SOL - Writing the Research Paper Lesson

Writing the Research Paper Lesson

The Rough Draft

After you finish researching and finding evidence to support your claims, you have everything you need to write an organized, developed, and supported essay in both paragraph form and MLA Format. First, you will write a rough draft in order to put all of your ideas on paper. Then, after you complete the rough draft, you will revise your essay. The revision process gives you and another person a chance to look at the writing as a whole and make sure all of your ideas relate and make sense. Having someone else revise your writing is helpful because you might understand what you are trying to say, but an outsider has an objective view and can determine if the writing is truly organized and cohesive. Finally, polishing the essay for any grammar and punctuation errors allows you to make sure there are fewer flaws before the final essay.

Let's take a look at the presentation below to learn more about these stages of the writing process.

 

Because your thoughts are already organized in an outline, you can take that outline and use it to write the first draft of your research paper. You still want to include the major parts of an essay in a research paper: introduction, body, and conclusion.

It is important to note that quotes are used sparingly in a research paper like this.  You want to take the information you have learned about your author and paraphrase that information into your own words.  Paraphrased information will still include an in-text citation because you must let your reader know where you got the information.  While the majority of your body paragraphs will consist of paraphrased information you have researched, it is appropriate to include your own ideas as well. You want to share your opinions about the research in your paper. Just remember to write in third person only. It is not appropriate to use first person on this kind of research assignment. You can state your opinions as facts to eliminate first person. For example, if I have researched the writing of Alice Walker, I might write, "Alice Walker's characters are believable as real people." This statement is my opinion but is still written in third person.

 

The Works Cited

Do not forget to include a Works Cited at the end of your essay. The Works Cited should have its own page at the end of your essay and list only the sources you used in your essay in alphabetical order. View the image below for what a Works Cited page looks like:

Works Cited Example: Hanging indent after the first line of the source citation Alphabetical Order by the first word in the source citation Works Cited as title centered Works Cited Kirkland 5 Header with last name and page number Koprince, Susan. "The Secret Life of Willy Loman: a Miller-Thurber Connection." The Midwest Quarterly 53.4 (2012): 317+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12 Apr. 2015. Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin, 1996. Print. Ribkoff, Fred. "Shame, Guilt, Empathy, and the Search for Identity in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman." Modern Drama 43.1 (Spring 2000): 48-55. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 179. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12 Apr. 2015. MLA Format throughout the Works Cited Shestakov, Vyacheslav P. "American Dream and American Culture." The Origins and Originality of American Culture. Ed. Tibor Frank. Budapest: Akademiai Kiado, 1984, 583-590. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Vol. 210. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12 Apr. 2015. Double-Spaced and Times New Roman 12 Point Font Throughout

 

 

Revising and Editing

Your teacher will provide you with feedback on your rough draft. The revising/editing stage is one that many students overlook or skip altogether, and it is probably the most important step. Wait until you receive feedback before revising and submitting your final draft. When you receive the feedback from your teacher, you want to go back and apply the feedback to your essay. It is also a good idea to read your paper aloud; this will help you eliminate awkwardly worded sentences and will help you catch other grammatical mistakes you may have overlooked. 

Check for the following in your essay:

 Check the following when revising: - MLA FORMAT INTRODUCTION - PARAGRAPH FORM - - PROPER THESIS STATEMENT TOPIC SENTENCES THAT RELATE TO. THE THESIS STATEMENT - ON TOPIC DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSITIONS - EVIDENCE THAT SUPPORTS CLAIMS INTEGRATED EVIDENCE - CORRECT IN-TEXT CITATIONS - ANALYSIS OF EVIDENCE THAT DOES NOT SUMMARIZE - CONCLUSION SENTENCES FOR EACH BODY PARAGRAPH - CONCLUSION PARAGRAPH THAT DOES NOT SUMMARIZE - PROPER WORKS CITED PAGE

 

 

 

RESOURCES IN THIS MODULE ARE OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER) OR CREATED BY GAVS UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. SOME IMAGES USED UNDER SUBSCRIPTION.