RESEARCH INSTRUCTIONS
How to Write a Research Paper
– Step by Step
How to organise information.
So here is a basic process on how to carry out research step-by-step:
Research Phase: Hunting and Gathering
This is probably the most time-consuming part of the research. Spend as much time as possible finding all the research as possible. It’s during this phase that you can be doing the following:
 Refining the research subject
 Developing research questions
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Consulting librarians for their insight on your research area
Reading journal article abstracts on the topic you’re interested in
Organizing Phase: Reading and Writing
As you’re reviewing journal articles, Jotting down everything you need from the article before moving on; including: citation info, potential quotes, summaries, and any referenced journal articles that look interesting.
Also:
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Develop a potential essay statement
Create a meaty bibliography
Drafting Phase: Writing
Once you’ve written your statement and completed your outline, it’s time to begin working on your first draft. Here are the steps to take:
 Just start writing – don’t put it off
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Make sure to cite everything (Go overboard just to be safe)
Keep refining the actual question you’re answering
 Pretend each section of the paper is due the next day and just finish that part
 Take a day off after the first draft is done – don’t look at it
 THEN REREAD IT AND ASK SOMEONE ELSE TO.
It’s surprising at how many mistakes you may have made but overlook.
Revision Phase: Editing Never Ends
Revising — as you know — means removing and adding content to make the paper better
– which means nobody is ever really done. We just turn in our last and best draft. Here are some editing steps:
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Read it aloud and mark any areas that don’t sound right
Look at all the punctuation marks – especially apostrophes
 Make sure every paragraph moves the paper along
 Eliminate passive verbs whenever possible

RESEARCH INSTRUCTIONS
1. Before you begin to research, outline the key points that you want to show. Any assumptions that you base your research on should be included here, as well as any key findings that your subtopic is founded on. This will save you time because you will know what you are looking for, so you can stay on track.
2. Use the keyword search on your library journal database system http://www.accesstoresearch.org.uk/.
Make a thorough list of sources to try to keep track of your literature. If possible, paste in a few brief notes about these sources to save yourself time when it comes to writing your literature review.
3. Look for authors that you have cited more than once and visit their personal webpage. Often times there will be an electronic CV with access to all of their research, including newly released papers, that can be an excellent asset for your work. Additionally, there is normally an email address on their website so that you can contact them if you need additional information, which can be a huge help later.
4. If you find an article extremely similar to your research topic, go through the reference list to get the citations for any interesting topics. Often times this will be the best source for finding the key pieces of work that shaped your topic. Additionally, if the work has findings similar to what you hope to get, write down the author's email address so that you can contact him or her in order to try to get more information.
5. Talk to your colleagues and teachers to get advice of any researchers they know of that could help in your chosen topic. By using the web to find that person's CV or by emailing them, you will be able to see the most current research available on your topic by the person that is widely considered to be the expert in the field.
6. Don’t focus on books, use accredited journal articles. Often times researchers will publish a journal article and book on the same topic. The book tends to be full of great examples and antidotes, which are helpful for the general reader, but not for a literature review. Instead, use the key points in journal articles for the basis of your review.

RESEARCH INSTRUCTIONS www.accesstoresearch.org.uk/ (access from Notts public libraries only)
From February 2014, over 10 million academic articles are available, free of charge, in participating public libraries across the UK. Students, independent researchers and small businesses can now access many of the world’s best academic papers through their local libraries, a result of a unique collaboration between librarians and publishers, who have made their journal content available for free. www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/ (access from Notts public libraries only)
The British Newspaper Archive is a partnership between the British Library and findmypast to digitise up to 40 million newspaper pages from the British Library's vast collection over the next 10 years.
www.jiscmediahub.ac.uk
the definitive academic video, image and audio resource www.jstor.org
(access to 3 free online articles )
JSTOR is an online research and teaching platform that helps people discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. JSTOR provides a growing number of access options for individual researchers.
www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/libraries links to relevant electronic resources www.opendoar.org
Open DOAR is an authoritative directory of academic open access repositories http://roar.eprints.org
ROAR is hosted at the University of Southampton, UK and is made possible by funding from the
JISC . ROAR is part of the EPrints.org
network.
http://scholar.google.co.uk
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. www.sherpa.ac.uk
SHERPA is investigating issues in the future of scholarly communication www.thefreelibrary.com
The Free Library offers free, full-text versions of classic literary works from hundreds of celebrated authors, whose biographies, images, and famous quotations can also be found on the site. Recently,
The Free Library has been expanded to include a massive collection of periodicals from hundreds of leading publications covering Business and Industry, Communications, Entertainment, Health,
Humanities, Law, Government, Politics, Recreation and Leisure, Science and Technology, and Social
Sciences.