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How to Write a Research Paper: the LEAP approach (+cheat sheet)

In this article I will show you how to write a research paper using the four LEAP writing steps. The LEAP academic writing approach is a step-by-step method for turning research results into a published paper .

The LEAP writing approach has been the cornerstone of the 70 + research papers that I have authored and the 3700+ citations these paper have accumulated within 9 years since the completion of my PhD. I hope the LEAP approach will help you just as much as it has helped me to make an real, tangible impact with my research.

What is the LEAP research paper writing approach?

I designed the LEAP writing approach not only for merely writing the papers. My goal with the writing system was to show young scientists how to first think about research results and then how to efficiently write each section of the research paper.

In other words, you will see how to write a research paper by first analyzing the results and then building a logical, persuasive arguments. In this way, instead of being afraid of writing research paper, you will be able to rely on the paper writing process to help you with what is the most demanding task in getting published – thinking.

The four research paper writing steps according to the LEAP approach:

I will show each of these steps in detail. And you will be able to download the LEAP cheat sheet for using with every paper you write.

But before I tell you how to efficiently write a research paper, I want to show you what is the problem with the way scientists typically write a research paper and why the LEAP approach is more efficient.

How scientists typically write a research paper (and why it isn’t efficient)

Writing a research paper can be tough, especially for a young scientist. Your reasoning needs to be persuasive and thorough enough to convince readers of your arguments. The description has to be derived from research evidence, from prior art, and from your own judgment. This is a tough feat to accomplish.

The figure below shows the sequence of the different parts of a typical research paper. Depending on the scientific journal, some sections might be merged or nonexistent, but the general outline of a research paper will remain very similar.

Here is the problem: Most people make the mistake of writing in this same sequence.

While the structure of scientific articles is designed to help the reader follow the research, it does little to help the scientist write the paper. This is because the layout of research articles starts with the broad (introduction) and narrows down to the specifics (results). See in the figure below how the research paper is structured in terms of the breath of information that each section entails.

How to write a research paper according to the LEAP approach

For a scientist, it is much easier to start writing a research paper with laying out the facts in the narrow sections (i.e. results), step back to describe them (i.e. write the discussion), and step back again to explain the broader picture in the introduction.

For example, it might feel intimidating to start writing a research paper by explaining your research’s global significance in the introduction, while it is easy to plot the figures in the results. When plotting the results, there is not much room for wiggle: the results are what they are.

Starting to write a research papers from the results is also more fun because you finally get to see and understand the complete picture of the research that you have worked on.

Most importantly, following the LEAP approach will help you first make sense of the results yourself and then clearly communicate them to the readers. That is because the sequence of writing allows you to slowly understand the meaning of the results and then develop arguments for presenting to your readers.

I have personally been able to write and submit a research article in three short days using this method.

Step 1: Lay Out the Facts

You have worked long hours on a research project that has produced results and are no doubt curious to determine what they exactly mean. There is no better way to do this than by preparing figures, graphics and tables. This is what the first LEAP step is focused on – diving into the results.

How to p repare charts and tables for a research paper

Your first task is to try out different ways of visually demonstrating the research results. In many fields, the central items of a journal paper will be charts that are based on the data generated during research. In other fields, these might be conceptual diagrams, microscopy images, schematics and a number of other types of scientific graphics which should visually communicate the research study and its results to the readers. If you have reasonably small number of data points, data tables might be useful as well.

Tips for preparing charts and tables

• Try multiple chart types but in the finished paper only use the one that best conveys the message you want to present to the readers
• Follow the eight chart design progressions for selecting and refining a data chart for your paper: https://peerrecognized.com/chart-progressions
• Prepare scientific graphics and visualizations for your paper using the scientific graphic design cheat sheet: https://peerrecognized.com/tools-for-creating-scientific-illustrations/

How to describe the results of your research

Now that you have your data charts, graphics and tables laid out in front of you – describe what you see in them. Seek to answer the question: What have I found?  Your statements should progress in a logical sequence and be backed by the visual information. Since, at this point, you are simply explaining what everyone should be able to see for themselves, you can use a declarative tone: The figure X demonstrates that…

Tips for describing the research results :

• Answer the question: “ What have I found? “
• Use declarative tone since you are simply describing observations

Step 2: Explain the results

The core aspect of your research paper is not actually the results; it is the explanation of their meaning. In the second LEAP step, you will do some heavy lifting by guiding the readers through the results using logic backed by previous scientific research.

How to define the Message of a research paper

To define the central message of your research paper, imagine how you would explain your research to a colleague in 20 seconds . If you succeed in effectively communicating your paper’s message, a reader should be able to recount your findings in a similarly concise way even a year after reading it. This clarity will increase the chances that someone uses the knowledge you generated, which in turn raises the likelihood of citations to your research paper. 

Tips for defining the paper’s central message :

• Write the paper’s core message in a single sentence or two bullet points
• Write the core message in the header of the research paper manuscript

How to write the Discussion section of a research paper

In the discussion section you have to demonstrate why your research paper is worthy of publishing. In other words, you must now answer the all-important So what? question . How well you do so will ultimately define the success of your research paper.

Here are three steps to get started with writing the discussion section:

• Write bullet points of the things that convey the central message of the research article (these may evolve into subheadings later on).
• Make a list with the arguments or observations that support each idea.
• Finally, expand on each point to make full sentences and paragraphs.

Tips for writing the discussion section:

• What is the meaning of the results?
• Was the hypothesis confirmed?
• Write bullet points that support the core message
• List logical arguments for each bullet point, group them into sections
• Instead of repeating research timeline, use a presentation sequence that best supports your logic
• Convert arguments to full paragraphs; be confident but do not overhype
• Refer to both supportive and contradicting research papers for maximum credibility

How to write the Conclusions of a research paper

Since some readers might just skim through your research paper and turn directly to the conclusions, it is a good idea to make conclusion a standalone piece. In the first few sentences of the conclusions, briefly summarize the methodology and try to avoid using abbreviations (if you do, explain what they mean).

After this introduction, summarize the findings from the discussion section. Either paragraph style or bullet-point style conclusions can be used. I prefer the bullet-point style because it clearly separates the different conclusions and provides an easy-to-digest overview for the casual browser. It also forces me to be more succinct.

Tips for writing the conclusion section :

• Summarize the key findings, starting with the most important one
• Make conclusions standalone (short summary, avoid abbreviations)
• Add an optional take-home message and suggest future research in the last paragraph

How to refine the Objective of a research paper

The objective is a short, clear statement defining the paper’s research goals. It can be included either in the final paragraph of the introduction, or as a separate subsection after the introduction. Avoid writing long paragraphs with in-depth reasoning, references, and explanation of methodology since these belong in other sections. The paper’s objective can often be written in a single crisp sentence.

Tips for writing the objective section :

• The objective should ask the question that is answered by the central message of the research paper
• The research objective should be clear long before writing a paper. At this point, you are simply refining it to make sure it is addressed in the body of the paper.

How to write the Methodology section of your research paper

When writing the methodology section, aim for a depth of explanation that will allow readers to reproduce the study . This means that if you are using a novel method, you will have to describe it thoroughly. If, on the other hand, you applied a standardized method, or used an approach from another paper, it will be enough to briefly describe it with reference to the detailed original source.

Remember to also detail the research population, mention how you ensured representative sampling, and elaborate on what statistical methods you used to analyze the results.

Tips for writing the methodology section :

• Include enough detail to allow reproducing the research
• Provide references if the methods are known
• Create a methodology flow chart to add clarity
• Describe the research population, sampling methodology, statistical methods for result analysis
• Describe what methodology, test methods, materials, and sample groups were used in the research.

Step 3: Advertize the research

Step 3 of the LEAP writing approach is designed to entice the casual browser into reading your research paper. This advertising can be done with an informative title, an intriguing abstract, as well as a thorough explanation of the underlying need for doing the research within the introduction.

How to write the Introduction of a research paper

The introduction section should leave no doubt in the mind of the reader that what you are doing is important and that this work could push scientific knowledge forward. To do this convincingly, you will need to have a good knowledge of what is state-of-the-art in your field. You also need be able to see the bigger picture in order to demonstrate the potential impacts of your research work.

Think of the introduction as a funnel, going from wide to narrow, as shown in the figure below:

• Start with a brief context to explain what do we already know,
• Follow with the motivation for the research study and explain why should we care about it,
• Explain the research gap you are going to bridge within this research paper,
• Describe the approach you will take to solve the problem.

Tips for writing the introduction section :

• Follow the Context – Motivation – Research gap – Approach funnel for writing the introduction
• Explain how others tried and how you plan to solve the research problem
• Do a thorough literature review before writing the introduction
• Start writing the introduction by using your own words, then add references from the literature

How to prepare the Abstract of a research paper

The abstract acts as your paper’s elevator pitch and is therefore best written only after the main text is finished. In this one short paragraph you must convince someone to take on the time-consuming task of reading your whole research article. So, make the paper easy to read, intriguing, and self-explanatory; avoid jargon and abbreviations.

How to structure the abstract of a research paper:

• The abstract is a single paragraph that follows this structure:
• Problem: why did we research this
• Methodology: typically starts with the words “Here we…” that signal the start of own contribution.
• Results: what we found from the research.
• Conclusions: show why are the findings important

How to compose a research paper Title

The title is the ultimate summary of a research paper. It must therefore entice someone looking for information to click on a link to it and continue reading the article. A title is also used for indexing purposes in scientific databases, so a representative and optimized title will play large role in determining if your research paper appears in search results at all.

Tips for coming up with a research paper title:

• Capture curiosity of potential readers using a clear and descriptive title
• Include broad terms that are often searched
• Add details that uniquely identify the researched subject of your research paper
• Avoid jargon and abbreviations
• Use keywords as title extension (instead of duplicating the words) to increase the chance of appearing in search results

How to prepare Highlights and Graphical Abstract

Highlights are three to five short bullet-point style statements that convey the core findings of the research paper. Notice that the focus is on the findings, not on the process of getting there.

A graphical abstract placed next to the textual abstract visually summarizes the entire research paper in a single, easy-to-follow figure. I show how to create a graphical abstract in my book Research Data Visualization and Scientific Graphics.

Tips for preparing highlights and graphical abstract:

• In highlights show core findings of the research paper (instead of what you did in the study).
• In graphical abstract show take-home message or methodology of the research paper. Learn more about creating a graphical abstract in this article.

Step 4: Prepare for submission

Sometimes it seems that nuclear fusion will stop on the star closest to us (read: the sun will stop to shine) before a submitted manuscript is published in a scientific journal. The publication process routinely takes a long time, and after submitting the manuscript you have very little control over what happens. To increase the chances of a quick publication, you must do your homework before submitting the manuscript. In the fourth LEAP step, you make sure that your research paper is published in the most appropriate journal as quickly and painlessly as possible.

How to select a scientific Journal for your research paper

The best way to find a journal for your research paper is it to review which journals you used while preparing your manuscript. This source listing should provide some assurance that your own research paper, once published, will be among similar articles and, thus, among your field’s trusted sources.

After this initial selection of hand-full of scientific journals, consider the following six parameters for selecting the most appropriate journal for your research paper (read this article to review each step in detail):

• Scope and publishing history
• Ranking and Recognition
• Publishing time
• Acceptance rate
• Content requirements
• Access and Fees

How to select a journal for your research paper:

• Use the six parameters to select the most appropriate scientific journal for your research paper
• Use the following tools for journal selection: https://peerrecognized.com/journals
• Follow the journal’s “Authors guide” formatting requirements

How to Edit you manuscript

No one can write a finished research paper on their first attempt. Before submitting, make sure to take a break from your work for a couple of days, or even weeks. Try not to think about the manuscript during this time. Once it has faded from your memory, it is time to return and edit. The pause will allow you to read the manuscript from a fresh perspective and make edits as necessary.

I have summarized the most useful research paper editing tools in this article.

Tips for editing a research paper:

• Take time away from the research paper to forget about it; then returning to edit,
• Start by editing the content: structure, headings, paragraphs, logic, figures
• Continue by editing the grammar and language; perform a thorough language check using academic writing tools
• Read the entire paper out loud and correct what sounds weird

How to write a compelling Cover Letter for your paper

Begin the cover letter by stating the paper’s title and the type of paper you are submitting (review paper, research paper, short communication). Next, concisely explain why your study was performed, what was done, and what the key findings are. State why the results are important and what impact they might have in the field. Make sure you mention how your approach and findings relate to the scope of the journal in order to show why the article would be of interest to the journal’s readers.

I wrote a separate article that explains what to include in a cover letter here. You can also download a cover letter template from the article.

Tips for writing a cover letter:

• Explain how the findings of your research relate to journal’s scope
• Tell what impact the research results will have
• Show why the research paper will interest the journal’s audience
• Add any legal statements as required in journal’s guide for authors

How to Answer the Reviewers

Reviewers will often ask for new experiments, extended discussion, additional details on the experimental setup, and so forth. In principle, your primary winning tactic will be to agree with the reviewers and follow their suggestions whenever possible. After all, you must earn their blessing in order to get your paper published.

Be sure to answer each review query and stick to the point. In the response to the reviewers document write exactly where in the paper you have made any changes. In the paper itself, highlight the changes using a different color. This way the reviewers are less likely to re-read the entire article and suggest new edits.

In cases when you don’t agree with the reviewers, it makes sense to answer more thoroughly. Reviewers are scientifically minded people and so, with enough logical and supported argument, they will eventually be willing to see things your way.

Tips for answering the reviewers:

• Agree with most review comments, but if you don’t, thoroughly explain why
• Highlight changes in the manuscript
• Do not take the comments personally and cool down before answering

The LEAP research paper writing cheat sheet

Imagine that you are back in grad school and preparing to take an exam on the topic: “How to write a research paper”. As an exemplary student, you would, most naturally, create a cheat sheet summarizing the subject… Well, I did it for you.

This one-page summary of the LEAP research paper writing technique will remind you of the key research paper writing steps. Print it out and stick it to a wall in your office so that you can review it whenever you are writing a new research paper.

Now that we have gone through the four LEAP research paper writing steps, I hope you have a good idea of how to write a research paper. It can be an enjoyable process and once you get the hang of it, the four LEAP writing steps should even help you think about and interpret the research results. This process should enable you to write a well-structured, concise, and compelling research paper.

Have fund with writing your next research paper. I hope it will turn out great!

Learn writing papers that get cited

The LEAP writing approach is a blueprint for writing research papers. But to be efficient and write papers that get cited, you need more than that.

My name is Martins Zaumanis and in my interactive course Research Paper Writing Masterclass I will show you how to  visualize  your research results,  frame a message  that convinces your readers, and write  each section  of the paper. Step-by-step.

And of course – you will learn to respond the infamous  Reviewer No.2.

Hey! My name is Martins Zaumanis and I am a materials scientist in Switzerland ( Google Scholar ). As the first person in my family with a PhD, I have first-hand experience of the challenges starting scientists face in academia. With this blog, I want to help young researchers succeed in academia. I call the blog “Peer Recognized”, because peer recognition is what lifts academic careers and pushes science forward.

Besides this blog, I have written the Peer Recognized book series and created the Peer Recognized Academy offering interactive online courses.

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Chapter 11: Presenting Your Research

Writing a Research Report in American Psychological Association (APA) Style

Learning Objectives

• Identify the major sections of an APA-style research report and the basic contents of each section.
• Plan and write an effective APA-style research report.

In this section, we look at how to write an APA-style empirical research report , an article that presents the results of one or more new studies. Recall that the standard sections of an empirical research report provide a kind of outline. Here we consider each of these sections in detail, including what information it contains, how that information is formatted and organized, and tips for writing each section. At the end of this section is a sample APA-style research report that illustrates many of these principles.

Sections of a Research Report

Title page and abstract.

An APA-style research report begins with a  title page . The title is centred in the upper half of the page, with each important word capitalized. The title should clearly and concisely (in about 12 words or fewer) communicate the primary variables and research questions. This sometimes requires a main title followed by a subtitle that elaborates on the main title, in which case the main title and subtitle are separated by a colon. Here are some titles from recent issues of professional journals published by the American Psychological Association.

• Sex Differences in Coping Styles and Implications for Depressed Mood
• Effects of Aging and Divided Attention on Memory for Items and Their Contexts
• Computer-Assisted Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Child Anxiety: Results of a Randomized Clinical Trial
• Virtual Driving and Risk Taking: Do Racing Games Increase Risk-Taking Cognitions, Affect, and Behaviour?

Below the title are the authors’ names and, on the next line, their institutional affiliation—the university or other institution where the authors worked when they conducted the research. As we have already seen, the authors are listed in an order that reflects their contribution to the research. When multiple authors have made equal contributions to the research, they often list their names alphabetically or in a randomly determined order.

In some areas of psychology, the titles of many empirical research reports are informal in a way that is perhaps best described as “cute.” They usually take the form of a play on words or a well-known expression that relates to the topic under study. Here are some examples from recent issues of the Journal Psychological Science .

