Research Papers

Research papers are all about original research so remembering that is key to creating killer content that profs will love. Many students struggle with the question of how to create original research from data that has already been researched and reviewed. It is a good question. The trick is to remember that by researching as comprehensively as possible one will naturally find unanswered questions or unexplored areas in a field of relevance to your research paper.  These unanswered or unexplored questions are the gold nuggets of research. They are the areas in which the student can dig deeply to find information, statistics or case studies that show the research paper topic in a new or interesting light before unknown or unnoticed.

Research papers are awesome when they cover stuff that’s never been covered before but they can still be terrific when you, the author, put a new spin on an old theory or discover some facet of an argument that you can support with new ideas or discoveries. Alternatively, your fantastic research paper might refute held views with new information or again, a new perspective.

Really wicked research papers will make it to the level of peer review and maybe even into an academic or professional journal. The latter will happen if you are at the top of your game and you have made a new discovery or are offering new information or ideas about an old discovery. An academic journal is of course a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation new research papers but it is also a forum for the critique of past research. Content typically takes the form of articles presenting original research papers or review articles.

Being published is the ultimate goal for research papers. The process of publication is described as having two clear stages in Wikipedia and they are, “The process of peer review is organized by the journal editor and is complete when the content of the article, together with any associated images or figures, are accepted for publication. The peer review process is increasingly managed online, through the use of proprietary systems, commercial software packages …or open source and free software … Once peer review has been completed, the original author(s) of the article will modify their submission in line with the reviewers' comments, and this is repeated until the editor is satisfied.”

That’s the first stage in the publication of research papers; it is followed by what is described as the production process stage. “The production process, controlled by a production editor or publisher, then takes an article through copy editing, typesetting, inclusion in a specific issue of a journal, and then printing and online publication. Copyediting seeks to ensure that an article conforms to the journal's house style, that all of the referencing and labeling is correct, and that there are no spelling or grammatical errors. Typesetting deals with the appearance of the article — layouts, fonts, headings etc., both for print and online publication. Historically, these activities were all carried out in-house in a publisher, but increasingly are subject to outsourcing.”

No one will tell you that writing a research paper is easy. It is arguably the most time consuming, in depth and possibly exhausting paper you may ever write. If you are passionate about your research paper topic it may even become a labor of love and that does make it easier. Whether it is or isn’t there is tremendous satisfaction in publication. The key to publication is whether you can manage to find a unique niche in your field.