General Tips On The Research Paper Structure Format
Before writing a research paper, students should always create an outline. With a good outline, the student has a basic idea of the way that their essay will be structured. They can use the outline to organize their thoughts and track where they want to use each piece of the research. To get started on writing, students should use the following research paper structure format.
- Start With the Introduction
- Continue With the Ensuing Paragraphs
- Concluding the Essay
- Creating a Bibliography
One of the most important parts of the research paper is the introduction. Within this portion of the document, students will introduce their thesis statement and provide an overview of everything that they will argue. In general, the thesis statement will take up one or two sentences. It should be included toward the middle or the end of the introduction so that the reader has the proper framework for understanding it.
Although the five paragraph essay may be the most traditional, high school and college students will often have to write longer documents. Depending on the length of the research paper, students may need to have anywhere from 5 to 100 paragraphs. No matter what the length is, each paragraph should contain a topic sentence. Within this sentence, the student basically creates a miniature thesis statement. As the essay progresses, these topic sentences will build upon each other to prove the thesis statement of the entire research paper.
In many ways, the conclusion is like the introduction. It will normally restate the thesis statement and sum up everything that has been learned in the research. By the time the student reaches the conclusion, they should have thoroughly proven the entirety of their argument. If there are still questions left in the reader's mind, then the student has not done enough to state their case.
Depending on the assignment, students may need other sections like an appendix, a cover page or a literature review. At the very least, students will need to make a bibliography at the end of their writing. This section of the paper will demonstrate the strength of the student's work. It will include every source that the student used to complete their essay, even if the sources were not actually quoted. In addition, all of the quotes or data included in the document should always be cited. If the source is not cited properly, the teacher will consider it to be plagiarized.