• “Smells Like Clean Spirit: Nonconscious Effects of Scent on Cognition and Behavior”
• “Time Crawls: The Temporal Resolution of Infants’ Visual Attention”
• “Scent of a Woman: Men’s Testosterone Responses to Olfactory Ovulation Cues”
• “Apocalypse Soon?: Dire Messages Reduce Belief in Global Warming by Contradicting Just-World Beliefs”
• “Serial vs. Parallel Processing: Sometimes They Look Like Tweedledum and Tweedledee but They Can (and Should) Be Distinguished”
• “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Words: The Social Effects of Expressive Writing”

Individual researchers differ quite a bit in their preference for such titles. Some use them regularly, while others never use them. What might be some of the pros and cons of using cute article titles?

For articles that are being submitted for publication, the title page also includes an author note that lists the authors’ full institutional affiliations, any acknowledgments the authors wish to make to agencies that funded the research or to colleagues who commented on it, and contact information for the authors. For student papers that are not being submitted for publication—including theses—author notes are generally not necessary.

The  abstract  is a summary of the study. It is the second page of the manuscript and is headed with the word  Abstract . The first line is not indented. The abstract presents the research question, a summary of the method, the basic results, and the most important conclusions. Because the abstract is usually limited to about 200 words, it can be a challenge to write a good one.

Introduction

The  introduction  begins on the third page of the manuscript. The heading at the top of this page is the full title of the manuscript, with each important word capitalized as on the title page. The introduction includes three distinct subsections, although these are typically not identified by separate headings. The opening introduces the research question and explains why it is interesting, the literature review discusses relevant previous research, and the closing restates the research question and comments on the method used to answer it.

The Opening

The  opening , which is usually a paragraph or two in length, introduces the research question and explains why it is interesting. To capture the reader’s attention, researcher Daryl Bem recommends starting with general observations about the topic under study, expressed in ordinary language (not technical jargon)—observations that are about people and their behaviour (not about researchers or their research; Bem, 2003 [1] ). Concrete examples are often very useful here. According to Bem, this would be a poor way to begin a research report:

Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance received a great deal of attention during the latter part of the 20th century (p. 191)

The following would be much better:

The individual who holds two beliefs that are inconsistent with one another may feel uncomfortable. For example, the person who knows that he or she enjoys smoking but believes it to be unhealthy may experience discomfort arising from the inconsistency or disharmony between these two thoughts or cognitions. This feeling of discomfort was called cognitive dissonance by social psychologist Leon Festinger (1957), who suggested that individuals will be motivated to remove this dissonance in whatever way they can (p. 191).

After capturing the reader’s attention, the opening should go on to introduce the research question and explain why it is interesting. Will the answer fill a gap in the literature? Will it provide a test of an important theory? Does it have practical implications? Giving readers a clear sense of what the research is about and why they should care about it will motivate them to continue reading the literature review—and will help them make sense of it.

Breaking the Rules

Researcher Larry Jacoby reported several studies showing that a word that people see or hear repeatedly can seem more familiar even when they do not recall the repetitions—and that this tendency is especially pronounced among older adults. He opened his article with the following humourous anecdote:

A friend whose mother is suffering symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) tells the story of taking her mother to visit a nursing home, preliminary to her mother’s moving there. During an orientation meeting at the nursing home, the rules and regulations were explained, one of which regarded the dining room. The dining room was described as similar to a fine restaurant except that tipping was not required. The absence of tipping was a central theme in the orientation lecture, mentioned frequently to emphasize the quality of care along with the advantages of having paid in advance. At the end of the meeting, the friend’s mother was asked whether she had any questions. She replied that she only had one question: “Should I tip?” (Jacoby, 1999, p. 3)

Although both humour and personal anecdotes are generally discouraged in APA-style writing, this example is a highly effective way to start because it both engages the reader and provides an excellent real-world example of the topic under study.

The Literature Review

Immediately after the opening comes the  literature review , which describes relevant previous research on the topic and can be anywhere from several paragraphs to several pages in length. However, the literature review is not simply a list of past studies. Instead, it constitutes a kind of argument for why the research question is worth addressing. By the end of the literature review, readers should be convinced that the research question makes sense and that the present study is a logical next step in the ongoing research process.

Like any effective argument, the literature review must have some kind of structure. For example, it might begin by describing a phenomenon in a general way along with several studies that demonstrate it, then describing two or more competing theories of the phenomenon, and finally presenting a hypothesis to test one or more of the theories. Or it might describe one phenomenon, then describe another phenomenon that seems inconsistent with the first one, then propose a theory that resolves the inconsistency, and finally present a hypothesis to test that theory. In applied research, it might describe a phenomenon or theory, then describe how that phenomenon or theory applies to some important real-world situation, and finally suggest a way to test whether it does, in fact, apply to that situation.

Looking at the literature review in this way emphasizes a few things. First, it is extremely important to start with an outline of the main points that you want to make, organized in the order that you want to make them. The basic structure of your argument, then, should be apparent from the outline itself. Second, it is important to emphasize the structure of your argument in your writing. One way to do this is to begin the literature review by summarizing your argument even before you begin to make it. “In this article, I will describe two apparently contradictory phenomena, present a new theory that has the potential to resolve the apparent contradiction, and finally present a novel hypothesis to test the theory.” Another way is to open each paragraph with a sentence that summarizes the main point of the paragraph and links it to the preceding points. These opening sentences provide the “transitions” that many beginning researchers have difficulty with. Instead of beginning a paragraph by launching into a description of a previous study, such as “Williams (2004) found that…,” it is better to start by indicating something about why you are describing this particular study. Here are some simple examples:

Another example of this phenomenon comes from the work of Williams (2004).

Williams (2004) offers one explanation of this phenomenon.

An alternative perspective has been provided by Williams (2004).

We used a method based on the one used by Williams (2004).

Finally, remember that your goal is to construct an argument for why your research question is interesting and worth addressing—not necessarily why your favourite answer to it is correct. In other words, your literature review must be balanced. If you want to emphasize the generality of a phenomenon, then of course you should discuss various studies that have demonstrated it. However, if there are other studies that have failed to demonstrate it, you should discuss them too. Or if you are proposing a new theory, then of course you should discuss findings that are consistent with that theory. However, if there are other findings that are inconsistent with it, again, you should discuss them too. It is acceptable to argue that the  balance  of the research supports the existence of a phenomenon or is consistent with a theory (and that is usually the best that researchers in psychology can hope for), but it is not acceptable to  ignore contradictory evidence. Besides, a large part of what makes a research question interesting is uncertainty about its answer.

The Closing

The  closing  of the introduction—typically the final paragraph or two—usually includes two important elements. The first is a clear statement of the main research question or hypothesis. This statement tends to be more formal and precise than in the opening and is often expressed in terms of operational definitions of the key variables. The second is a brief overview of the method and some comment on its appropriateness. Here, for example, is how Darley and Latané (1968) [2] concluded the introduction to their classic article on the bystander effect:

These considerations lead to the hypothesis that the more bystanders to an emergency, the less likely, or the more slowly, any one bystander will intervene to provide aid. To test this proposition it would be necessary to create a situation in which a realistic “emergency” could plausibly occur. Each subject should also be blocked from communicating with others to prevent his getting information about their behaviour during the emergency. Finally, the experimental situation should allow for the assessment of the speed and frequency of the subjects’ reaction to the emergency. The experiment reported below attempted to fulfill these conditions. (p. 378)

Thus the introduction leads smoothly into the next major section of the article—the method section.

The  method section  is where you describe how you conducted your study. An important principle for writing a method section is that it should be clear and detailed enough that other researchers could replicate the study by following your “recipe.” This means that it must describe all the important elements of the study—basic demographic characteristics of the participants, how they were recruited, whether they were randomly assigned, how the variables were manipulated or measured, how counterbalancing was accomplished, and so on. At the same time, it should avoid irrelevant details such as the fact that the study was conducted in Classroom 37B of the Industrial Technology Building or that the questionnaire was double-sided and completed using pencils.

The method section begins immediately after the introduction ends with the heading “Method” (not “Methods”) centred on the page. Immediately after this is the subheading “Participants,” left justified and in italics. The participants subsection indicates how many participants there were, the number of women and men, some indication of their age, other demographics that may be relevant to the study, and how they were recruited, including any incentives given for participation.

After the participants section, the structure can vary a bit. Figure 11.1 shows three common approaches. In the first, the participants section is followed by a design and procedure subsection, which describes the rest of the method. This works well for methods that are relatively simple and can be described adequately in a few paragraphs. In the second approach, the participants section is followed by separate design and procedure subsections. This works well when both the design and the procedure are relatively complicated and each requires multiple paragraphs.

What is the difference between design and procedure? The design of a study is its overall structure. What were the independent and dependent variables? Was the independent variable manipulated, and if so, was it manipulated between or within subjects? How were the variables operationally defined? The procedure is how the study was carried out. It often works well to describe the procedure in terms of what the participants did rather than what the researchers did. For example, the participants gave their informed consent, read a set of instructions, completed a block of four practice trials, completed a block of 20 test trials, completed two questionnaires, and were debriefed and excused.

In the third basic way to organize a method section, the participants subsection is followed by a materials subsection before the design and procedure subsections. This works well when there are complicated materials to describe. This might mean multiple questionnaires, written vignettes that participants read and respond to, perceptual stimuli, and so on. The heading of this subsection can be modified to reflect its content. Instead of “Materials,” it can be “Questionnaires,” “Stimuli,” and so on.

The  results section  is where you present the main results of the study, including the results of the statistical analyses. Although it does not include the raw data—individual participants’ responses or scores—researchers should save their raw data and make them available to other researchers who request them. Several journals now encourage the open sharing of raw data online.

Although there are no standard subsections, it is still important for the results section to be logically organized. Typically it begins with certain preliminary issues. One is whether any participants or responses were excluded from the analyses and why. The rationale for excluding data should be described clearly so that other researchers can decide whether it is appropriate. A second preliminary issue is how multiple responses were combined to produce the primary variables in the analyses. For example, if participants rated the attractiveness of 20 stimulus people, you might have to explain that you began by computing the mean attractiveness rating for each participant. Or if they recalled as many items as they could from study list of 20 words, did you count the number correctly recalled, compute the percentage correctly recalled, or perhaps compute the number correct minus the number incorrect? A third preliminary issue is the reliability of the measures. This is where you would present test-retest correlations, Cronbach’s α, or other statistics to show that the measures are consistent across time and across items. A final preliminary issue is whether the manipulation was successful. This is where you would report the results of any manipulation checks.

The results section should then tackle the primary research questions, one at a time. Again, there should be a clear organization. One approach would be to answer the most general questions and then proceed to answer more specific ones. Another would be to answer the main question first and then to answer secondary ones. Regardless, Bem (2003) [3] suggests the following basic structure for discussing each new result:

• Remind the reader of the research question.
• Give the answer to the research question in words.
• Present the relevant statistics.
• Qualify the answer if necessary.
• Summarize the result.

Notice that only Step 3 necessarily involves numbers. The rest of the steps involve presenting the research question and the answer to it in words. In fact, the basic results should be clear even to a reader who skips over the numbers.

The  discussion  is the last major section of the research report. Discussions usually consist of some combination of the following elements:

• Summary of the research
• Theoretical implications
• Practical implications
• Limitations
• Suggestions for future research

The discussion typically begins with a summary of the study that provides a clear answer to the research question. In a short report with a single study, this might require no more than a sentence. In a longer report with multiple studies, it might require a paragraph or even two. The summary is often followed by a discussion of the theoretical implications of the research. Do the results provide support for any existing theories? If not, how  can  they be explained? Although you do not have to provide a definitive explanation or detailed theory for your results, you at least need to outline one or more possible explanations. In applied research—and often in basic research—there is also some discussion of the practical implications of the research. How can the results be used, and by whom, to accomplish some real-world goal?

The theoretical and practical implications are often followed by a discussion of the study’s limitations. Perhaps there are problems with its internal or external validity. Perhaps the manipulation was not very effective or the measures not very reliable. Perhaps there is some evidence that participants did not fully understand their task or that they were suspicious of the intent of the researchers. Now is the time to discuss these issues and how they might have affected the results. But do not overdo it. All studies have limitations, and most readers will understand that a different sample or different measures might have produced different results. Unless there is good reason to think they  would have, however, there is no reason to mention these routine issues. Instead, pick two or three limitations that seem like they could have influenced the results, explain how they could have influenced the results, and suggest ways to deal with them.

Most discussions end with some suggestions for future research. If the study did not satisfactorily answer the original research question, what will it take to do so? What  new  research questions has the study raised? This part of the discussion, however, is not just a list of new questions. It is a discussion of two or three of the most important unresolved issues. This means identifying and clarifying each question, suggesting some alternative answers, and even suggesting ways they could be studied.

Finally, some researchers are quite good at ending their articles with a sweeping or thought-provoking conclusion. Darley and Latané (1968) [4] , for example, ended their article on the bystander effect by discussing the idea that whether people help others may depend more on the situation than on their personalities. Their final sentence is, “If people understand the situational forces that can make them hesitate to intervene, they may better overcome them” (p. 383). However, this kind of ending can be difficult to pull off. It can sound overreaching or just banal and end up detracting from the overall impact of the article. It is often better simply to end when you have made your final point (although you should avoid ending on a limitation).

The references section begins on a new page with the heading “References” centred at the top of the page. All references cited in the text are then listed in the format presented earlier. They are listed alphabetically by the last name of the first author. If two sources have the same first author, they are listed alphabetically by the last name of the second author. If all the authors are the same, then they are listed chronologically by the year of publication. Everything in the reference list is double-spaced both within and between references.

Appendices, Tables, and Figures

Appendices, tables, and figures come after the references. An  appendix  is appropriate for supplemental material that would interrupt the flow of the research report if it were presented within any of the major sections. An appendix could be used to present lists of stimulus words, questionnaire items, detailed descriptions of special equipment or unusual statistical analyses, or references to the studies that are included in a meta-analysis. Each appendix begins on a new page. If there is only one, the heading is “Appendix,” centred at the top of the page. If there is more than one, the headings are “Appendix A,” “Appendix B,” and so on, and they appear in the order they were first mentioned in the text of the report.

After any appendices come tables and then figures. Tables and figures are both used to present results. Figures can also be used to illustrate theories (e.g., in the form of a flowchart), display stimuli, outline procedures, and present many other kinds of information. Each table and figure appears on its own page. Tables are numbered in the order that they are first mentioned in the text (“Table 1,” “Table 2,” and so on). Figures are numbered the same way (“Figure 1,” “Figure 2,” and so on). A brief explanatory title, with the important words capitalized, appears above each table. Each figure is given a brief explanatory caption, where (aside from proper nouns or names) only the first word of each sentence is capitalized. More details on preparing APA-style tables and figures are presented later in the book.

Sample APA-Style Research Report

Figures 11.2, 11.3, 11.4, and 11.5 show some sample pages from an APA-style empirical research report originally written by undergraduate student Tomoe Suyama at California State University, Fresno. The main purpose of these figures is to illustrate the basic organization and formatting of an APA-style empirical research report, although many high-level and low-level style conventions can be seen here too.

Key Takeaways

• An APA-style empirical research report consists of several standard sections. The main ones are the abstract, introduction, method, results, discussion, and references.
• The introduction consists of an opening that presents the research question, a literature review that describes previous research on the topic, and a closing that restates the research question and comments on the method. The literature review constitutes an argument for why the current study is worth doing.
• The method section describes the method in enough detail that another researcher could replicate the study. At a minimum, it consists of a participants subsection and a design and procedure subsection.
• The results section describes the results in an organized fashion. Each primary result is presented in terms of statistical results but also explained in words.
• The discussion typically summarizes the study, discusses theoretical and practical implications and limitations of the study, and offers suggestions for further research.
• Practice: Look through an issue of a general interest professional journal (e.g.,  Psychological Science ). Read the opening of the first five articles and rate the effectiveness of each one from 1 ( very ineffective ) to 5 ( very effective ). Write a sentence or two explaining each rating.
• Practice: Find a recent article in a professional journal and identify where the opening, literature review, and closing of the introduction begin and end.
• Practice: Find a recent article in a professional journal and highlight in a different colour each of the following elements in the discussion: summary, theoretical implications, practical implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research.

Long Descriptions

Figure 11.1 long description: Table showing three ways of organizing an APA-style method section.

In the simple method, there are two subheadings: “Participants” (which might begin “The participants were…”) and “Design and procedure” (which might begin “There were three conditions…”).

In the typical method, there are three subheadings: “Participants” (“The participants were…”), “Design” (“There were three conditions…”), and “Procedure” (“Participants viewed each stimulus on the computer screen…”).

In the complex method, there are four subheadings: “Participants” (“The participants were…”), “Materials” (“The stimuli were…”), “Design” (“There were three conditions…”), and “Procedure” (“Participants viewed each stimulus on the computer screen…”). [Return to Figure 11.1]

• Bem, D. J. (2003). Writing the empirical journal article. In J. M. Darley, M. P. Zanna, & H. R. Roediger III (Eds.),  The compleat academic: A practical guide for the beginning social scientist  (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. ↵
• Darley, J. M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4 , 377–383. ↵

A type of research article which describes one or more new empirical studies conducted by the authors.

The page at the beginning of an APA-style research report containing the title of the article, the authors’ names, and their institutional affiliation.

A summary of a research study.

The third page of a manuscript containing the research question, the literature review, and comments about how to answer the research question.

An introduction to the research question and explanation for why this question is interesting.

A description of relevant previous research on the topic being discusses and an argument for why the research is worth addressing.

The end of the introduction, where the research question is reiterated and the method is commented upon.

