What Are The Main Objectives Of Writing A Research Paper

The main objective of writing an organized research paper is to allow your readers to selectively read your work. When you research for a particular topic, you may be interested in the interpretation, methods, specific results, or perhaps only in the summary of the paper to check if it's relevant to your study.

To this end, different journals require the above mentioned sections to be submitted in order of each section starting on a new page. Of course, there are variations, but the main thing is your research paper should adhere to the style and format required by your university or professor.

Here is a sample variation of a research paper:

* General Style

Specific requirements for submission of a research paper always supersede instructions given in this general research paper guideline.

To make your research paper readable:

* Use a 12-point standard font. This includes Geneva, Times, Helvetica, Bookman, etc.
* The texts should be double-spaced with 1 inch single sided margin on 8 1/2 x 11 paper.
* The pages should be numbered consecutively.
* Each section should be started on a new page.
* The research paper should adhere to the recommended page limits.

Here are the contents of a general style research paper:

* Title Page

You should choose an informative title for your research paper. Include the name and address of the author/authors and the date you submitted your research paper.

* Abstract

This is generally the summary of your research paper. It should be 200 words or less. By reading the abstract in a minute or less, your reader should be able to learn the rationally behind your study, the general approach to the main problem you presented in your research paper, the pertinent results, and the important conclusions.

* Introduction

The purpose of your introduction is to acquaint your readers with the rationale behind your research paper, and with the main intention of defending your work. Your introduction places your paper in a more theoretical context. It should enable your readers to understand as well as to appreciate the objectives of your research paper.

* Materials and Methods

The materials and methods section should be the easiest and simplest to write, however, many students misunderstand its purpose. The main objective is to gather all the general procedures as well as the specialized materials used in the research paper, so that other people, particularly the readers may utilize some or perhaps all the methods in another research or study.

* Results

The main purpose of the results section of a research paper is to illustrate and present your findings. This section should be a completely objective report of your results.

* Discussion

The main objective of the discussion section is to provide the readers with the interpretation of the results. This section should support the conclusion, using the evidence gathered from the experiments and generally accepted knowledge. It should present a clear significance of the findings.

* Literature Cited

This section lists all the literature cited in the research paper, in alphabetical order and by the first author as cited in the paper. However, always be cautious about using websites as your references, as anyone can just use about anything on a website, and there is no certain way of knowing whether the content of a website is the truth or fiction.

If you want to cite an online journal, the journal citation such as the name, the volume, the year, and the page numbers must be used.