How to write a research paper?
General information
During a study in a higher educational institution every student will have to deal with writing a number of research papers in various disciplines. Fortunately, on average all research papers have basically same structure and format, which makes it easier for a student to organize research paper writing process, and also makes it easier for reader to find in a long report what he or she is interested in. Moreover, similar rules can be applied to writing a proposal, thesis and even dissertation in various disciplines. Once you've learned the basic rules for research proposal and report writing, you can apply them to any research discipline. The same rules apply to writing a proposal, a thesis, a dissertation, or any business research report.
Any research paper should contain introduction, background, methodology, results, and conclusions sections. These basic parts of research paper form five chapters. Each chapter should have its own sections and common rules should be applied to any part of research.
A piece of good new is that research proposal is repeated in the first three chapters of research with the only difference. Research proposal uses future tense and research paper uses past tense. This makes first three chapters of research almost identical with research proposal.
As in any scientific study, avoid using first person pronouns in your research paper. Name yourself “a researcher” and use this name to refer to yourself in third person.
The following structure is the one accepted to most of research papers. Any researcher should follow it unless it has been instructed otherwise.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I - Introduction
Introductory paragraphs
Statement of the problem
Purpose
Significance of the study
Research questions and/or hypotheses
CHAPTER II - Background
Literature review
Definition of terms
CHAPTER III - Methodology
Restate purpose and research questions or null hypotheses
Population and sampling
Instrumentation
Procedure and time frame
Analysis plan
Validity and reliability
Assumptions
Scope and limitations
CHAPTER IV - Results
CHAPTER V - Conclusions and recommendations
Summary
Discussion
Recommendations
REFERENCES
APPENDIX
Chapter I
Introduction
Introductory paragraph
Chapter I is an introduction to your research paper. The introductory paragraph should attract attention of the reader and acquaint him or her with the subject of research. Introduction should not exceed several pages. This is necessary to stress significance of your study at this stage to make reader interested in reading through the whole paper.
Statement of the Problem
This statement, even though it should be only one sentence, is very important part of research paper. Statement of the problem should be easily identifiable, clear and brief. Of course you should accompany problem statement with one or few paragraphs where you should relate the problem of this particular research to other problems in various fields. This is possible to use argumentation of authoritative sources which claim that this problem is really important. Do not be afraid to add dramatic value to the problem.
Purpose
The purpose section of your research paper is also a brief statement of what you expect to accomplish by this study. What results you expect to get? What problems can be solved if you conduct this particular research?
Significance of the Study
In this section you should explain how your study relates to other studies and to more significant problems. Do not forget to answer the following questions in this section:
Why is your study important?
To whom is it important?
What benefit you expect to occur if your study is done?
Research Questions and/or Hypotheses and/or Null Hypotheses
In this section you should either present your hypotheses (if applicable) or simply list research questions.
Chapter II
Background
This chapter is primarily a review of literature. Usually students deal with research topics that have been previously explored in numerous studies. Often this is the longest chapter in the whole research paper. It is very important as it gives knowledge about previously conducted research and shows what is left to be explored in the study.
This is also possible that you would want to provide definition of terms in this section of your research paper.
Chapter III
Methodology
Methodology is a section of research paper which is meant to describe in details your research plan. You can begin this section with restatement of the research purpose and questions that you expect to answer during this study.
Population and sampling
In this section you should define the population that you use for your research purposes. Then you should describe the sample that you have chosen from this population and explain how you did this. Then you should provide some research of your sample population and finally infer the results from the sample back to the population. This is very important to do because reader of your research paper should be convinced that your sample sufficiently represents the population.
Instrumentation
Here you should describe the instruments that you use for your research such as surveys and questionnaires. Pay attention to what your instruments are designed to measure. Remember to include copies of your surveys and other instruments in appendix section.
Procedure and time frame
In this section this is necessary to describe procedures that will be followed while conducting research.
Analysis plan
Please pay special attention to this section of your research paper. Analysis plan should be detailed and clear. Explain how each of your research questions will be addressed and analyzed, what statistical tests you will be performing. Pay attention to proper description of all variables and decision making criteria.
Validity and reliability
In this section you are expected to describe validity and reliability assessments. Precisely describe the steps you took to assess validity. Then you should present information on how you will measure reliability.
Assumptions
Not a single research can be conducted without at least some assumptions. You should think carefully of all assumptions you’ve made while planning your research. One example of an assumption may be one that your sample will represent population. Most researchers will also usually assume that respondents will provide truthful answers to your surveys.
Scope and limitations
In this section you should not only describe how budget, time and other constraints limit your research but you should also notice how the quality of your research results will be influences with these limitations.
Chapter IV
Results
Description of the sample
In this section you should again address the issue of your sample population in order to convince reader that it is truly representative for your research.
Analyses
In this section you should actually follow the plan described in methodology of your research paper. You should provide brief and dry analysis of collected information.
For each research question, which you listed in the introductory chapter, your must restate its essence and state null hypothesis is applicable to your particular research. Then follow to presenting the statistical tests which you’ve performed and finally report results. Please note that providing numerical information is not always enough. You should attempt to explain the meaning of such numerical information. Remember that explaining results is the essence of next chapter, so do not attempt to do it in this section.
Chapter V
Conclusions and recommendations
This chapter is about summary of your findings, discussion of those and presenting recommendations based on those findings. Note that you should not mix your personal beliefs and feelings with scientific results of your research. You should also note in this section how your research can be improved and extended.
References
Finish you research with a list of references that you have used for your research paper in a proper format and in alphabetical order.
Appendix
Along with your research paper you should provide the copies of instruments you’ve been using in your study. This is also possible to include the form of informed consent here.