The section of a research report where the method used to conduct the study is described.

The main results of the study, including the results from statistical analyses, are presented in a research article.

Section of a research report that summarizes the study's results and interprets them by referring back to the study's theoretical background.

Part of a research report which contains supplemental material.

Research Methods in Psychology - 2nd Canadian Edition Copyright © 2015 by Paul C. Price, Rajiv Jhangiani, & I-Chant A. Chiang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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13.1 Formatting a Research Paper

Learning objectives.

• Identify the major components of a research paper written using American Psychological Association (APA) style.
• Apply general APA style and formatting conventions in a research paper.

In this chapter, you will learn how to use APA style , the documentation and formatting style followed by the American Psychological Association, as well as MLA style , from the Modern Language Association. There are a few major formatting styles used in academic texts, including AMA, Chicago, and Turabian:

• AMA (American Medical Association) for medicine, health, and biological sciences
• APA (American Psychological Association) for education, psychology, and the social sciences
• Chicago—a common style used in everyday publications like magazines, newspapers, and books
• MLA (Modern Language Association) for English, literature, arts, and humanities
• Turabian—another common style designed for its universal application across all subjects and disciplines

While all the formatting and citation styles have their own use and applications, in this chapter we focus our attention on the two styles you are most likely to use in your academic studies: APA and MLA.

If you find that the rules of proper source documentation are difficult to keep straight, you are not alone. Writing a good research paper is, in and of itself, a major intellectual challenge. Having to follow detailed citation and formatting guidelines as well may seem like just one more task to add to an already-too-long list of requirements.

Following these guidelines, however, serves several important purposes. First, it signals to your readers that your paper should be taken seriously as a student’s contribution to a given academic or professional field; it is the literary equivalent of wearing a tailored suit to a job interview. Second, it shows that you respect other people’s work enough to give them proper credit for it. Finally, it helps your reader find additional materials if he or she wishes to learn more about your topic.

Furthermore, producing a letter-perfect APA-style paper need not be burdensome. Yes, it requires careful attention to detail. However, you can simplify the process if you keep these broad guidelines in mind:

• Work ahead whenever you can. Chapter 11 “Writing from Research: What Will I Learn?” includes tips for keeping track of your sources early in the research process, which will save time later on.
• Get it right the first time. Apply APA guidelines as you write, so you will not have much to correct during the editing stage. Again, putting in a little extra time early on can save time later.
• Use the resources available to you. In addition to the guidelines provided in this chapter, you may wish to consult the APA website at http://www.apa.org or the Purdue University Online Writing lab at http://owl.english.purdue.edu , which regularly updates its online style guidelines.

General Formatting Guidelines

This chapter provides detailed guidelines for using the citation and formatting conventions developed by the American Psychological Association, or APA. Writers in disciplines as diverse as astrophysics, biology, psychology, and education follow APA style. The major components of a paper written in APA style are listed in the following box.

These are the major components of an APA-style paper:

Body, which includes the following:

• Headings and, if necessary, subheadings to organize the content
• In-text citations of research sources
• References page

All these components must be saved in one document, not as separate documents.

The title page of your paper includes the following information:

• Title of the paper
• Author’s name
• Name of the institution with which the author is affiliated
• Header at the top of the page with the paper title (in capital letters) and the page number (If the title is lengthy, you may use a shortened form of it in the header.)

List the first three elements in the order given in the previous list, centered about one third of the way down from the top of the page. Use the headers and footers tool of your word-processing program to add the header, with the title text at the left and the page number in the upper-right corner. Your title page should look like the following example.

The next page of your paper provides an abstract , or brief summary of your findings. An abstract does not need to be provided in every paper, but an abstract should be used in papers that include a hypothesis. A good abstract is concise—about one hundred fifty to two hundred fifty words—and is written in an objective, impersonal style. Your writing voice will not be as apparent here as in the body of your paper. When writing the abstract, take a just-the-facts approach, and summarize your research question and your findings in a few sentences.

In Chapter 12 “Writing a Research Paper” , you read a paper written by a student named Jorge, who researched the effectiveness of low-carbohydrate diets. Read Jorge’s abstract. Note how it sums up the major ideas in his paper without going into excessive detail.

Write an abstract summarizing your paper. Briefly introduce the topic, state your findings, and sum up what conclusions you can draw from your research. Use the word count feature of your word-processing program to make sure your abstract does not exceed one hundred fifty words.

Depending on your field of study, you may sometimes write research papers that present extensive primary research, such as your own experiment or survey. In your abstract, summarize your research question and your findings, and briefly indicate how your study relates to prior research in the field.

Margins, Pagination, and Headings

APA style requirements also address specific formatting concerns, such as margins, pagination, and heading styles, within the body of the paper. Review the following APA guidelines.

Use these general guidelines to format the paper:

• Set the top, bottom, and side margins of your paper at 1 inch.
• Use double-spaced text throughout your paper.
• Use a standard font, such as Times New Roman or Arial, in a legible size (10- to 12-point).
• Use continuous pagination throughout the paper, including the title page and the references section. Page numbers appear flush right within your header.
• Section headings and subsection headings within the body of your paper use different types of formatting depending on the level of information you are presenting. Additional details from Jorge’s paper are provided.

Begin formatting the final draft of your paper according to APA guidelines. You may work with an existing document or set up a new document if you choose. Include the following:

• Your title page
• The abstract you created in Note 13.8 “Exercise 1”
• Correct headers and page numbers for your title page and abstract

APA style uses section headings to organize information, making it easy for the reader to follow the writer’s train of thought and to know immediately what major topics are covered. Depending on the length and complexity of the paper, its major sections may also be divided into subsections, sub-subsections, and so on. These smaller sections, in turn, use different heading styles to indicate different levels of information. In essence, you are using headings to create a hierarchy of information.

The following heading styles used in APA formatting are listed in order of greatest to least importance:

• Section headings use centered, boldface type. Headings use title case, with important words in the heading capitalized.
• Subsection headings use left-aligned, boldface type. Headings use title case.
• The third level uses left-aligned, indented, boldface type. Headings use a capital letter only for the first word, and they end in a period.
• The fourth level follows the same style used for the previous level, but the headings are boldfaced and italicized.
• The fifth level follows the same style used for the previous level, but the headings are italicized and not boldfaced.

Visually, the hierarchy of information is organized as indicated in Table 13.1 “Section Headings” .

Table 13.1 Section Headings

A college research paper may not use all the heading levels shown in Table 13.1 “Section Headings” , but you are likely to encounter them in academic journal articles that use APA style. For a brief paper, you may find that level 1 headings suffice. Longer or more complex papers may need level 2 headings or other lower-level headings to organize information clearly. Use your outline to craft your major section headings and determine whether any subtopics are substantial enough to require additional levels of headings.

Working with the document you developed in Note 13.11 “Exercise 2” , begin setting up the heading structure of the final draft of your research paper according to APA guidelines. Include your title and at least two to three major section headings, and follow the formatting guidelines provided above. If your major sections should be broken into subsections, add those headings as well. Use your outline to help you.

Because Jorge used only level 1 headings, his Exercise 3 would look like the following:

Citation Guidelines

In-text citations.

Throughout the body of your paper, include a citation whenever you quote or paraphrase material from your research sources. As you learned in Chapter 11 “Writing from Research: What Will I Learn?” , the purpose of citations is twofold: to give credit to others for their ideas and to allow your reader to follow up and learn more about the topic if desired. Your in-text citations provide basic information about your source; each source you cite will have a longer entry in the references section that provides more detailed information.

In-text citations must provide the name of the author or authors and the year the source was published. (When a given source does not list an individual author, you may provide the source title or the name of the organization that published the material instead.) When directly quoting a source, it is also required that you include the page number where the quote appears in your citation.

This information may be included within the sentence or in a parenthetical reference at the end of the sentence, as in these examples.

Epstein (2010) points out that “junk food cannot be considered addictive in the same way that we think of psychoactive drugs as addictive” (p. 137).

Here, the writer names the source author when introducing the quote and provides the publication date in parentheses after the author’s name. The page number appears in parentheses after the closing quotation marks and before the period that ends the sentence.

Addiction researchers caution that “junk food cannot be considered addictive in the same way that we think of psychoactive drugs as addictive” (Epstein, 2010, p. 137).

Here, the writer provides a parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence that includes the author’s name, the year of publication, and the page number separated by commas. Again, the parenthetical citation is placed after the closing quotation marks and before the period at the end of the sentence.

As noted in the book Junk Food, Junk Science (Epstein, 2010, p. 137), “junk food cannot be considered addictive in the same way that we think of psychoactive drugs as addictive.”

Here, the writer chose to mention the source title in the sentence (an optional piece of information to include) and followed the title with a parenthetical citation. Note that the parenthetical citation is placed before the comma that signals the end of the introductory phrase.

David Epstein’s book Junk Food, Junk Science (2010) pointed out that “junk food cannot be considered addictive in the same way that we think of psychoactive drugs as addictive” (p. 137).

Another variation is to introduce the author and the source title in your sentence and include the publication date and page number in parentheses within the sentence or at the end of the sentence. As long as you have included the essential information, you can choose the option that works best for that particular sentence and source.

Citing a book with a single author is usually a straightforward task. Of course, your research may require that you cite many other types of sources, such as books or articles with more than one author or sources with no individual author listed. You may also need to cite sources available in both print and online and nonprint sources, such as websites and personal interviews. Chapter 13 “APA and MLA Documentation and Formatting” , Section 13.2 “Citing and Referencing Techniques” and Section 13.3 “Creating a References Section” provide extensive guidelines for citing a variety of source types.

Writing at Work

APA is just one of several different styles with its own guidelines for documentation, formatting, and language usage. Depending on your field of interest, you may be exposed to additional styles, such as the following:

• MLA style. Determined by the Modern Languages Association and used for papers in literature, languages, and other disciplines in the humanities.
• Chicago style. Outlined in the Chicago Manual of Style and sometimes used for papers in the humanities and the sciences; many professional organizations use this style for publications as well.
• Associated Press (AP) style. Used by professional journalists.

References List

The brief citations included in the body of your paper correspond to the more detailed citations provided at the end of the paper in the references section. In-text citations provide basic information—the author’s name, the publication date, and the page number if necessary—while the references section provides more extensive bibliographical information. Again, this information allows your reader to follow up on the sources you cited and do additional reading about the topic if desired.

The specific format of entries in the list of references varies slightly for different source types, but the entries generally include the following information:

• The name(s) of the author(s) or institution that wrote the source
• The year of publication and, where applicable, the exact date of publication
• The full title of the source
• For books, the city of publication
• For articles or essays, the name of the periodical or book in which the article or essay appears
• For magazine and journal articles, the volume number, issue number, and pages where the article appears
• For sources on the web, the URL where the source is located

The references page is double spaced and lists entries in alphabetical order by the author’s last name. If an entry continues for more than one line, the second line and each subsequent line are indented five spaces. Review the following example. ( Chapter 13 “APA and MLA Documentation and Formatting” , Section 13.3 “Creating a References Section” provides extensive guidelines for formatting reference entries for different types of sources.)

In APA style, book and article titles are formatted in sentence case, not title case. Sentence case means that only the first word is capitalized, along with any proper nouns.

Key Takeaways

• Following proper citation and formatting guidelines helps writers ensure that their work will be taken seriously, give proper credit to other authors for their work, and provide valuable information to readers.
• Working ahead and taking care to cite sources correctly the first time are ways writers can save time during the editing stage of writing a research paper.
• APA papers usually include an abstract that concisely summarizes the paper.
• APA papers use a specific headings structure to provide a clear hierarchy of information.
• In APA papers, in-text citations usually include the name(s) of the author(s) and the year of publication.
• In-text citations correspond to entries in the references section, which provide detailed bibliographical information about a source.

Writing for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Writing a Research Paper

This page lists some of the stages involved in writing a library-based research paper.

Although this list suggests that there is a simple, linear process to writing such a paper, the actual process of writing a research paper is often a messy and recursive one, so please use this outline as a flexible guide.

Discovering, Narrowing, and Focusing a Researchable Topic

• Try to find a topic that truly interests you
• Try writing your way to a topic
• Talk with your course instructor and classmates about your topic
• Pose your topic as a question to be answered or a problem to be solved

Finding, Selecting, and Reading Sources

You will need to look at the following types of sources:

• library catalog, periodical indexes, bibliographies, suggestions from your instructor
• primary vs. secondary sources
• journals, books, other documents

Grouping, Sequencing, and Documenting Information

The following systems will help keep you organized:

• a system for noting sources on bibliography cards
• a system for organizing material according to its relative importance
• a system for taking notes

Writing an Outline and a Prospectus for Yourself

Consider the following questions:

• What is the topic?
• Why is it significant?
• What background material is relevant?
• What is my thesis or purpose statement?
• What organizational plan will best support my purpose?

Writing the Introduction

In the introduction you will need to do the following things:

• present relevant background or contextual material
• define terms or concepts when necessary
• explain the focus of the paper and your specific purpose
• reveal your plan of organization

Writing the Body

• Use your outline and prospectus as flexible guides
• Build your essay around points you want to make (i.e., don’t let your sources organize your paper)
• Integrate your sources into your discussion
• Summarize, analyze, explain, and evaluate published work rather than merely reporting it
• Move up and down the “ladder of abstraction” from generalization to varying levels of detail back to generalization

Writing the Conclusion

• If the argument or point of your paper is complex, you may need to summarize the argument for your reader.
• If prior to your conclusion you have not yet explained the significance of your findings or if you are proceeding inductively, use the end of your paper to add your points up, to explain their significance.
• Move from a detailed to a general level of consideration that returns the topic to the context provided by the introduction.
• Perhaps suggest what about this topic needs further research.

Revising the Final Draft

• Check overall organization : logical flow of introduction, coherence and depth of discussion in body, effectiveness of conclusion.
• Paragraph level concerns : topic sentences, sequence of ideas within paragraphs, use of details to support generalizations, summary sentences where necessary, use of transitions within and between paragraphs.
• Sentence level concerns: sentence structure, word choices, punctuation, spelling.
• Documentation: consistent use of one system, citation of all material not considered common knowledge, appropriate use of endnotes or footnotes, accuracy of list of works cited.

Academic and Professional Writing

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Planning and Writing a Grant Proposal: The Basics

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Writing Personal Statements for Ph.D. Programs

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How to write your first research paper.

Writing a research manuscript is an intimidating process for many novice writers in the sciences. One of the stumbling blocks is the beginning of the process and creating the first draft. This paper presents guidelines on how to initiate the writing process and draft each section of a research manuscript. The paper discusses seven rules that allow the writer to prepare a well-structured and comprehensive manuscript for a publication submission. In addition, the author lists different strategies for successful revision. Each of those strategies represents a step in the revision process and should help the writer improve the quality of the manuscript. The paper could be considered a brief manual for publication.

It is late at night. You have been struggling with your project for a year. You generated an enormous amount of interesting data. Your pipette feels like an extension of your hand, and running western blots has become part of your daily routine, similar to brushing your teeth. Your colleagues think you are ready to write a paper, and your lab mates tease you about your “slow” writing progress. Yet days pass, and you cannot force yourself to sit down to write. You have not written anything for a while (lab reports do not count), and you feel you have lost your stamina. How does the writing process work? How can you fit your writing into a daily schedule packed with experiments? What section should you start with? What distinguishes a good research paper from a bad one? How should you revise your paper? These and many other questions buzz in your head and keep you stressed. As a result, you procrastinate. In this paper, I will discuss the issues related to the writing process of a scientific paper. Specifically, I will focus on the best approaches to start a scientific paper, tips for writing each section, and the best revision strategies.

1. Schedule your writing time in Outlook

Whether you have written 100 papers or you are struggling with your first, starting the process is the most difficult part unless you have a rigid writing schedule. Writing is hard. It is a very difficult process of intense concentration and brain work. As stated in Hayes’ framework for the study of writing: “It is a generative activity requiring motivation, and it is an intellectual activity requiring cognitive processes and memory” [ 1 ]. In his book How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing , Paul Silvia says that for some, “it’s easier to embalm the dead than to write an article about it” [ 2 ]. Just as with any type of hard work, you will not succeed unless you practice regularly. If you have not done physical exercises for a year, only regular workouts can get you into good shape again. The same kind of regular exercises, or I call them “writing sessions,” are required to be a productive author. Choose from 1- to 2-hour blocks in your daily work schedule and consider them as non-cancellable appointments. When figuring out which blocks of time will be set for writing, you should select the time that works best for this type of work. For many people, mornings are more productive. One Yale University graduate student spent a semester writing from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. when her lab was empty. At the end of the semester, she was amazed at how much she accomplished without even interrupting her regular lab hours. In addition, doing the hardest task first thing in the morning contributes to the sense of accomplishment during the rest of the day. This positive feeling spills over into our work and life and has a very positive effect on our overall attitude.

Rule 1: Create regular time blocks for writing as appointments in your calendar and keep these appointments.

2. start with an outline.

Now that you have scheduled time, you need to decide how to start writing. The best strategy is to start with an outline. This will not be an outline that you are used to, with Roman numerals for each section and neat parallel listing of topic sentences and supporting points. This outline will be similar to a template for your paper. Initially, the outline will form a structure for your paper; it will help generate ideas and formulate hypotheses. Following the advice of George M. Whitesides, “. . . start with a blank piece of paper, and write down, in any order, all important ideas that occur to you concerning the paper” [ 3 ]. Use Table 1 as a starting point for your outline. Include your visuals (figures, tables, formulas, equations, and algorithms), and list your findings. These will constitute the first level of your outline, which will eventually expand as you elaborate.

