What are the Stages of College Research?

Writing a paper for your college research sometimes becomes an incredibly challenging task to do. Using this effective strategy which consists of 8 stages will make it easy for you. We will start with the step of how to find background information and till the step of having ready a writing in your hands. Let’s see what those steps for your research writing are.

Choose the topic

You can laugh at it but choosing the topic for your future paper is one of the most challenging stages among other steps here. Really, there is nothing difficult with it but the outcome result toughly binds with the topic you pick up. And one more important thing – it is the hardest step to start doing anything. So after you have the topic chosen you have a start point from where to begin your research. Here are the stages to make the process of choosing an interesting area for this research. While selecting the topic keep in mind the parameters set by assignment. If you have a clear understanding of what your college professor expects from you, be sure – now you are on the right way. Remember: always ask. Better to ask twice than to keep silent until the result cannot be improved anyhow.

Select the topic which is within your interest. Thus, working with research will make the process double enjoyable.   

The topic must be within your ability to find sources and materials for it. Depending on the amount of information your topic should be narrowed if too much information or broadened in case of limited information.

Search for the information

One of the next steps is to find sources and materials for your paper. First, figure out if there is enough information for your research. Finding background information is a very important step among other stages of writing research papers.

And at the beginning of such research set a context for it. Determine appropriate keywords of your writing. Using those keywords enables us to find exact sources for the research. Use the library for these stages in order to get the right sources. Look up your keywords in the appropriate titles in the library’s Reference collection (encyclopedias and dictionaries). It will guide you where to locate needed articles for your personal research. Additionally, for this purpose use a library catalog of books, periodical databases, and Internet search engines. Use periodical databases in the library to find magazine and newspaper articles. Don’t forget about your personal writing. Lecture notes and textbooks are perfect examples where a lot of additional background information can be found.

Locate materials

Such work is strongly needed when it comes to bibliography writing. So better to get a habit to locate those sources you already used in your research. Thus, when your college professor asks to provide a bibliography page you won’t be confused where all that research content came from. A very easy way for doing that is just bookmarking used sources if they were taken from the Internet search engines. When working with library materials and using citations, always write down their information (author, title, location, etc.)  

Evaluate your sources

Your research must be based on reliable information. Be very careful about the resources found on the Internet. When there is suspicion about the trustworthiness of the information try to confirm it by finding the same data in some other sources. Of course, use those sources but don’t present them as the main one for your research. Again, those sources you found in the library are the most reliable.

Create notes for yourself

It is one of the next stages which makes the research process more convenient for you. Sometimes the most valuable information is what we note. Making notes while doing research will bring you to the quick place where the information is located. Also, don’t forget you would be asked to write a bibliography later on.

It’s time to write the paper

So great! You have already determined with the sources for your research and have that draft which will be used as a base for the whole paper. Writing the paper is a step where you organize all that information you have found. When having that done, review the paper as many times as you are completely satisfied with the result.

Cite your sources

Why do you need it to be highlighted in the research stages? It is what allows you to avoid plagiarism. When using appropriate citation style it secures the originality of your paper. There are two common citation formats widely recognized. Those are MLA and APA styles you can embed in your paper.

Proofread

Proofreading is the very last step over the whole research work. This is the process of taking your paper to perfection. Read carefully through the whole text and check any errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Check again the citation style is correctly used. The final steps are all about the reading of the research results.

At last, when you went through all these stages the research is done. Of course, there are a lot of other examples of doing research papers. The library will offer you many such materials. However, we managed to compress this guidance to 8 simple steps which won’t take much of your time when you need to read them again.

This article was written by professional research papers writer from PapersOwl. This is a service for students where everyone can find highly qualified college help.