How to Write a Research PaperLet's admit it – a research paper (also referred to as a "term paper") is a headache at best and a nightmare at worst for many students. But it does not need to be that way. If that's how you feel about it that's perfectly all right because I've been a college student myself until I was 31 years old and I know exactly where you’re coming from. There is actually a straight forward method to start and finish a research paper which I have used myself repeatedly and successfully during my undergraduate and graduate studies. Here are the basic 7 steps: 1. SCHEDULE – Establish a schedule (this important step is almost always neglected by the sources on the subject). IMPORTANT NOTE: Please be aware that many of these steps are not mutually exclusive and they actually overlap. There is some amount of back-and-forth interaction between these steps since human mind does not work in airtight compartments. When you are doing your research, for example, your mind may start imagining an outline. Welcome that. Don’t curtail it by thinking "well, I'm not at that step yet." Don’t force a mechanical discipline on the process. Instead, start taking notes immediately. Let parts of different steps flow and meld into each other organically, if they do. But don’t force it either. If, for example, no outlining ideas emerge when you are doing your basic research, that's perfectly fine too. Just be flexible, opportunistic, and welcome the amazing powers of your mind to work simultaneously on more dimensions than one.
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