The next stage is to add context and structure. Here you will group all your ideas into sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion/Conclusion ( Table 2 ). This step will help add coherence to your work and sift your ideas.

Now that you have expanded your outline, you are ready for the next step: discussing the ideas for your paper with your colleagues and mentor. Many universities have a writing center where graduate students can schedule individual consultations and receive assistance with their paper drafts. Getting feedback during early stages of your draft can save a lot of time. Talking through ideas allows people to conceptualize and organize thoughts to find their direction without wasting time on unnecessary writing. Outlining is the most effective way of communicating your ideas and exchanging thoughts. Moreover, it is also the best stage to decide to which publication you will submit the paper. Many people come up with three choices and discuss them with their mentors and colleagues. Having a list of journal priorities can help you quickly resubmit your paper if your paper is rejected.

Rule 2: Create a detailed outline and discuss it with your mentor and peers.

3. continue with drafts.

After you get enough feedback and decide on the journal you will submit to, the process of real writing begins. Copy your outline into a separate file and expand on each of the points, adding data and elaborating on the details. When you create the first draft, do not succumb to the temptation of editing. Do not slow down to choose a better word or better phrase; do not halt to improve your sentence structure. Pour your ideas into the paper and leave revision and editing for later. As Paul Silvia explains, “Revising while you generate text is like drinking decaffeinated coffee in the early morning: noble idea, wrong time” [ 2 ].

Many students complain that they are not productive writers because they experience writer’s block. Staring at an empty screen is frustrating, but your screen is not really empty: You have a template of your article, and all you need to do is fill in the blanks. Indeed, writer’s block is a logical fallacy for a scientist ― it is just an excuse to procrastinate. When scientists start writing a research paper, they already have their files with data, lab notes with materials and experimental designs, some visuals, and tables with results. All they need to do is scrutinize these pieces and put them together into a comprehensive paper.

3.1. Starting with Materials and Methods

If you still struggle with starting a paper, then write the Materials and Methods section first. Since you have all your notes, it should not be problematic for you to describe the experimental design and procedures. Your most important goal in this section is to be as explicit as possible by providing enough detail and references. In the end, the purpose of this section is to allow other researchers to evaluate and repeat your work. So do not run into the same problems as the writers of the sentences in (1):

1a. Bacteria were pelleted by centrifugation. 1b. To isolate T cells, lymph nodes were collected.

As you can see, crucial pieces of information are missing: the speed of centrifuging your bacteria, the time, and the temperature in (1a); the source of lymph nodes for collection in (b). The sentences can be improved when information is added, as in (2a) and (2b), respectfully:

2a. Bacteria were pelleted by centrifugation at 3000g for 15 min at 25°C. 2b. To isolate T cells, mediastinal and mesenteric lymph nodes from Balb/c mice were collected at day 7 after immunization with ovabumin.

If your method has previously been published and is well-known, then you should provide only the literature reference, as in (3a). If your method is unpublished, then you need to make sure you provide all essential details, as in (3b).

3a. Stem cells were isolated, according to Johnson [23]. 3b. Stem cells were isolated using biotinylated carbon nanotubes coated with anti-CD34 antibodies.

Furthermore, cohesion and fluency are crucial in this section. One of the malpractices resulting in disrupted fluency is switching from passive voice to active and vice versa within the same paragraph, as shown in (4). This switching misleads and distracts the reader.

4. Behavioral computer-based experiments of Study 1 were programmed by using E-Prime. We took ratings of enjoyment, mood, and arousal as the patients listened to preferred pleasant music and unpreferred music by using Visual Analogue Scales (SI Methods). The preferred and unpreferred status of the music was operationalized along a continuum of pleasantness [ 4 ].

The problem with (4) is that the reader has to switch from the point of view of the experiment (passive voice) to the point of view of the experimenter (active voice). This switch causes confusion about the performer of the actions in the first and the third sentences. To improve the coherence and fluency of the paragraph above, you should be consistent in choosing the point of view: first person “we” or passive voice [ 5 ]. Let’s consider two revised examples in (5).

5a. We programmed behavioral computer-based experiments of Study 1 by using E-Prime. We took ratings of enjoyment, mood, and arousal by using Visual Analogue Scales (SI Methods) as the patients listened to preferred pleasant music and unpreferred music. We operationalized the preferred and unpreferred status of the music along a continuum of pleasantness. 5b. Behavioral computer-based experiments of Study 1 were programmed by using E-Prime. Ratings of enjoyment, mood, and arousal were taken as the patients listened to preferred pleasant music and unpreferred music by using Visual Analogue Scales (SI Methods). The preferred and unpreferred status of the music was operationalized along a continuum of pleasantness.

If you choose the point of view of the experimenter, then you may end up with repetitive “we did this” sentences. For many readers, paragraphs with sentences all beginning with “we” may also sound disruptive. So if you choose active sentences, you need to keep the number of “we” subjects to a minimum and vary the beginnings of the sentences [ 6 ].

Interestingly, recent studies have reported that the Materials and Methods section is the only section in research papers in which passive voice predominantly overrides the use of the active voice [ 5 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. For example, Martínez shows a significant drop in active voice use in the Methods sections based on the corpus of 1 million words of experimental full text research articles in the biological sciences [ 7 ]. According to the author, the active voice patterned with “we” is used only as a tool to reveal personal responsibility for the procedural decisions in designing and performing experimental work. This means that while all other sections of the research paper use active voice, passive voice is still the most predominant in Materials and Methods sections.

Writing Materials and Methods sections is a meticulous and time consuming task requiring extreme accuracy and clarity. This is why when you complete your draft, you should ask for as much feedback from your colleagues as possible. Numerous readers of this section will help you identify the missing links and improve the technical style of this section.

Rule 3: Be meticulous and accurate in describing the Materials and Methods. Do not change the point of view within one paragraph.

3.2. writing results section.

For many authors, writing the Results section is more intimidating than writing the Materials and Methods section . If people are interested in your paper, they are interested in your results. That is why it is vital to use all your writing skills to objectively present your key findings in an orderly and logical sequence using illustrative materials and text.

Your Results should be organized into different segments or subsections where each one presents the purpose of the experiment, your experimental approach, data including text and visuals (tables, figures, schematics, algorithms, and formulas), and data commentary. For most journals, your data commentary will include a meaningful summary of the data presented in the visuals and an explanation of the most significant findings. This data presentation should not repeat the data in the visuals, but rather highlight the most important points. In the “standard” research paper approach, your Results section should exclude data interpretation, leaving it for the Discussion section. However, interpretations gradually and secretly creep into research papers: “Reducing the data, generalizing from the data, and highlighting scientific cases are all highly interpretive processes. It should be clear by now that we do not let the data speak for themselves in research reports; in summarizing our results, we interpret them for the reader” [ 10 ]. As a result, many journals including the Journal of Experimental Medicine and the Journal of Clinical Investigation use joint Results/Discussion sections, where results are immediately followed by interpretations.

Another important aspect of this section is to create a comprehensive and supported argument or a well-researched case. This means that you should be selective in presenting data and choose only those experimental details that are essential for your reader to understand your findings. You might have conducted an experiment 20 times and collected numerous records, but this does not mean that you should present all those records in your paper. You need to distinguish your results from your data and be able to discard excessive experimental details that could distract and confuse the reader. However, creating a picture or an argument should not be confused with data manipulation or falsification, which is a willful distortion of data and results. If some of your findings contradict your ideas, you have to mention this and find a plausible explanation for the contradiction.

In addition, your text should not include irrelevant and peripheral information, including overview sentences, as in (6).

6. To show our results, we first introduce all components of experimental system and then describe the outcome of infections.

Indeed, wordiness convolutes your sentences and conceals your ideas from readers. One common source of wordiness is unnecessary intensifiers. Adverbial intensifiers such as “clearly,” “essential,” “quite,” “basically,” “rather,” “fairly,” “really,” and “virtually” not only add verbosity to your sentences, but also lower your results’ credibility. They appeal to the reader’s emotions but lower objectivity, as in the common examples in (7):

7a. Table 3 clearly shows that … 7b. It is obvious from figure 4 that …

Another source of wordiness is nominalizations, i.e., nouns derived from verbs and adjectives paired with weak verbs including “be,” “have,” “do,” “make,” “cause,” “provide,” and “get” and constructions such as “there is/are.”

8a. We tested the hypothesis that there is a disruption of membrane asymmetry. 8b. In this paper we provide an argument that stem cells repopulate injured organs.

In the sentences above, the abstract nominalizations “disruption” and “argument” do not contribute to the clarity of the sentences, but rather clutter them with useless vocabulary that distracts from the meaning. To improve your sentences, avoid unnecessary nominalizations and change passive verbs and constructions into active and direct sentences.

9a. We tested the hypothesis that the membrane asymmetry is disrupted. 9b. In this paper we argue that stem cells repopulate injured organs.

Your Results section is the heart of your paper, representing a year or more of your daily research. So lead your reader through your story by writing direct, concise, and clear sentences.

Rule 4: Be clear, concise, and objective in describing your Results.

3.3. now it is time for your introduction.

Now that you are almost half through drafting your research paper, it is time to update your outline. While describing your Methods and Results, many of you diverged from the original outline and re-focused your ideas. So before you move on to create your Introduction, re-read your Methods and Results sections and change your outline to match your research focus. The updated outline will help you review the general picture of your paper, the topic, the main idea, and the purpose, which are all important for writing your introduction.

The best way to structure your introduction is to follow the three-move approach shown in Table 3 .

Adapted from Swales and Feak [ 11 ].

The moves and information from your outline can help to create your Introduction efficiently and without missing steps. These moves are traffic signs that lead the reader through the road of your ideas. Each move plays an important role in your paper and should be presented with deep thought and care. When you establish the territory, you place your research in context and highlight the importance of your research topic. By finding the niche, you outline the scope of your research problem and enter the scientific dialogue. The final move, “occupying the niche,” is where you explain your research in a nutshell and highlight your paper’s significance. The three moves allow your readers to evaluate their interest in your paper and play a significant role in the paper review process, determining your paper reviewers.

Some academic writers assume that the reader “should follow the paper” to find the answers about your methodology and your findings. As a result, many novice writers do not present their experimental approach and the major findings, wrongly believing that the reader will locate the necessary information later while reading the subsequent sections [ 5 ]. However, this “suspense” approach is not appropriate for scientific writing. To interest the reader, scientific authors should be direct and straightforward and present informative one-sentence summaries of the results and the approach.

Another problem is that writers understate the significance of the Introduction. Many new researchers mistakenly think that all their readers understand the importance of the research question and omit this part. However, this assumption is faulty because the purpose of the section is not to evaluate the importance of the research question in general. The goal is to present the importance of your research contribution and your findings. Therefore, you should be explicit and clear in describing the benefit of the paper.

The Introduction should not be long. Indeed, for most journals, this is a very brief section of about 250 to 600 words, but it might be the most difficult section due to its importance.

Rule 5: Interest your reader in the Introduction section by signalling all its elements and stating the novelty of the work.

3.4. discussion of the results.

For many scientists, writing a Discussion section is as scary as starting a paper. Most of the fear comes from the variation in the section. Since every paper has its unique results and findings, the Discussion section differs in its length, shape, and structure. However, some general principles of writing this section still exist. Knowing these rules, or “moves,” can change your attitude about this section and help you create a comprehensive interpretation of your results.

The purpose of the Discussion section is to place your findings in the research context and “to explain the meaning of the findings and why they are important, without appearing arrogant, condescending, or patronizing” [ 11 ]. The structure of the first two moves is almost a mirror reflection of the one in the Introduction. In the Introduction, you zoom in from general to specific and from the background to your research question; in the Discussion section, you zoom out from the summary of your findings to the research context, as shown in Table 4 .

Adapted from Swales and Feak and Hess [ 11 , 12 ].

The biggest challenge for many writers is the opening paragraph of the Discussion section. Following the moves in Table 1 , the best choice is to start with the study’s major findings that provide the answer to the research question in your Introduction. The most common starting phrases are “Our findings demonstrate . . .,” or “In this study, we have shown that . . .,” or “Our results suggest . . .” In some cases, however, reminding the reader about the research question or even providing a brief context and then stating the answer would make more sense. This is important in those cases where the researcher presents a number of findings or where more than one research question was presented. Your summary of the study’s major findings should be followed by your presentation of the importance of these findings. One of the most frequent mistakes of the novice writer is to assume the importance of his findings. Even if the importance is clear to you, it may not be obvious to your reader. Digesting the findings and their importance to your reader is as crucial as stating your research question.

Another useful strategy is to be proactive in the first move by predicting and commenting on the alternative explanations of the results. Addressing potential doubts will save you from painful comments about the wrong interpretation of your results and will present you as a thoughtful and considerate researcher. Moreover, the evaluation of the alternative explanations might help you create a logical step to the next move of the discussion section: the research context.

The goal of the research context move is to show how your findings fit into the general picture of the current research and how you contribute to the existing knowledge on the topic. This is also the place to discuss any discrepancies and unexpected findings that may otherwise distort the general picture of your paper. Moreover, outlining the scope of your research by showing the limitations, weaknesses, and assumptions is essential and adds modesty to your image as a scientist. However, make sure that you do not end your paper with the problems that override your findings. Try to suggest feasible explanations and solutions.

If your submission does not require a separate Conclusion section, then adding another paragraph about the “take-home message” is a must. This should be a general statement reiterating your answer to the research question and adding its scientific implications, practical application, or advice.

Just as in all other sections of your paper, the clear and precise language and concise comprehensive sentences are vital. However, in addition to that, your writing should convey confidence and authority. The easiest way to illustrate your tone is to use the active voice and the first person pronouns. Accompanied by clarity and succinctness, these tools are the best to convince your readers of your point and your ideas.

Rule 6: Present the principles, relationships, and generalizations in a concise and convincing tone.

4. choosing the best working revision strategies.

Now that you have created the first draft, your attitude toward your writing should have improved. Moreover, you should feel more confident that you are able to accomplish your project and submit your paper within a reasonable timeframe. You also have worked out your writing schedule and followed it precisely. Do not stop ― you are only at the midpoint from your destination. Just as the best and most precious diamond is no more than an unattractive stone recognized only by trained professionals, your ideas and your results may go unnoticed if they are not polished and brushed. Despite your attempts to present your ideas in a logical and comprehensive way, first drafts are frequently a mess. Use the advice of Paul Silvia: “Your first drafts should sound like they were hastily translated from Icelandic by a non-native speaker” [ 2 ]. The degree of your success will depend on how you are able to revise and edit your paper.

The revision can be done at the macrostructure and the microstructure levels [ 13 ]. The macrostructure revision includes the revision of the organization, content, and flow. The microstructure level includes individual words, sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

The best way to approach the macrostructure revision is through the outline of the ideas in your paper. The last time you updated your outline was before writing the Introduction and the Discussion. Now that you have the beginning and the conclusion, you can take a bird’s-eye view of the whole paper. The outline will allow you to see if the ideas of your paper are coherently structured, if your results are logically built, and if the discussion is linked to the research question in the Introduction. You will be able to see if something is missing in any of the sections or if you need to rearrange your information to make your point.

The next step is to revise each of the sections starting from the beginning. Ideally, you should limit yourself to working on small sections of about five pages at a time [ 14 ]. After these short sections, your eyes get used to your writing and your efficiency in spotting problems decreases. When reading for content and organization, you should control your urge to edit your paper for sentence structure and grammar and focus only on the flow of your ideas and logic of your presentation. Experienced researchers tend to make almost three times the number of changes to meaning than novice writers [ 15 , 16 ]. Revising is a difficult but useful skill, which academic writers obtain with years of practice.

In contrast to the macrostructure revision, which is a linear process and is done usually through a detailed outline and by sections, microstructure revision is a non-linear process. While the goal of the macrostructure revision is to analyze your ideas and their logic, the goal of the microstructure editing is to scrutinize the form of your ideas: your paragraphs, sentences, and words. You do not need and are not recommended to follow the order of the paper to perform this type of revision. You can start from the end or from different sections. You can even revise by reading sentences backward, sentence by sentence and word by word.

One of the microstructure revision strategies frequently used during writing center consultations is to read the paper aloud [ 17 ]. You may read aloud to yourself, to a tape recorder, or to a colleague or friend. When reading and listening to your paper, you are more likely to notice the places where the fluency is disrupted and where you stumble because of a very long and unclear sentence or a wrong connector.

Another revision strategy is to learn your common errors and to do a targeted search for them [ 13 ]. All writers have a set of problems that are specific to them, i.e., their writing idiosyncrasies. Remembering these problems is as important for an academic writer as remembering your friends’ birthdays. Create a list of these idiosyncrasies and run a search for these problems using your word processor. If your problem is demonstrative pronouns without summary words, then search for “this/these/those” in your text and check if you used the word appropriately. If you have a problem with intensifiers, then search for “really” or “very” and delete them from the text. The same targeted search can be done to eliminate wordiness. Searching for “there is/are” or “and” can help you avoid the bulky sentences.

