With the end of the academic year approaching, many students around the globe are faced with term paper deadlines. Terms papers usually count for a significant proportion of your grade and require hours of research. Primarily, they aim to gauge how much you’ve learned and understood throughout a course.
Given their extensive nature, schools and universities usually give students a month or more to write their term papers after research and planning. Some students utilize this time and write their essays slowly. But, others don’t find the time and end up needing to write their term paper in just a few days, or maybe even a few hours.
Regardless of how much time you have to write your paper, you can score an A+ easily. All you need to do is approach it the right way. For a well-written term paper, you must plan it out and then write it carefully. If you’re a bit clueless, don’t worry! In this guide, we’ll tell you how to write a research essay!
Planning
You cannot write a good term paper without prior planning. If you try, it’s just going to be word vomit. For an excellent term paper, you need to do research paper planning, so it’s well thought out and well structured. Here’s how you to plan a research project the right way:
Choose a topic
Some professors will give you a topic for your term paper. If that’s the case, you can skip this step. For most papers, though, you have to choose your topic – either from a list of preapproved topics or by yourself. You must choose a topic that interests you so that you like what you’re writing about. Otherwise, writing your paper will be an intolerable chore.
Do your research
The second thing to do when planning is to start researching. A good starting point is searching up keywords on good academic databases such as JSTOR. Read through the different articles and papers you come across and save those that seem relevant and interesting. A good term paper help tip is to make a folder on your laptop where you can keep all your research!
It’s important to use credible sources – articles from peer-reviewed journals are the best way to go. Reading through these resources will also allow you to formulate what arguments you want to make, and it will help you shape your paper in your head.
Make an outline
The next and final step in planning is to make a rough outline of your term paper. Grab a paper and a pen and write down a rough structure for your paper. You’ll need an introduction, the main body, and a conclusion.
But go beyond that and plan out the intricate details. What will your thesis statement be? And what are the main arguments you’re going to put forward? Any good term paper will also highlight possible refutations to arguments set forth. Plan all of this out so that the writing process is more streamlined.
Writing
Now that you’ve planned everything out, it’s time for the easy part. Yes, that’s right. When you plan out your paper well, writing the paper is the easy part. A lot of students, usually those overburdened with assignments or those who perhaps have weak English, plan out their term paper but then hire a term paper writing service to help write it down. There are many of these available online, such as Edu birdie. This way, they know all the arguments that are put forth in the essay and are well versed with the content of the paper, without having to write it down.
But, if you do opt to write your essay, here is the general structure that you should follow!
Know your format
There are many different paper formats out there, and each paper requires a specific one. Before you start writing down, make sure you know which format to follow – APA, MLA, Harvard, or Chicago are a few of the popular ones.
Cite As You Go
Once you know what format to follow, a good research paper help pointer is to cite your sources as you write your essay. Every time you take information from another source, cite it! Otherwise, your paper can get flagged for plagiarism, which is a huge academic offense.
Most students are scared of citing too much and therefore skip out on citing some information. Don’t do this, because it’ll put you at considerable risk. As long as you’re analyzing what you cite, you should be fine.
Introduction
Write down a rough introduction, giving a brief background to the issue. Make sure to include your thesis statement at the end of your introduction – but we’ll come back to this later.
Literature Review
Most term papers have a literature review section. In this section, you can explain the different research papers you read through and the main themes you were able to extract from them.
Main Body
If your term paper revolves around primary research, then devote this section to your methodology and results. This means you explain how you carried out your primary research and what you were able to find. If your term paper was primarily secondary research, use this section to talk about your main arguments in support of your thesis.
Conclusion
Finally, end your paper with a well-rounded conclusion. Briefly mention your main arguments/findings again and talk about the implications your findings have for future research. This last part can help make a good impression on your professor.
Go Back To Your Introduction
Most people finish their conclusion, proofread their essays and send them in. Instead of doing that, go back to your introduction once you’re done with your essay and refine it. Once you’ve written it, you’ll have a better idea of what your essay is about, and you can write a more holistic introduction.
Conclusion
Writing a term paper can be nerve-wracking. Luckily, with this guide, you can write an excellent paper in no time.