Research Paper as a Type of Academic Writing

Research paper is a type of the academic writing that usually requires detailed and thorough academic research with theoretical and methodical questions, qualitative and quantitative research methods, the analysis of the research results, and the conclusion that might lead either to further investigation of the topic or practical implementation of the offered solutions. While it is very important to choose the proper research paper topic for the research, it is not less important to have a challenging topic that will determine the amount of efforts and enthusiasm the person will put into the research and write a thesis statement as a declaration of person’s belief, which will be supported and defended by the arguments further in the essay or any other research paper.

The next step is to find and thoroughly analyze the literature on the essay topic, including books, articles in the authorized and scholarly journals, online media, and so on. Though, the person should always keep in mind that readers of the paper should read it selectively, which means that the work should have clear abstract or summary review to gain readers’ interest to read further or not, introduction, the problem definition, the idea itself, methods and their results, and finally the conclusion. Detailed outline of the future research paper will definitely help to organize the ideas and write the paper in a structured and logical order.

The purpose of any research paper is, first of all, to communicate certain idea(s) to readers with the main message, arguments against and for the discussed idea, and the possible solution or practical implementation. Though, idea without the support of the literature review, discussion of pros and cons, and bibliographical references seems weak and useless since there are no background and no resource basis for further development of the research topic. As for the methods of research and their analysis, there is no specific page limit, but the main concept is to keep this part of the paper as precise and specified as possible.

Thus, materials and methods of the research may be written and reported under separate subheadings or can be integrated together based on amount of information and purpose of the paper. Further, the results’ section serves to present and illustrate the findings, the interpretation of which should be mentioned in the discussion part. The data will describe the mechanisms that are to be observed and compared with the expectations from the current research. If these results differ from the expectations, then it is necessary to explain the reasons of this difference and possible solutions. If the results correspond to the expectations, then it might be useful to discuss the theory supported by the current evidence(s).

It is important to remember that the biggest mistake done by many students or researches is to present a superficial interpretation of the research results, while it is much more important to explain why the results occurred as they did, emphasizing the main reasons and focusing on the mechanisms used during observations. Finally, the reasonable and properly analyzed conclusion of the research paper will lead the readers or other researchers either toward further investigation of the topic or the practical implementation of the discussed methods, their results and usefulness in the related field.