The final strategy is working with a hard copy and a pencil. Print a double space copy with font size 14 and re-read your paper in several steps. Try reading your paper line by line with the rest of the text covered with a piece of paper. When you are forced to see only a small portion of your writing, you are less likely to get distracted and are more likely to notice problems. You will end up spotting more unnecessary words, wrongly worded phrases, or unparallel constructions.

After you apply all these strategies, you are ready to share your writing with your friends, colleagues, and a writing advisor in the writing center. Get as much feedback as you can, especially from non-specialists in your field. Patiently listen to what others say to you ― you are not expected to defend your writing or explain what you wanted to say. You may decide what you want to change and how after you receive the feedback and sort it in your head. Even though some researchers make the revision an endless process and can hardly stop after a 14th draft; having from five to seven drafts of your paper is a norm in the sciences. If you can’t stop revising, then set a deadline for yourself and stick to it. Deadlines always help.

Rule 7: Revise your paper at the macrostructure and the microstructure level using different strategies and techniques. Receive feedback and revise again.

5. it is time to submit.

It is late at night again. You are still in your lab finishing revisions and getting ready to submit your paper. You feel happy ― you have finally finished a year’s worth of work. You will submit your paper tomorrow, and regardless of the outcome, you know that you can do it. If one journal does not take your paper, you will take advantage of the feedback and resubmit again. You will have a publication, and this is the most important achievement.

What is even more important is that you have your scheduled writing time that you are going to keep for your future publications, for reading and taking notes, for writing grants, and for reviewing papers. You are not going to lose stamina this time, and you will become a productive scientist. But for now, let’s celebrate the end of the paper.

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A Guide to Writing a Research Paper

This handbook hopes to assist students studying international affairs, political science, and history. Students of political science should focus their research papers on identifying a theoretical puzzle (e.g., a case that cannot be explained by an existing theory, or that illustrates conflicts between two competing theories) and solve it. Policy-oriented political science students should center their research papers on identifying a significant policy issue; analyze it, and present recommendations. Cultural history students approach the study of world politics by examining not only history and politics but also literature and film as artistic expressions interpreting history. Why don’t we begin thinking about your research paper as your opportunity to improve by setting your goals: write out what your weaknesses are in your writing and add what are your strengths. Secondly, state your goals in improving writing and how you will meet your goals. Lastly, check out your professor’s comments and restate your goals: what goals have you met and which still need to be met. Build on your writing skills by being very aware of your weaknesses and your strengths. Remember you are not alone: consult GWU’s  The Writing Center at GWU  (202-994-3765) and WID Studio .

All good writing starts with analytical reading. When you start reading a book or viewing a film, immediately make connections, stretch your imagination, ask questions, and anticipate conclusions. By becoming an active reader your mind will be analyzing the information simultaneously as you experience the journal article, book or film. Evaluating sources is a skill perfected over several years; this handbook offers ways to assess texts quickly.

Structuring and writing research papers can be challenging and in the end rewarding because it is your unique contribution to understanding a body of texts, a series of historical events, and cultural expressions in film, art, and literature. Your personal voice and your particular interpretation will intrigue your readers if your thesis is clearly argued. Creating Writing Strategies including clustering ideas, drawing diagrams, and planning a “road map” will help you visualize the stages that you need to map out to build a strong paper. Research papers always start with disparate ideas, indiscriminate notions, and false starts. This process is necessary to think through your strategy. Harnessing and structuring your random ideas is essential at the beginning to ensure solid results in your line of argument.

An initial draft helps you generate ideas, sketch a plan, and build on your first impressions. Revision and more revision will ensure that your case is chiseled into a fine paper with clear objectives and well-argued beliefs. This is perhaps the most essential piece to receiving high grades. If you write your paper the night before it is due, you will not allow time to revise. Instead, plan to write your initial draft two weeks before it is due. You will have time to rewrite the draft at least twice. Comparing each draft should convince you to always make time to write three drafts. Formatting your paper appropriately to your professor’s taste is crucial. Routinely papers follow this format: a Title Page, after which each page is numbered consecutively; pages are double-spaced with left one-inch margins at top, bottom, and sides.

Citations add depth to your opinions and will substantiate them. A variety of sources always makes a paper interesting to read and intensifies your argument. The risk that all writers confront is over use of quoting from secondary texts. The overuse of citations buries your personal voice and your particular point of view.  

Reading Analytically

It is often possible to confuse or understand partially what a scholar, journalist, or author is trying to argue. This is the first wrong step towards a weak paper. In evaluating a scholarly argument, you are making claims about what an author has stated. You do not have the freedom to put arguments in authors’ mouths; you must be able to back up every claim you make about an author’s argument through reference to the text. This exercise in analyzing arguments intends to strengthen your skills in developing your own argumentation.

Read an article in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, American Political Science Review, or Foreign Affairs and start to record your thoughts:

• What is the author’s argument?
• What is the thesis question?
• What are the premises underlying it?
• What is the thesis?
• What is the “road map” or the individual points the author will have to prove to make the thesis be true?
• What assumptions has the author made which remain unaddressed?
• What arguments does the author make that may be challenged?
• Premises underlying thesis question.
• Individual points of the argument in the “road map,” or body of the work.
• If you wanted to challenge this author, how would you go about it?
• Choose one point — either a premise underlying the thesis question, or a part of the author’s “road map.”
• What kind of primary source evidence would you be looking for to “test” this point? What kinds of primary source evidence would tend to support the author? What kinds would undermine the author’s argument?
• The last step would be to go to the primary source evidence itself, and see what you find.

Exercise for reading analytically

Read the excerpt below taken from the first issue of Foreign Affairs for 2009 and write out your questions and answers (the entire article is online):

Beyond Iraq

A New U.S. Strategy for the Middle East

Richard N. Haass and Martin Indyk

Summary:  To be successful in the Middle East, the Obama administration will need to move beyond Iraq, find ways to deal constructively with Iran, and forge a final-status Israeli-Palestinian agreement.

On taking office, U.S. President Barack Obama will face a series of critical, complex, and interrelated challenges in the Middle East demanding urgent attention: an Iraq experiencing a fragile lull in violence that is nonetheless straining the U.S. military, an Iran approaching the nuclear threshold, a faltering Israeli-Palestinian peace process, weak governments in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories challenged by strong militant Islamist groups, and a U.S. position weakened by years of failure and drift. He will also discover that time is working against him.

For six years, U.S. policy in the Middle East has been dominated by Iraq. This need not, and should not, continue. The Obama administration will be able to gradually reduce the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, limit their combat role, and increasingly shift responsibility to Iraqi forces. The drawdown will have to be executed carefully and deliberately, however, so as not to risk undoing recent progress.

The improved situation in Iraq will allow the new administration to shift its focus to Iran, where the clock is ticking on a dangerous and destabilizing nuclear program. Obama should offer direct official engagement with the Iranian government, without preconditions, along with other incentives in an attempt to turn Tehran away from developing the capacity to rapidly produce substantial amounts of nuclear-weapons-grade fuel. At the same time, he should lay the groundwork for an international effort to impose harsher sanctions on Iran if it proves unwilling to change course.

Preventive military action against Iran by either the United States or Israel is an unattractive option, given its risks and costs. But it needs to be examined carefully as a last-ditch alternative to the dangers of living with an Iranian bomb. To increase Israel’s tolerance for extended diplomatic engagement, the U.S. government should bolster Israel’s deterrent capabilities by providing an enhanced anti-ballistic-missile defense capability and a nuclear guarantee.

The U.S. president should also spend capital trying to promote peace agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors, in particular Syria. Damascus is currently allied with Tehran, and an Israeli-Syrian deal would weaken Iran’s regional influence, reduce external support for Hamas and Hezbollah, and improve the prospects for stability in Lebanon. On the Israeli-Palestinian front, there is an urgent need for a diplomatic effort to achieve a two-state solution while it is still feasible. Although divisions on both sides and the questionable ability of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to control any newly acquired territory make a sustainable peace agreement unlikely for the moment, these factors argue not for abandoning the issue but rather for devoting substantial time and effort now to creating the conditions that would help diplomacy succeed later. What all these initiatives have in common is a renewed emphasis on diplomacy as a tool of U.S. national security policy, since the United States can no longer achieve its objectives without the backing of its regional allies as well as China, Europe, and Russia.

Some might argue that these efforts are not worth it, that the Bush administration paid too much attention to and invested too much American blood and treasure in an ill-advised attempt to transform the Middle East and that the Obama administration should focus its attention at home or elsewhere abroad. But such arguments underestimate the Middle East’s ability to force itself onto the U.S. president’s agenda regardless of other plans. Put simply, what happens in the Middle East will not stay in the Middle East. From terrorism to nuclear proliferation to energy security, managing contemporary global challenges requires managing the Middle East.

Three easy questions to ask yourself:

• Is there a “valid” argument: an argument structured such that, given that the premises are correct, the conclusion must be correct. How do the authors construct their argument, dissect paragraph by paragraph their line of debate.
• What would a scholar from Egypt write on this subject and perhaps a scholar from Iran. Can you now come up with a counter argument?
• What is the “road map” for this paper? That is, what is the chain of reasoning this paper must pursue if it is to demonstrate the veracity of its thesis?

Good reading is about asking questions of your sources. Keep the following in mind when reading primary sources. Even if you believe you can’t arrive at the answers, imagining possible answers will aid your comprehension. Reading primary sources requires that you use your historical imagination. This process is all about your willingness and ability to ask questions of the material, imagine possible answers, and explain your reasoning. Reading a primary source may seem simple but you would be surprised how easy it is to become distracted, unfocused, and when your mind wonders you lose the impact of the thesis. This also happens when we sit at our computers to write, but with a strong foundation and a road map, it should be easier to compose.

Professor Patrick Rael of Bowdoin College has drawn up a useful evaluating system when reading primary sources:

• Purpose of the author in preparing the document
• Argument and strategy she or he uses to achieve those goals
• Presuppositions and values (in the text, and our own)
• Epistemology (evaluating truth content)
• Relate to other texts (compare and contrast)
• Who is the author and what is her or his place in society (explain why you are justified in thinking so)? What could or might it be, based on the text, and why?
• Why did the author prepare the document? What was the occasion for its creation?
• What is at stake for the author in this text? Why do you think she or he wrote it? What evidence in the text tells you this?
• Does the author have a thesis? What — in one sentence — is that thesis?
• What is the text trying to do? How does the text make its case? What is its strategy for accomplishing its goal? How does it carry out this strategy?
• What is the intended audience of the text? How might this influence its rhetorical strategy? Cite specific examples.
• What arguments or concerns do the author respond to that are not clearly stated? Provide at least one example of a point at which the author seems to be refuting a position never clearly stated. Explain what you think this position may be in detail, and why you think it.
• Do you think the author is credible and reliable? Use at least one specific example to explain why. Make sure to explain the principle of rhetoric or logic that makes this passage credible.

Presuppositions

• How do the ideas and values in the source differ from the ideas and values of our age? Offer two specific examples.
• What presumptions and preconceptions do we as readers bring to bear on this text? For instance, what portions of the text might we find objectionable, but which contemporaries might have found acceptable. State the values we hold on that subject, and the values expressed in the text. Cite at least one specific example.
• How might the difference between our values and the values of the author influence the way we understand the text? Explain how such a difference in values might lead us to miss-interpret the text, or understand it in a way contemporaries would not have. Offer at least one specific example.

Epistemology

• How might this text support one of the arguments found in secondary sources we’ve read? Choose a paragraph anywhere in a secondary source we’ve read, state where this text might be an appropriate footnote (cite page and paragraph), and explain why.
• What kinds of information does this text reveal that it does not seem concerned with revealing? (In other words, what does it tell us without knowing it’s telling us?)
• Offer one claim from the text which is the author’s interpretation. Now offer one example of a historical “fact” (something that is absolutely indisputable) that we can learn from this text (this need not be the author’s words).
• Relate: Now choose another of the readings, and compare the two, answering these questions:
• What patterns or ideas are repeated throughout the readings?
• What major differences appear in them?
• Which do you find more reliable and credible?

As you can begin to see, once you start thinking about it, one simple question can lead to a huge chain of questions. Remember, it is always better to keep asking questions you think you cannot answer than to stop asking questions because you think you cannot answer them. But this can only happen when you know enough about your subject to know how to push your questioning, and this depends on reading and understanding the assigned material.  

Evaluating Sources

Reading secondary historical sources is a skill which is honed over years of practice and becomes second nature after a while. Reading academic material well is an active process and you’ll find success reading even the most difficult material if you can master these skills. The key here is taking the time and energy to engage the material — to think through it and to connect it to other material you have covered. A good idea is to keep a journal recording your ideas about a variety of sources to see later if there are connections among them.  

How to read a book

You can quickly size up a volume to judge if it is indeed a book that you need to read fully. Read and define the title. Think about what the title promises for the book; look at the table of contents; read the foreword and introduction (if an article, read the first paragraph or two). Read the conclusion or epilogue if there is one (if it is an article, read the last one or two paragraphs). After all this, ask yourself what the author’s thesis might be. How has the argument been structured?

The same idea holds for reading chapters quickly: read the first and last paragraph of each chapter. After doing this and taking the step outlined above, you should have a good idea of the book’s major themes and arguments. Good topic sentences in each paragraph will tell you what the paragraph is about. Read actively and just take notes when necessary; avoid taking copious notes on minor details. Remember to record your gut reactions to the text and ask: What surprised you? What seemed particularly insightful? What seems suspect? What reinforces or counters points made in other readings? This kind of note taking will keep your reading active, and actually will help you remember the contents of the piece better than otherwise.

To better write your own research paper it is very useful to dissect an author’s work asking the following: How has the author structured her work? How would you briefly outline it? Why might she have employed this structure? What historical argument does the structure employ? After identifying the thesis, ask yourself in what ways the structure of the work enhances or detracts from the thesis. How does the author set about to make her or his case? What about the structure of the work makes it convincing?

A thesis is not just a statement of opinion, or a belief, or a thought. It is an argument and therefore it is subject to evaluation and analysis. Is it a good argument? How is the big argument (the thesis) structured into little arguments? Are these little arguments constructed well? Is the reasoning valid? Does the evidence support the conclusions? Has the author used invalid or incorrect logic? Is she relying on incorrect premises? What broad, unexamined assumptions seem to underlay the author’s argument? Are these correct? This part of the evaluation process asks you not for your opinion, but to evaluate the logic of the argument. Finally, when you have recorded your thoughts, mapped out the author’s points sustaining the thesis argument, now need to come to a conclusion: Where is the author’s argument weak or vulnerable? Where is the evidence thin? What other interpretations of the author’s evidence is possible? At what points is the author’s logic suspect? If the author’s case is weak, what is the significance of this for the argument as a whole?

If you read actively, record your opinions, and map out arguments you are creating your own research paper as you are analyzing. Eventually you will create your own voice and style through this method.  

Writing Strategies

Perhaps the most important message to understand is that you should start thinking about possible theses from the very start of your paper preparation, but you need to examine your primary sources before you can develop a strong thesis. It is impossible to develop a good thesis without already having begun to analyze the primary sources which supply your evidence. How can you know what is even possible to argue if you haven’t looked closely at your data?

Good writing is a process of continually evaluating your work — of constantly asking yourself if your evidence and analysis supports your thesis. Remember, the thesis is not the starting point of your exploration, but the result of it.

Writing exercises — to flush out all your ideas and then to reduce them to the essentials — are useful for structuring your paper. Making lists of your ideas, free writing in prose about your thesis, and clustering relationships among your ideas, can all be helpful in the first phase. Subdividing your subject and restricting your purpose will help you narrow your thesis.

INTRODUCTION

• Introduce the problem
• Define key terms
• State the thesis
• Stems from good question
• Tentative answer is “hypothesis”
• Refine hypothesis into thesis
• How is the paper organized?
• Topic sentence (mini-thesis)
• Argument supporting topic sentence
• Transition to next mini-thesis
• Arguing in paragraphs
• Mini-thesis
• Analysis (what does evidence support?)
• Re-state the thesis
• Significance of thesis (why should we care about the problem?)

The introduction is usually one paragraph, or perhaps two in a paper of eight pages or more. Its purpose is to: (1) set out the problem to be discussed; (2) define key terms that will be used in that discussion; (3) outline the structure of the argument; (4) CLEARLY STATE THE THESIS.

Quickly establish the issue your paper confronts. Where and when are we? What are we examining? It is especially important to clearly define the limits of your exploration. Tell the reader how interested you are in the subject, set a tone conveying that the topic is of vital concern. Some writers grab the reader by starting with an example, a quotation, a statistic, or a complaint. This opening theme must run through your paper so that it unifies your paper.

Provide a clear road map of your argument: Let your reader know where you are headed, how you plan to substantiate your thesis but without giving away your best ideas. If, for instance, your paper breaks down into political, cultural, and social components, announce this to your reader so she will know what to expect.

The last function of the introduction is to present your thesis. The thesis is the central idea around which you construct the rest of your paper. The best theses are good precisely because the questions they answer are significant, complex, and original. The thesis statement is the one-sentence version of your argument. A good thesis will require you to introduce the gist of the thesis itself without revealing your conclusion.

