Out of so many types of medical literature, research papers are considered to be the most conventional and elemental, yet extremely important. Writing a research paper takes some work, and may require abilities that should be novel. Drafting a good research paper involves planning, organization, research, writing, and editing. Time management can also play an essential role, as these tasks often must be completed by a fixed time limit. Hence for a successful research paper needs proper focus, timeline management, and fewer distractions.
Crafting a research paper involves totally different expertise as compared to an essay or an email to a professor and a friend, and therefore, it is a good idea for every researcher to have proper knowledge about research writing. Furthermore, even those who are expert in English as their first language tussle to pen a regular research paper.
The major steps
Writing a research paper is unlike any other regular article as it demonstrates the core subject with the research findings in a definite format. It is essential to understand the requirements and prospects of the readers who will refer to the work. Before drafting the article, the main idea of the work should be framed, otherwise, the paper will lack focus and much more time has to be spent in the revision process of trying to make sense of the jumbled thoughts. The writer must meet all of the requirements specified by the instructor. The primary objective of a researcher is to publish the work in a Scopus/SCI-indexed journal as an academic paper and thus share innovations and discoveries to colleagues and the research community at large.
Thesis statement identification
Selecting a topic is the first step of writing the paper. Particularly, a novel and specific topic must be selected as such the focus should be narrow but thought-provoking, yet wide enough to find enough data. After the evaluation of the various resources on the topic, reading followed by taking notes on the information should be started. After finishing taking notes the ideas need to be structured and a structure for the report should be created. The paper must comprise of three major contexts: the introduction, body, and conclusion. Every section assists an important function.
Preliminary stage: the introduction
The background and main context of the article should be described here. The introduction explains three important questions for the readers: What is this? Why am I reading it? What is the main idea of the paper? Therefore, the general information should be provided in the introduction section so that the readers can make sense of the topic.
Concluding with a good note
The conclusion section is the most important part of the research papers as here more researchers struggle with figuring out how to wrap things up, especially due to the pressure to end with a notable line.
References Citation
Ensuring correct citation of the references is also one major step of writing. Failure to do so can be interpreted as plagiarism. Plagiarism is the act of using someone else’s ideas in the paper without giving the author credit. Plagiarism is considered as a serious offense in the academic field.
Revision followed by editing of the draft
Though the objective of writing the first draft is to put the ideas on paper, the goal of this step is to improve the manner of communication of the ideas. So as to prepare the final draft of the paper, the output, scientific knowledge, flow and transitions must be checked. After the revision of the paper, the next step is to edit the content in order to check and eliminate filler words and phrases, and improve the overall word selection. The paper must also be proofread for errors in punctuation and grammar.