ensure that your thesis statement is debatable and needs to answer the question that the research question is posing.

It is why you need to make sure that you do extensive research about the topic before you start to write your essay. Besides, you should write a thesis statement that is not very big or ambiguous. Thesis statements like, “governments should work on climate change” are too large to cover every detail. 

Now that we understand how to write thesis statements, here are some samples that one can use. 

Examples of thesis statements

• Vaccination

Some so many children are not vaccinated. For this reason, children with weak immunities or even those who are healthy should undergo vaccination. 

• Educational resources

All schools should give students educational resources. It will help the students to remember what they studied in school throughout the entire year.

• School uniform

A school uniform looks like an upfront cost for most families. School uniforms remove that difference between school kids of different incomes. It provides one atmosphere between the students.

• Public libraries

These are places that are very crucial for communities. Communities and municipalities should fund such places heavily.

• Cyberbullying

There is a rise in cyberbullying today. The reason why cyberbullying is rising is that most kids own smartphones. Cyberbullying leads to kids having a lot of stress, depression, and anxiety. Parents must monitor their kids and regulate them from using smartphones.

• Balance of work-life

Companies must provide their employees with opportunities to work from home. It will give employees enough time to balance their work and work efficiently.

Conclusion

If you are still finding it hard to write thesis statements or writing an attractive thesis statement, ask your lecturer to ensure that you are on track.

This article enumerates the differences between commonly confusing sections and components of research papers.

Abstract Vs. Introduction

An abstract summarizes the entire research paper consisting of methodology, research findings or results, and conclusion. Abstract provides a sneak peek at the research. On the other hand, an introduction is the starting section for a research paper and provides context and background to the study.

Aim Vs. Objectives of a Research Paper

The aim of a research paper enumerates the outcome, which the study seeks to achieve. A broad statement encompasses the overall goals of the study. Objectives are specific steps with actions for achieving the aims. It lays down stages or milestones for the achievement of the goals.

Introduction Vs. Problem Statement

An introduction is the first section of a research paper, providing background and context to the study. The objective of the introduction is to engage readers and give critical background information. On the other hand, the problem statement is a section of the research proposal meant to attract funding.

Background of the Study Vs. Literature Review

The background of the study introduces the topic and sets the context for the research. The literature review provides an analysis of the literature of the research area.

Research Question Vs. Research Problem

A research problem is a broad challenge that the study will address. Research problems identify an area of concern, doubt, or difficulty that needs investigation and thought. On the other hand, the research question is a particular concern that the research will answer, usually derived from the research problem.

Research Methods Vs. Research Methodology

Research methodology encompasses a wide set of principles that assist researchers in selecting methods for doing experiments. Research methods are the procedures and techniques utilized in research work. Research methodology determines the types of research methods for a particular research experiment.

Results Vs. Discussions

Discussion and results are products to research findings. Results sections capture the findings of the study based on the selected research methods. Results include an explanation of research findings supported by figures or tables.

Legends Vs. Labels Vs. Figure Captions

In the results sections of a research paper, non-textual components like figures and tables illustrate the key findings of the research paper presented. Legends, labels, and captions identify and offer details on such illustrations. Captions are the headings for illustrations, tables, or figures. Legends are a description of tables or figures. Labels form part of the illustration or figure used for naming purposes.

Recommendations Vs. Implications Vs. Limitations for Future Research

Research recommendations, limitations, and implications are elements of the conclusion section that summarizes the key findings. Implications are conclusions drawn from the research project that suggest the usefulness of the findings. Limitations help readers to understand the context for interpreting the findings.

Bibliography Vs. Reference Vs. Citation

References and citations are useful in crediting authors of previous work, which your research has relied on. Make use of citation if you use exact ideas from other research work. Bibliography and references are a list at the end of a research paper or books for the sources that you relied upon in the research.