The body takes up several pages, and constitutes the bulk of your paper. Here is where you argue your thesis. The content of this section largely will depend on your thesis, and what it requires you to argue. Think to yourself, “What do I need to support this argument?” If you find yourself unable to answer, consult your analyses of secondary texts to review how authors construct their body. You may not have an interesting enough thesis.

The general movement in the body is from the general to the specific. Start with general statements and then move on to specific statements which support your general statement. Your paper is built on paragraphs. Each paragraph should be a minimum of four sentences and not exceed 10. The first sentence of each paragraph is called the “topic sentence.” The topic sentence introduces what the paragraph will be about similar to a mini-thesis. You may have several mini-theses in your paper supporting your general thesis.

When you add support from secondary texts remember that you should not merely quote or paraphrase from the raw data but you need to interpret and analyze the quoted material. This is especially true of quotes. Never just plop a quote in and expect it to be clear to the reader how it supports the mini-thesis. Explain how it supports the point you are making.

The body of the paper must flow from one idea to the next and transitions from one paragraph to the next must be clear. This linking of ideas is accomplished through transitional phrases. There are transitions between paragraphs, and transitions within paragraphs. Often, but not always, the last sentence of a paragraph begins to guide the reader to the next idea. It is often a good idea to end paragraphs with a sentence summing-up your findings.

As you structure the body, your scholarly arguments marshal facts — and analyze those facts — in a fashion intended to persuade the reader through reason. The most important technique for doing this is to anticipate the counter-arguments your argument is likely to receive. You must constantly ask yourself, what arguments which counter my thesis make sense.

Your conclusion is usually one paragraph long, and briefly recapitulates your thesis, pulling all your arguments together. The first sentence of the concluding paragraph is a clear, specific re-statement of the thesis. The conclusion should do more than simply re-state the argument. It also suggests why the argument is important in the bigger scheme of things, or suggests avenues for further research, or raises a bigger question.  

Revision, Revision, Revision

Write first draft: Even if you haven’t finished all your research but you feel ready to start writing a first draft, read over your clustering notes, your sketch of how to execute the paper and arrange your notes according to your outline. Your paragraphs should correspond to your outline, and each should advance your goal of supporting your hypothesis. A first draft will challenge you to articulate ideas that have been floating around in your head. As you start writing you will probably realize that what you thought were simple ideas are actually complex, and are more difficult to express than you expected. That is normal.

Let your paper sit for awhile, two or three days. As the researcher and writer, you have been too close to your work. You might want to change some of the original organization, or delete parts which are tangential or insignificant to your main argument. You may also need to do some additional research and strengthen your arguments. Revise your argument first to tighten the thesis and your “road map” lining up all the evidence. Reduce your evidence to only the relevant pieces and strengthen your argument by including the most salient of citations.

Think about how you have arranged the arguments in your paper. Does the paper’s organization offer the most effective arrangement of your ideas and evidence to support the theme? Reread the topic sentence for each paragraph. Does the sentence make your point and does the information in the paragraph support it? Be sure that you have placed your topic in its historical context, preferably in the first few pages of the paper.

Locate your argument among those offered in the secondary historical works which you have read. At this point, you should have some idea of how your approach/theme adds to the body of historical literature on your topic. Think about your introduction and conclusion. Remember that these are crucial to the paper and you should take some time when writing them. The introduction not only interests the reader in getting beyond the first few pages but it also presents the focus of your argument. The conclusion is your chance to make a lasting impression on your audience; take advantage of it!

The final revision of your paper should include a check of overall organization, style and composition, spelling, proof of thesis, and format (arrangement of title page, pagination, endnotes if applicable, bibliography, citation form.) Scrutinize your words, sentences, and paragraphs. Look at the VERBS are they active (not passive)? Are there a variety of verbs, if not use the thesaurus and empower your prose by strong verbs. REDUCE the use of the verb to be. Wordy sentences weaken your thesis, take out the “fat”: prepositional phrases (change to gerunds –ing); count the number of prepositions in a sentence and limit to two. Check on misplaced and dangling modifiers if you don’t know what this means, look it up. Longer sentences can be reduced to several sentences or with the use of semicolons. Lastly, literally check the logic of the transitions among paragraphs. Do you find a paragraph not making sense and not linking up to the paragraph above and below it?

Very important to your revising is to read your paper out loud and listen to it. Does it flow well? What do you hear that is superfluous? Is the logic sound and is the thesis clear? What is unessential weakens your thesis, so eliminate.

The best known authors follow this advice: Throughout the paper writing process, the most important and challenging task will be to constantly edit and revise your work.  

Formatting Your Paper

Use the MLA-Chicago style to format your research paper and consult the following:

William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, The Elements of Style

Mary Lynn Rampolla, A Pocket Manual to Writing in History, 3rd ed.

Kate Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 6th ed.

Diana Hacker, Rules for Writers, 3rd ed. (Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

Quotations, footnotes, and bibliographies: Small matters of style, such as where footnote numbers are placed, the use of commas, or how indenting works, are important. You will be learning and using citation styles for the rest of your life; it is crucial that you become proficient in following them closely. Citations

A citation is the part of your paper that tells your reader where your source information came from. This is one of the most important elements to your paper. In order to evaluate your argument, your reader must be able to consult the same sources you used. Proper citing is crucial to making a credible and persuasive argument.. Citations in history papers can take the form of footnotes or endnotes. History papers should not use the parenthetic citation style common to literature and social science papers. These do not perform the other function of footnotes and endnotes, which is to provide space to clarify your use of complex data or arguments, expand on points you believe do not merit lengthy consideration in the body of your text, and to directly address the arguments of other historians.

Each time you quote a work by another author, or use the ideas of another author, you should indicate the source with a footnote. A footnote is indicated in the text of your paper by a small Arabic numeral written in superscript. Each new footnote gets a new number (increment by one). The number refers to a note number at the bottom of the page (or following the text of the paper, if you are using endnotes). This note contains the citation information for the materials you are referencing. For examples of footnotes in action, consult Rampolla (“Quoting and Documenting Sources”).

Either footnotes or endnotes are fine. Most history books are now produced using endnotes, which are commonly thought to provide cleaner looking pages. Most history professors, however, prefer footnotes, so they can quickly check sources. Especially if you have a computer word-processor, which makes the task easy, you should try to use footnotes.

Paraphrase or quote your sources or do both; but do only one at a time. You either paraphrase or quote, but do nothing in between. To paraphrase a source (or part of a source) is to reproduce it in words and word orders substantially different from the original. When you paraphrase well, you keep the sense of the original but change the language, retaining some key words, of course, but otherwise using your own words and your own sentence patterns. As a rough guide, if you copy more than three words in a row from a source, these words should be in quotation marks.

To quote a source (or part of a source) is to reproduce it exactly. When you quote well, you keep both the sense and language of the original, retaining its punctuation, its capitalization, its type face (roman or italic), and its spelling (indeed, even its misspelling).

Remember to include a source citation every time you use the ideas or words of another author, either directly (through quotation) or indirectly (through paraphrase). The only exception is common factual knowledge of the variety found in encyclopedia. The easiest and most important rule to remember is: when in doubt, it is better to cite a source than to not cite a source. In avoiding plagiarism, it is always wiser to choose more rather than less information.

Enjoy researching your paper and enjoy writing it. Professors grade students on their effort, their ability to improve during the semester, and on their willingness to follow directions. GOOD LUCK THIS SEMESTER.

Online guides for citing sources:

• Citing Electronic Sources (from the Library of Congress) http://memory.loc.gov/learn/start/cite/index.html

Guides for citing standard electronic sources

• A Brief Citation Guide for Internet Sources in History and the Humanities http://www.h-net.msu.edu/about/citation/

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Writing a Research Paper

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The Research Paper

There will come a time in most students' careers when they are assigned a research paper. Such an assignment often creates a great deal of unneeded anxiety in the student, which may result in procrastination and a feeling of confusion and inadequacy. This anxiety frequently stems from the fact that many students are unfamiliar and inexperienced with this genre of writing. Never fear—inexperience and unfamiliarity are situations you can change through practice! Writing a research paper is an essential aspect of academics and should not be avoided on account of one's anxiety. In fact, the process of writing a research paper can be one of the more rewarding experiences one may encounter in academics. What is more, many students will continue to do research throughout their careers, which is one of the reasons this topic is so important.

Becoming an experienced researcher and writer in any field or discipline takes a great deal of practice. There are few individuals for whom this process comes naturally. Remember, even the most seasoned academic veterans have had to learn how to write a research paper at some point in their career. Therefore, with diligence, organization, practice, a willingness to learn (and to make mistakes!), and, perhaps most important of all, patience, students will find that they can achieve great things through their research and writing.

The pages in this section cover the following topic areas related to the process of writing a research paper:

• Genre - This section will provide an overview for understanding the difference between an analytical and argumentative research paper.
• Choosing a Topic - This section will guide the student through the process of choosing topics, whether the topic be one that is assigned or one that the student chooses themselves.
• Identifying an Audience - This section will help the student understand the often times confusing topic of audience by offering some basic guidelines for the process.
• Where Do I Begin - This section concludes the handout by offering several links to resources at Purdue, and also provides an overview of the final stages of writing a research paper.

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• Knowledge Base
• APA Style 7th edition
• How to write an APA results section

Reporting Research Results in APA Style | Tips & Examples

Published on December 21, 2020 by Pritha Bhandari . Revised on January 17, 2024.

The results section of a quantitative research paper is where you summarize your data and report the findings of any relevant statistical analyses.

The APA manual provides rigorous guidelines for what to report in quantitative research papers in the fields of psychology, education, and other social sciences.

Use these standards to answer your research questions and report your data analyses in a complete and transparent way.

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Table of contents

What goes in your results section, introduce your data, summarize your data, report statistical results, presenting numbers effectively, what doesn’t belong in your results section, frequently asked questions about results in apa.

In APA style, the results section includes preliminary information about the participants and data, descriptive and inferential statistics, and the results of any exploratory analyses.

Include these in your results section:

• Participant flow and recruitment period. Report the number of participants at every stage of the study, as well as the dates when recruitment took place.
• Missing data . Identify the proportion of data that wasn’t included in your final analysis and state the reasons.
• Any adverse events. Make sure to report any unexpected events or side effects (for clinical studies).
• Descriptive statistics . Summarize the primary and secondary outcomes of the study.
• Inferential statistics , including confidence intervals and effect sizes. Address the primary and secondary research questions by reporting the detailed results of your main analyses.
• Results of subgroup or exploratory analyses, if applicable. Place detailed results in supplementary materials.

Write up the results in the past tense because you’re describing the outcomes of a completed research study.

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Before diving into your research findings, first describe the flow of participants at every stage of your study and whether any data were excluded from the final analysis.

Participant flow and recruitment period

It’s necessary to report any attrition, which is the decline in participants at every sequential stage of a study. That’s because an uneven number of participants across groups sometimes threatens internal validity and makes it difficult to compare groups. Be sure to also state all reasons for attrition.

If your study has multiple stages (e.g., pre-test, intervention, and post-test) and groups (e.g., experimental and control groups), a flow chart is the best way to report the number of participants in each group per stage and reasons for attrition.

Also report the dates for when you recruited participants or performed follow-up sessions.

Missing data

Another key issue is the completeness of your dataset. It’s necessary to report both the amount and reasons for data that was missing or excluded.

Data can become unusable due to equipment malfunctions, improper storage, unexpected events, participant ineligibility, and so on. For each case, state the reason why the data were unusable.

Some data points may be removed from the final analysis because they are outliers—but you must be able to justify how you decided what to exclude.

If you applied any techniques for overcoming or compensating for lost data, report those as well.

Adverse events

For clinical studies, report all events with serious consequences or any side effects that occured.

Descriptive statistics summarize your data for the reader. Present descriptive statistics for each primary, secondary, and subgroup analysis.

Don’t provide formulas or citations for commonly used statistics (e.g., standard deviation) – but do provide them for new or rare equations.

Descriptive statistics

The exact descriptive statistics that you report depends on the types of data in your study. Categorical variables can be reported using proportions, while quantitative data can be reported using means and standard deviations . For a large set of numbers, a table is the most effective presentation format.

Include sample sizes (overall and for each group) as well as appropriate measures of central tendency and variability for the outcomes in your results section. For every point estimate , add a clearly labelled measure of variability as well.

Be sure to note how you combined data to come up with variables of interest. For every variable of interest, explain how you operationalized it.

According to APA journal standards, it’s necessary to report all relevant hypothesis tests performed, estimates of effect sizes, and confidence intervals.

When reporting statistical results, you should first address primary research questions before moving onto secondary research questions and any exploratory or subgroup analyses.

Present the results of tests in the order that you performed them—report the outcomes of main tests before post-hoc tests, for example. Don’t leave out any relevant results, even if they don’t support your hypothesis.

Inferential statistics

For each statistical test performed, first restate the hypothesis , then state whether your hypothesis was supported and provide the outcomes that led you to that conclusion.

Report the following for each hypothesis test:

• the test statistic value,
• the degrees of freedom ,
• the exact p- value (unless it is less than 0.001),
• the magnitude and direction of the effect.

When reporting complex data analyses, such as factor analysis or multivariate analysis, present the models estimated in detail, and state the statistical software used. Make sure to report any violations of statistical assumptions or problems with estimation.

Effect sizes and confidence intervals

For each hypothesis test performed, you should present confidence intervals and estimates of effect sizes .

Confidence intervals are useful for showing the variability around point estimates. They should be included whenever you report population parameter estimates.

Effect sizes indicate how impactful the outcomes of a study are. But since they are estimates, it’s recommended that you also provide confidence intervals of effect sizes.

Subgroup or exploratory analyses

Briefly report the results of any other planned or exploratory analyses you performed. These may include subgroup analyses as well.

Subgroup analyses come with a high chance of false positive results, because performing a large number of comparison or correlation tests increases the chances of finding significant results.

If you find significant results in these analyses, make sure to appropriately report them as exploratory (rather than confirmatory) results to avoid overstating their importance.

While these analyses can be reported in less detail in the main text, you can provide the full analyses in supplementary materials.

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To effectively present numbers, use a mix of text, tables , and figures where appropriate:

• To present three or fewer numbers, try a sentence ,
• To present between 4 and 20 numbers, try a table ,
• To present more than 20 numbers, try a figure .

Since these are general guidelines, use your own judgment and feedback from others for effective presentation of numbers.

Tables and figures should be numbered and have titles, along with relevant notes. Make sure to present data only once throughout the paper and refer to any tables and figures in the text.

Formatting statistics and numbers

It’s important to follow capitalization , italicization, and abbreviation rules when referring to statistics in your paper. There are specific format guidelines for reporting statistics in APA , as well as general rules about writing numbers .

If you are unsure of how to present specific symbols, look up the detailed APA guidelines or other papers in your field.

It’s important to provide a complete picture of your data analyses and outcomes in a concise way. For that reason, raw data and any interpretations of your results are not included in the results section.

It’s rarely appropriate to include raw data in your results section. Instead, you should always save the raw data securely and make them available and accessible to any other researchers who request them.

Making scientific research available to others is a key part of academic integrity and open science.

Interpretation or discussion of results

This belongs in your discussion section. Your results section is where you objectively report all relevant findings and leave them open for interpretation by readers.

While you should state whether the findings of statistical tests lend support to your hypotheses, refrain from forming conclusions to your research questions in the results section.

Explanation of how statistics tests work

For the sake of concise writing, you can safely assume that readers of your paper have professional knowledge of how statistical inferences work.

In an APA results section , you should generally report the following:

• Participant flow and recruitment period.
• Missing data and any adverse events.
• Descriptive statistics about your samples.
• Inferential statistics , including confidence intervals and effect sizes.
• Results of any subgroup or exploratory analyses, if applicable.

According to the APA guidelines, you should report enough detail on inferential statistics so that your readers understand your analyses.

• the test statistic value
• the degrees of freedom
• the exact p value (unless it is less than 0.001)
• the magnitude and direction of the effect

You should also present confidence intervals and estimates of effect sizes where relevant.

In APA style, statistics can be presented in the main text or as tables or figures . To decide how to present numbers, you can follow APA guidelines:

• To present three or fewer numbers, try a sentence,
• To present between 4 and 20 numbers, try a table,
• To present more than 20 numbers, try a figure.

Results are usually written in the past tense , because they are describing the outcome of completed actions.

The results chapter or section simply and objectively reports what you found, without speculating on why you found these results. The discussion interprets the meaning of the results, puts them in context, and explains why they matter.

In qualitative research , results and discussion are sometimes combined. But in quantitative research , it’s considered important to separate the objective results from your interpretation of them.

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Research Reports: Definition and How to Write Them

Reports are usually spread across a vast horizon of topics but are focused on communicating information about a particular topic and a niche target market. The primary motive of research reports is to convey integral details about a study for marketers to consider while designing new strategies.

Certain events, facts, and other information based on incidents need to be relayed to the people in charge, and creating research reports is the most effective communication tool. Ideal research reports are extremely accurate in the offered information with a clear objective and conclusion. These reports should have a clean and structured format to relay information effectively.

What are Research Reports?

Research reports are recorded data prepared by researchers or statisticians after analyzing the information gathered by conducting organized research, typically in the form of surveys or qualitative methods .

A research report is a reliable source to recount details about a conducted research. It is most often considered to be a true testimony of all the work done to garner specificities of research.

The various sections of a research report are:

• Background/Introduction
• Implemented Methods
• Results based on Analysis
• Deliberation

Learn more: Quantitative Research

Components of Research Reports

Research is imperative for launching a new product/service or a new feature. The markets today are extremely volatile and competitive due to new entrants every day who may or may not provide effective products. An organization needs to make the right decisions at the right time to be relevant in such a market with updated products that suffice customer demands.

The details of a research report may change with the purpose of research but the main components of a report will remain constant. The research approach of the market researcher also influences the style of writing reports. Here are seven main components of a productive research report:

• Research Report Summary: The entire objective along with the overview of research are to be included in a summary which is a couple of paragraphs in length. All the multiple components of the research are explained in brief under the report summary.  It should be interesting enough to capture all the key elements of the report.
• Research Introduction: There always is a primary goal that the researcher is trying to achieve through a report. In the introduction section, he/she can cover answers related to this goal and establish a thesis which will be included to strive and answer it in detail.  This section should answer an integral question: “What is the current situation of the goal?”.  After the research design was conducted, did the organization conclude the goal successfully or they are still a work in progress –  provide such details in the introduction part of the research report.
• Research Methodology: This is the most important section of the report where all the important information lies. The readers can gain data for the topic along with analyzing the quality of provided content and the research can also be approved by other market researchers . Thus, this section needs to be highly informative with each aspect of research discussed in detail.  Information needs to be expressed in chronological order according to its priority and importance. Researchers should include references in case they gained information from existing techniques.
• Research Results: A short description of the results along with calculations conducted to achieve the goal will form this section of results. Usually, the exposition after data analysis is carried out in the discussion part of the report.

Learn more: Quantitative Data

• Research Discussion: The results are discussed in extreme detail in this section along with a comparative analysis of reports that could probably exist in the same domain. Any abnormality uncovered during research will be deliberated in the discussion section.  While writing research reports, the researcher will have to connect the dots on how the results will be applicable in the real world.
• Research References and Conclusion: Conclude all the research findings along with mentioning each and every author, article or any content piece from where references were taken.

Learn more: Qualitative Observation

15 Tips for Writing Research Reports

Writing research reports in the manner can lead to all the efforts going down the drain. Here are 15 tips for writing impactful research reports:

• Prepare the context before starting to write and start from the basics:  This was always taught to us in school – be well-prepared before taking a plunge into new topics. The order of survey questions might not be the ideal or most effective order for writing research reports. The idea is to start with a broader topic and work towards a more specific one and focus on a conclusion or support, which a research should support with the facts.  The most difficult thing to do in reporting, without a doubt is to start. Start with the title, the introduction, then document the first discoveries and continue from that. Once the marketers have the information well documented, they can write a general conclusion.
• Keep the target audience in mind while selecting a format that is clear, logical and obvious to them:  Will the research reports be presented to decision makers or other researchers? What are the general perceptions around that topic? This requires more care and diligence. A researcher will need a significant amount of information to start writing the research report. Be consistent with the wording, the numbering of the annexes and so on. Follow the approved format of the company for the delivery of research reports and demonstrate the integrity of the project with the objectives of the company.
• Have a clear research objective: A researcher should read the entire proposal again, and make sure that the data they provide contributes to the objectives that were raised from the beginning. Remember that speculations are for conversations, not for research reports, if a researcher speculates, they directly question their own research.
• Establish a working model:  Each study must have an internal logic, which will have to be established in the report and in the evidence. The researchers’ worst nightmare is to be required to write research reports and realize that key questions were not included.

Learn more: Quantitative Observation

• Gather all the information about the research topic. Who are the competitors of our customers? Talk to other researchers who have studied the subject of research, know the language of the industry. Misuse of the terms can discourage the readers of research reports from reading further.
• Read aloud while writing. While reading the report, if the researcher hears something inappropriate, for example, if they stumble over the words when reading them, surely the reader will too. If the researcher can’t put an idea in a single sentence, then it is very long and they must change it so that the idea is clear to everyone.
• Check grammar and spelling. Without a doubt, good practices help to understand the report. Use verbs in the present tense. Consider using the present tense, which makes the results sound more immediate. Find new words and other ways of saying things. Have fun with the language whenever possible.
• Discuss only the discoveries that are significant. If some data are not really significant, do not mention them. Remember that not everything is truly important or essential within research reports.

Learn more: Qualitative Data

• Try and stick to the survey questions. For example, do not say that the people surveyed “were worried” about an research issue , when there are different degrees of concern.
• The graphs must be clear enough so that they understand themselves. Do not let graphs lead the reader to make mistakes: give them a title, include the indications, the size of the sample, and the correct wording of the question.
• Be clear with messages. A researcher should always write every section of the report with an accuracy of details and language.
• Be creative with titles – Particularly in segmentation studies choose names “that give life to research”. Such names can survive for a long time after the initial investigation.
• Create an effective conclusion: The conclusion in the research reports is the most difficult to write, but it is an incredible opportunity to excel. Make a precise summary. Sometimes it helps to start the conclusion with something specific, then it describes the most important part of the study, and finally, it provides the implications of the conclusions.
• Get a couple more pair of eyes to read the report. Writers have trouble detecting their own mistakes. But they are responsible for what is presented. Ensure it has been approved by colleagues or friends before sending the find draft out.

Learn more: Market Research and Analysis

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How to Write a Report: A Guide to Report Format and Best Practice

A report is a nonfiction account that presents and/or summarizes the facts about a particular event, topic, or issue. The idea is that people who are unfamiliar with the subject can find everything they need to know from a good report. 

Reports make it easy to catch someone up to speed on a subject, but actually writing a report is anything but easy. So to help you understand what to do, below we present a little report of our own, all about report writing and report format best practices. 

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Table of contents

What is a report?

Types of report formats

What is the structure of a report, what should be included in a report, how to write a report in 7 steps, what is a report .

In technical terms, the definition of a report is pretty vague: any account, spoken or written, of the matters concerning a particular topic. This could refer to anything from a courtroom testimony to a grade schooler’s book report . 

Really, when people talk about “reports,” they’re usually referring to official documents outlining the facts of a topic, typically written by an expert on the subject or someone assigned to investigate it. There are different types of reports, explained in the next section, but they mostly fit this description. 

What kind of information is shared in reports? Although all facts are welcome, reports, in particular, tend to feature these types of content: 

• Details of an event or situation
• The consequences or ongoing effect of an event or situation
• Evaluation of statistical data or analytics
• Interpretations from the information in the report
• Predictions or recommendations based on the information in the report
• How the information relates to other events or reports

Reports are closely related to essay writing , although there are some clear distinctions. While both rely on facts, essays add the personal opinions and arguments of the authors. Reports typically stick only to the facts, although they may include some of the author’s interpretation of these facts, most likely in the conclusion. 

Moreover, reports are heavily organized, commonly with tables of contents and copious headings and subheadings. This makes it easier for readers to scan reports for the information they’re looking for. Essays, on the other hand, are meant to be read start to finish, not browsed for specific insights. 

There are a few different types of reports, depending on the purpose and to whom you present your report. Here’s a quick list of the common types of reports:

• Academic report: Tests a student’s comprehension of the subject matter, such as book reports, reports on historical events, and biographies 
• Business reports: Identifies information useful in business strategy, such as marketing reports, internal memos, SWOT analysis, and feasibility reports
• Scientific reports: Shares research findings, such as research papers and case studies, typically in science journals

Reports can be further divided into categories based on how they are written. For example, a report could be formal or informal, short or long, and internal or external. In business, a vertical report shares information with people on different levels of the hierarchy (i.e., people who work above you and below you), while a lateral report is for people on the author’s same level, but in different departments. 

There are as many types of reports as there are writing styles, but in this guide, we focus on academic reports, which tend to be formal and informational. 

>>Read More: What Is Academic Writing?

The report format depends on the type of report and the requirements of the assignment. While reports can use their own unique structure, most follow this basic template:

• Executive summary: Just like an abstract in an academic paper, an executive summary is a standalone section that summarizes the findings in your report so readers know what to expect. These are mostly for official reports and less so for school reports. 
• Introduction: Setting up the body of the report, your introduction explains the overall topic that you’re about to discuss, with your thesis statement and any need-to-know background information before you get into your own findings. 
• Body: The body of the report explains all your major discoveries, broken up into headings and subheadings. The body makes up the majority of the entire report; whereas the introduction and conclusion are just a few paragraphs each, the body can go on for pages. 
• Conclusion: The conclusion is where you bring together all the information in your report and come to a definitive interpretation or judgment. This is usually where the author inputs their own personal opinions or inferences.  

If you’re familiar with how to write a research paper , you’ll notice that report writing follows the same introduction-body-conclusion structure, sometimes adding an executive summary. Reports usually have their own additional requirements as well, such as title pages and tables of content, which we explain in the next section. 

There are no firm requirements for what’s included in a report. Every school, company, laboratory, task manager, and teacher can make their own format, depending on their unique needs. In general, though, be on the lookout for these particular requirements—they tend to crop up a lot: 

• Title page: Official reports often use a title page to keep things organized; if a person has to read multiple reports, title pages make them easier to keep track of. 
• Table of contents: Just like in books, the table of contents helps readers go directly to the section they’re interested in, allowing for faster browsing. 
• Page numbering: A common courtesy if you’re writing a longer report, page numbering makes sure the pages are in order in the case of mix-ups or misprints.
• Headings and subheadings: Reports are typically broken up into sections, divided by headings and subheadings, to facilitate browsing and scanning. 
• Citations: If you’re citing information from another source, the citations guidelines tell you the recommended format.
• Works cited page: A bibliography at the end of the report lists credits and the legal information for the other sources you got information from. 

As always, refer to the assignment for the specific guidelines on each of these. The people who read the report should tell you which style guides or formatting they require. 

Now let’s get into the specifics of how to write a report. Follow the seven steps on report writing below to take you from an idea to a completed paper. 

1 Choose a topic based on the assignment

Before you start writing, you need to pick the topic of your report. Often, the topic is assigned for you, as with most business reports, or predetermined by the nature of your work, as with scientific reports. If that’s the case, you can ignore this step and move on. 

If you’re in charge of choosing your own topic, as with a lot of academic reports, then this is one of the most important steps in the whole writing process. Try to pick a topic that fits these two criteria: 

• There’s adequate information: Choose a topic that’s not too general but not too specific, with enough information to fill your report without padding, but not too much that you can’t cover everything. 
• It’s something you’re interested in: Although this isn’t a strict requirement, it does help the quality of a report if you’re engaged by the subject matter. 

Of course, don’t forget the instructions of the assignment, including length, so keep those in the back of your head when deciding. 

2 Conduct research

With business and scientific reports, the research is usually your own or provided by the company—although there’s still plenty of digging for external sources in both. 

For academic papers, you’re largely on your own for research, unless you’re required to use class materials. That’s one of the reasons why choosing the right topic is so crucial; you won’t go far if the topic you picked doesn’t have enough available research. 

The key is to search only for reputable sources: official documents, other reports, research papers, case studies, books from respected authors, etc. Feel free to use research cited in other similar reports. You can often find a lot of information online through search engines, but a quick trip to the library can also help in a pinch. 

3 Write a thesis statement

Before you go any further, write a thesis statement to help you conceptualize the main theme of your report. Just like the topic sentence of a paragraph, the thesis statement summarizes the main point of your writing, in this case, the report. 

Once you’ve collected enough research, you should notice some trends and patterns in the information. If these patterns all infer or lead up to a bigger, overarching point, that’s your thesis statement. 

For example, if you were writing a report on the wages of fast-food employees, your thesis might be something like, “Although wages used to be commensurate with living expenses, after years of stagnation they are no longer adequate.” From there, the rest of your report will elaborate on that thesis, with ample evidence and supporting arguments. 

It’s good to include your thesis statement in both the executive summary and introduction of your report, but you still want to figure it out early so you know which direction to go when you work on your outline next. 

4 Prepare an outline

Writing an outline is recommended for all kinds of writing, but it’s especially useful for reports given their emphasis on organization. Because reports are often separated by headings and subheadings, a solid outline makes sure you stay on track while writing without missing anything. 

Really, you should start thinking about your outline during the research phase, when you start to notice patterns and trends. If you’re stuck, try making a list of all the key points, details, and evidence you want to mention. See if you can fit them into general and specific categories, which you can turn into headings and subheadings respectively. 

5 Write a rough draft

Actually writing the rough draft , or first draft, is usually the most time-consuming step. Here’s where you take all the information from your research and put it into words. To avoid getting overwhelmed, simply follow your outline step by step to make sure you don’t accidentally leave out anything. 

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes; that’s the number one rule for writing a rough draft. Expecting your first draft to be perfect adds a lot of pressure. Instead, write in a natural and relaxed way, and worry about the specific details like word choice and correcting mistakes later. That’s what the last two steps are for, anyway. 

6 Revise and edit your report

Once your rough draft is finished, it’s time to go back and start fixing the mistakes you ignored the first time around. (Before you dive right back in, though, it helps to sleep on it to start editing fresh, or at least take a small break to unwind from writing the rough draft.) 

We recommend first rereading your report for any major issues, such as cutting or moving around entire sentences and paragraphs. Sometimes you’ll find your data doesn’t line up, or that you misinterpreted a key piece of evidence. This is the right time to fix the “big picture” mistakes and rewrite any longer sections as needed. 

If you’re unfamiliar with what to look for when editing, you can read our previous guide with some more advanced self-editing tips . 

7 Proofread and check for mistakes

Last, it pays to go over your report one final time, just to optimize your wording and check for grammatical or spelling mistakes. In the previous step you checked for “big picture” mistakes, but here you’re looking for specific, even nitpicky problems. 

A writing assistant like Grammarly flags those issues for you. Grammarly’s free version points out any spelling and grammatical mistakes while you write, with suggestions to improve your writing that you can apply with just one click. The Premium version offers even more advanced features, such as tone adjustments and word choice recommendations for taking your writing to the next level. 

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How to Write a Research Paper in APA and MLA Format

Updated 02 Sep 2024

Properly formatting a research paper in APA or MLA style is essential for several reasons. First, it ensures that your work adheres to the academic standards required by your institution, making your paper look professional and credible. For instance, an APA style paper outlines essential components and formatting guidelines, such as the title page, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, and references, which are crucial for a professional and academically compliant presentation. Consistency in formatting helps readers easily navigate through your paper, understand the structure, and locate references.

Additionally, proper formatting demonstrates your attention to detail and respect for scholarly practices, which is crucial in academic writing. Whether using APA’s emphasis on author-date citation or MLA’s focus on page numbers for literary analysis, following the correct format enhances the clarity and authority of your research. Finally, it helps avoid plagiarism by ensuring that all sources are correctly cited, giving proper credit to the original authors and contributing to the integrity of your work. Additionally, it is crucial to format references correctly to ensure that all sources are properly cited and easily accessible to readers.

What is APA Formatting?

The APA style is a special format used in academic, business, and research writing for documentation of sources and publishing purposes. A research paper in APA format that you create must be presented in the latest 7th edition unless specified otherwise. Created by the American Psychological Association, hence the abbreviation, the latest manual is what we are going to reference in our APA guidelines to avoid confusion. It means that if your college professor asks for APA 7th edition, you are in the right place!

Published in October 2019, the latest edition of the writing style manual follows most rules that have been published before with a focus on simplification and readiness for publishing purposes. Speaking of research paper writing, the majority of students that use APA style format are majoring in subjects like Psychology, Sociology, Journalism, Education, Anthropology, Law, and Healthcare. Since it's relatively simple compared to Chicago, Harvard, or Turabian, it’s not hard to learn the basic rules as long as you remember the following:

There are in-text citations that you must use to provide a reference to a source mentioned in your text. The information that is required includes the author's name and the date of publication. You should also provide the page number or a section in the newspaper if such data is available.

There is a page called " References " that is placed at the end of your paper after your final conclusion part. This is exactly where you provide information (references) that list all of your sources that have been implemented in your research paper.

When to Cite a Source in APA Format?

This question often comes up. The answer is quite simple: when you need to summarize some data, paraphrase information you discover, or quote something from another source. These citations may include it all from books in print, scientific journals, online books, articles in a newspaper, reports, surveys, statistical data, and so on. When you use a reference, the APA 7th style format requires mentioning the name of the author and the year of publication that will look this way for a single author:

(Jones, 2005)

It means that you are dealing with an author with the last name Jones and something that has been published in 2005. Alternatively, your in-text citation can look this way:

Another important notion has been explained by the concept of mutual co-existence. According to Jones (2005), who believed that authoritarian leaders can exist in peace and mutual respect, we can conclude that...

What is the APA References Page?

We are certain that you have seen at least one references page before as you were looking through the final part of a research article online. The References page must list all of your sources alphabetically and may include up to 20 entries for a middle-sized research assignment. A typical APA example coming from a research journal looks this way:

Berry, B., Stipe, J. M., Wahlberg, R., and Zeldman, A. S. (2021). Social Interactions in Georgia State: A an overview of American South. Journal of Social Psychology , 34, 123-136.

As you can see, we have listed the authors alphabetically and mentioned the year of publication that is followed by the name of the scientific article. The name of the journal is given in italics to specify the importance of the source. It is followed by the journal’s volume and the number of pages that have been referenced.

Note: Remember that far not all sources and references that you may encounter are suitable for a research paper. EduBirdie experts recommend talking to your course instructor first and checking things twice regarding additional requirements and formatting. Our guide will provide you with the basic instructions on how to set things up to help your research paper meet the formatting standards.

APA Page Layout Disclaimer

Before you learn how to write a research paper in APA format by turning to various sections of our guide, it must be mentioned that using a Word processor or Google Docs as your writing source, it is essential to create a special page layout and the relevant headers that will be mentioned in our APA guide. While you can find online templates in APA format, these are not always accurate, which is why you must check things twice by focusing on fonts, headers, margins, indents, and other important aspects!

Writing a Research Paper in APA Style Format: General Requirements

1. Page Layout Rules

We'll start with the page layout that must be there all the time as this part of the APA 7th edition remains the same for all papers that you may encounter as a college student. Here is what you must do as you learn how to format a research paper:

Creating a document in MS Word or any other word processor of your choice, set your page margins to 1 inch on all sides of the page.

Your text must be double-spaced, including APA headings.

The APA 7th edition uses indents of the first line in every paragraph by 0.5 inches. Just press your TAB key once.

The recommended fonts for APA style format include Times New Roman (12 pt.), Arial (11 pt.), or Georgia (11 pt.). In certain cases, other fonts may be used, yet do so only after consulting your academic advisor.

Page numbers are included on every page of your document in the top right corner unless specified otherwise.

2 . Page Headers in APA 7th Edition

According to the manual, you must set your page header correctly. Every APA format research paper must provide headings that are written in upper case. Setting up your header, you must:

Click on the "Insert" tab in the MS Word toolbar.

Choose Header & Footer tab, click on Header and Blank.

The first (title) page of your APA research paper must include the left margin positioning where you type: MY RESEARCH PAPER TITLE. Of course, it's only an example and must be replaced by your actual title.

Tab once or twice to the right margin now.

Close your Header & Footer tab.

3. Page Numbering

Speaking of page numbering, use the default feature in MS Word or any other software to do so automatically. The page numbers must be placed in the top right corner and be present on all pages, including your references page. The title page in APA 7th edition should start from page number 1.

4. APA Title Page

Your title page in APA must start with the title of your paper, the name of the student or authors of the research project, and the institutional affiliation. All the lines must be centered and start in the middle of the title page. In addition to that, you must include your course number, instructor's name, and the due date of your research paper. It will look this way: 

The General Electrics Sample Title Page: 

Following the Engineering Principles of Electrical Circuit 

Department of Engineering, Georgia State University

ENGN 222: Electrical Engineering

Dr. Michael John Stipe

October 11, 2008

5. Table of Contents

A table of contents is only necessary if you are writing a thesis paper or working on a dissertation. This section must be placed between your abstract part and the introduction. Use the same font and size as the rest of your content. The text starts at the top of your page with the word "Contents". Every entry must be centered and in bold font. 

The outline in APA format follows the same rules and can be delivered as a separate document in most cases. The page margins remain the same with the page numbering starting from page one. The structure of a page (usually one page only) should include an introduction that mentions the main background points and your thesis, the main body with the elements that support your research thesis statement, and a short conclusion that makes your final take on things or your position clear.

Note : There are no headers or anything specific for an outline. You may copy the main paper's header by adding the word "OUTLINE". 

7. Abstract

Your abstract must appear on a separate page after your research paper's title page. It means that it should be numbered as page 2. Write "Abstract" in bold title case and center it at the top of your page. The abstract itself comes as the next paragraph with the 0.5 inches indent. The length of your abstract should be no longer than 250 words. You may write it down in a single paragraph or use a different kind of structure.

As you write, focus on the requirements that you want to achieve scientifically, consider your target audience as you explain your methodology and the problem that you are planning to explore. Describe your results and provide a brief conclusion to your work exactly as it would be done in a book’s review.

8. Body Parts

It does not matter if you are working on an essay or a complex research paper, APA style format does not mention any specific rules that must be used. Therefore, you should refer to your paper type. The majority of research papers should include an introduction with the list of research objectives (see research paper introduction example ), three to five body paragraphs that explain and support your arguments, and the conclusion part where you sum things up.

The body parts should start with the most important argument that speaks of your thesis and provides analytical information.

The second paragraph of the body in the APA research paper should implement statistical data, which is also considered as a reference. This is where you can use citations and refer to certain publications. Such an approach will help you to avoid plagiarism risks.

The last paragraph should provide alternative opinions and provide counter-arguments where additional citations, graphics, and multimedia sources can be added.

9. Conclusion

The APA manual mentions that your conclusion part should not use any citation elements in the final section and avoid introducing any new ideas. Keep this fact in mind and make sure that you leave suggestions and an overall review of your research paper.

Note: If you have any additional information that you refer to in your previous paragraphs, certain recommendations can be added as a research paper appendix section after your references page, yet always ask your academic advisor to ensure that it is applicable.

10. References Page

Start your References page by placing the word "References" at the top of the document’s layout. It must be centered and placed one inch down. Do not use capitalization, bold fonts, or italics.

All of your citations (references) must be double spaced and should have no additional lines in between.

If your reference goes past the first line, create a hanging indent by using tabulation.

Your references in APA 7th edition style are placed in alphabetical order.

If your reference does not start with the author, these are placed at the start of your paper, according to ABC.

The Writing Guides to Follow in APA 7th Citation Style

Basic citation rules in apa.

Let us imagine a situation when you need to cite a book in print for your research paper in APA style format. It will require the following information:

Author or authors of the book. The surname is always followed by the person’s initials.

The Year of publication of the book comes next in round brackets.

The book title is always placed in italics. Only the first letter of the first word in titles should be capitalized.

Edition (if available) also comes in round brackets. If the book represents the first edition, this part is not necessary.

DOI. It is necessary to include it (if available) for both online and print versions.

The second line of your citation in a References page must be indented per about 5 spaces.

For example:

Fisher, J.V. (2006). Teenage Violence: How do video games affect the modern youth? . Penguin Books.

For a journal article citation, provide the following information:

Author or authors of the article. The surname is always followed by the person’s initials.

The year of publication of the journal comes next in round brackets.

Journal title must be in italics.

Provide volume of journal (in italics).

Add an issue number of a journal in round brackets (no italics are necessary here).

Page range of article (if available).

Provide DOI or URL

Braxton, T. (2005). Asian Cuisine: A study of health benefits. Modern Health Care, 11(4), 34-36. https://doi.org/

Abbreviations

The rule of abbreviations in a research paper states that there should be at least three times when a certain abbreviation is used. If your abbreviation is only met once, it’s necessary to provide a complete spelling of your phrase each time you implement it for your assignment. When using APA style for research purposes, the use of abbreviation within headings is not necessary. Remember to provide a full term the first time you use an abbreviation by adding the abbreviated form in parentheses. APA 7th edition manual states that these must be used only when they help to provide a better kind of communication with your target audience.

The Use of Numbers & Punctuation

Turning to the latest APA style format manual, we can learn that one must use numerals to express numbers going from ten and above as numbers (12, 34, 721, and so on). When you have to use numbers up to ten, these are written in words such as "three positions", "two authors", "seven Chinese brothers", etc.

The rules also state that one must use commas between certain groups of three digits as you work with the figures. For example:

As over 2,000 people have participated in a meeting... 

Speaking of punctuation rules, the use of commas, periods, question marks, and exclamation cases must be put inside your quote marks. As for the rest of the punctuation marks, they go beyond your quotation.

Note: When you are planning to use a direct quote that is more than forty words, the block quotations are used with the indent.

Graphics & Multimedia in APA

Looking through the modern research paper APA format example, you will notice that there are frequent multimedia examples with the use of graphics. The use of graphics is permissible. Further research could explore the impact of multimedia on the readability of research papers.

If you are planning to use artwork from a museum in an online form, it looks this way:

Artist Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial. (Year). Title of the artwork [Format]. Location. URL

If there is a stock image:

Author. (Year). Title of image [format]. Website. URL

An image with no author or date would be resolved to this:

[Subject and type of work]. (n.d.). Your image’s URL.

Tips On How to Write a Research Paper in APA Format

Composing APA style research paper correctly, you must understand that such type of writing is not the same thing as the term paper or a simple essay that you do for college. It's not the same as a reflection paper either. You must provide research findings. It means that you should provide your writer's voice but do so in a limited way by focusing on methodology and an explanation of what you discover. Depending on your requirements and the grading rubric, you may have to provide 2-3 citations per page of your research as a way to support your arguments and reference at least one important publication that is dealing with your subject.

As you compose your research paper in the APA style format, make sure that you follow these simple academic writing tips:

Research tone must be present. It means that your research paper should not use the first person unless asked to. The general APA writing style manual recommends using "This study has been conducted by" phrases instead.

It’s recommended to avoid any personal information where you describe your experience. Don’t make the paper sound like a personal statement piece of writing. Your research assignment must synthesize various publications by comparing, contrasting, and finding similarities as you write.

APA 7th style manual asks to use the past tense, which means that you should say that your research paper has shown instead of using " shows ". There may be certain exceptions if you are turning to a certain timeline.

The use of contractions must be limited. It means that you should say " It does not result in " instead of " it doesn't result in ".

Your writing should stay honest and clear without specific bias. Your purpose is to research things without racial, sexual, religious, or gender discrimination.

The use of sources must be implemented correctly without turning your paper into a collection of sources.

Following these simple rules, you will be able to stay within the basic guidelines and follow the rules of APA-style writing. As always, there may be exceptions to every rule, which is why you must talk to your instructor in case of any doubts. Your college or university will always have a final say.

APA Style Format Bias-Free Language Matters

Writing a paper in APA format, one must remember the rules of bias-free language that are also mentioned in the APA 7th manual for research writing. The purpose is to use gender-neutral pronouns and strive for the avoidance of prejudicial beliefs or specific demeaning aspects that may appear as a negative attitude in your research writing. Therefore, when dealing with a sensitive subject, proofread your text twice and talk to your academic advisor before submitting your work. It will help us all create sincere and bias-free research works that follow the rules of mutual respect, multiculturalism, and democracy.

What is MLA Formatting? 

MLA stands for Modern Language Association and is currently in its 9th edition , which has been published in 2021. In simple terms, MLA style formatting is a special system of referencing and structuring research papers. The main purpose is to cite sources correctly and keep your research writing always accurate. By learning how to write a research paper in MLA format, you will be able to submit your college homework according to specified rules and will avoid confusion. You will also learn how to format and structure the list of bibliography references for a research or essay paper by using the Works Cited page. It is another essential aspect of MLA style format. It is also essential to format references correctly to ensure that all sources are properly cited and easily accessible to readers.

MLA style format aims to help your college professor and the target audience to navigate through your paper by turning to various in-text citations with an opportunity to see where information has been taken. Since MLA has specific standards, your academic advisor will check whether you have followed the rules and used the same format, font sizes, headers, and other aspects that make research writing universal.

What is MLA format then? The MLA style is mostly used by college students majoring in English, Literature, social sciences, arts, and humanities. One can assume that MLA style format is one of the most accessible writing standards, which is why it is often required during an introductory course where students learn how to structure their papers and keep information properly referenced.

When you are looking for reliable sources online, it will be easy to recognize the use of MLA format because of the famous MLA header that is always included on the first page where you must mention your full name, instructor’s name, your course, and the date. It is also necessary to use page formatting with your last name on each page, which also helps to determine that an MLA format has been used. We shall discuss this aspect further on as you proceed with our guide.

MLA Research Paper Format: General Guidelines 

If you are already familiar with at least one other academic writing format, you will already know the basics and it will be easier for you to process the information in MLA style. The majority of formats of research paper writing stand for the general rules on how to structure your page layout and a list of rules regarding correct citation. The most important is to start with the MLA header, which will look this way:

Adam Greeley

Professor Smith

Humanities 7311

14 May 2022

This header is always placed at the top left corner of the first page (no title page is required in most cases!) with the page number and your name aligned to the top right of the page. It will look this way:

The other rules on how to write a MLA research paper include:

The recommended fonts include Times New Roman, Arial, or Verdana in 12 pt size.

All the margins of the page in MS Word or a similar processor should be set at 1 inch.

The main content is double-spaced unless specified otherwise.

The MLA header is included only on the first page of your research paper.

The title of your work must be centered.

Every new research paper paragraph should have a hanging indent.

The MLA style uses the author-page citation pattern where you should list the author’s last name with the page number.

The Bibliography page has the “Works Cited” title at the top and center of the first page with your citations.

The sources are listed alphabetically.

Do not place a period after the title or headers.

Do not underline words unless it’s necessary.

Additionally, it is crucial to format references correctly to ensure that all sources are properly cited and easily accessible to readers.

It is recommended to use the rules of inclusive language, according to the latest manual edition of the MLA style. It means that you must avoid certain terms that focus on ethnic peculiarities, religion, gender, disability, age, or social challenges unless it is absolutely necessary. You can also use words like “human-made” to specify gender-neutral aspects.

MLA Research Paper Structure: Essential Parts

One of the most important parts of writing a research paper successfully is following the correct structure that is specified by the chosen writing style. Here are the MLA research paper format parts that you should consider:

Furthermore, it is essential to format references correctly to ensure that all sources are properly cited and easily accessible to readers.

It should have your university's name on top of the page, then the title of your research paper at the center of the page, and at the bottom of the page: your name, course name, professor's name, and the paper's due date (all centered).

Section Headings

The main heading should include your name, instructor's name, relevant class information, and the paper's delivery date.

The other MLA page headings:

First Level Heading.

Your text 

Second Level Heading.

Third Level Heading 

Fourth Level Heading

Fifth Level Heading 

Research Paper Outline

Title of the page (centered)

1. Introduction

Talk about the importance of your subject. 

An interesting topic sentence.

2. Thesis Statement

3. Body Paragraphs

Methodology. 

Research Justification. 

Research Findings.

4. Research Discussion

5. Conclusion

Thesis explanation. 

Introduction & Thesis

Talk about the importance of your research and use a strong thesis statement. Research paper MLA style guidebook recommends allocating about 10% of your final word count to this part.

This is where you must use in-text citations to support your arguments. Always introduce the subject that you want to explore, make a claim, and use citing only then to make it suitable.

In-text Citations

The classic in-text citation will look this way:

According to Darren Smith, “certain peculiarities have been noticed in Shakespeare’s perception of time and death” (9).

The majority of references to youth and the fragility help to understand how age has been limited by social circumstances (Smith 11).

Works Cited Page.

If you already know how to format your Bibliography, it is essential to look for complete information and provide as much as you can. If you are citing from a poetry book or an analysis paper that has been published:

Last Name, First Name of the author. “Title of your research paper.” Title of Collection , edited by Editor’s Name(s), Publisher, Year, page range of the data you have used.

Research paper MLA style Works Cited page example:

Stanley, Lace. “Shakespeare’s Psychology.” The Collected Classic English Poems, edited by John Langsley, Penguin Books, 2006, p.26. Only the first letter of the first word of both the chapter title and the book title should be capitalized.

Citing something from Jstor scientific database:

Author’s Last Name, First Name. “Title.” Title of Scientific Journal , vol. Volume, no. Issue, Month Year of publication, pp. Pages, https://doi.org/DOI , or any relevant identifier.

Enciso, Patricia, et al. “Children’s Literature: Standing in the Shadow of Adults.” Reading Research Quarterly , vol. 45, no. 2, 2010, pp. 252–63. JSTOR , http://www.jstor.org/stable/20697185 . Accessed 20 Jun. 2022.

Regardless of whether you are using MLA format or would like to learn how to use different styles, your research paper should have an introduction, a review of the literature that you have used, the methodology that has been chosen, the results of your research, and a discussion of the findings, or you can simply pay someone to write my paper. You may also be limited by an introduction with a thesis statement, body parts with the arguments, and the conclusion part where you talk about the findings. It will always depend on your subject and research paper type.

Research Paper in MLA Format Writing Tips

Contrary to the popular belief, research paper writing in MLA format is not too difficult if you know the basic rules. If you plan to learn how to write a research paper in APA format, you will feel even more confident because you will be able to differentiate the styles. As a way to help you with your research writing, we have collected these simple MLA formatting for research paper tips:

Always start with the sources and check for Bibliography pages that may be included.

Use only verified sources and look for databases like Google Scholar, Jstor, PubMed, etc.

Always introduce your subject and talk about its importance.

Do not overuse citations in your research paper.

Correct Research Paper Formatting Helps to Avoid Plagiarism

Numerous college students often ask about the purpose of correct research formatting, be it MLA, APA, Chicago, or any other format. Formatting a research paper in MLA and APA formats can be time-consuming and intricate, leading many students to seek professionals who write essays for money to ensure their papers meet all formatting guidelines and academic standards. In addition to structuring things according to academic standards, the most important aspect of staying accurate as you research is to provide correct structure and citations if you use any external sources. It will help you to prepare your writing for publishing purposes and let you avoid plagiarism issues. It is the main purpose of correct research paper formatting. Moreover, it is essential to format references correctly to ensure that all sources are properly cited and easily accessible to readers. This guide contains the main rules that provide a checklist that will help you stay safe and follow all the essential rules.

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Written by Steven Robinson

Steven Robinson is an academic writing expert with a degree in English literature. His expertise, patient approach, and support empower students to express ideas clearly. On EduBirdie's blog, he provides valuable writing guides on essays, research papers, and other intriguing topics. Enjoys chess in free time.

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