Brief Guide to Research Paper Formatting

It is not a difficult task to write a research paper if you know where to begin and some of the challenges you might face along the way. This guide will make that process less challenging. You will find some of the tips on formatting and writing your research paper.

1. Introduction

It is by far the most challenging part to write in an essay, and it is surprisingly one of the shortest blocks to write because it takes just about 10% of the total word count. You will also outline your topic and give the reader some background information on your case and develop a thesis statement or the main argument. The main thing is to ensure that the reader is interested in reading the rest of your work and also to provide them with the main idea.

2. Body

You will present all your facts to support your thesis statement here.  Ensure that you stick to one central point within one paragraph, and you must also ensure that all your sections are not more than 200 words. Make sure that you have transition sentences at the very end of a paragraph.

3. Conclusion

You will summarize your history at this point. Make sure that you avoid introducing any new citations or facts because your main thing will be to show how all the facts you are previously presented in the body support the thesis.

Tips for having a proper citation format for research paper

It can be challenging to stick to the research paper format of your college, but you need to be attentive if you want to succeed. You can develop the skill of formatting a research paper, which will also help you in the future. Here are some tips to formatting research paper APA style.

  • Set 1-inch margins on every side of your APA and MLA format
  • Double-space your essay when you’re writing in the MLA and APA format
  • Utilize the Times new Roman and 12 point font size
  • Include headers with page numbers at the right corner on the top of the page
  • Write the abstract and conclusion on each separate page when you’re using the APA style research paper formatting

If you’re writing an essay that is longer than six pages, you must ensure that you have a table of contents and add some subheadings and headings to Bolster readability. You also need to follow MLA research paper formatting instructions and learn more on formatting a research paper Chicago. The MLA guidelines for formatting a research paper are important.

Sections of the research paper

Title page

It includes the essay title and the name of the author, and the institution’s affiliation.

Abstract

It is an overview of the whole paper. It ranges between 100 to 300 words, and it carries some of the information found within your essay’s body. Short assignments do not require abstracts.

Introduction

Tell the reader about your thesis statement and be sure to mention the importance of the issue.

Literature review

Describe some of the previous studies that have been done concerning the topic of your choice.

Methodology

The part aims to explain the methods of research that have been used in the paper. You need to write the methods used to collect your data and how you did it.

Results and findings

You will present all your findings of the research that you have done in this section.

Discussion

Analyze your results and discuss their relationship to some of the previous studies that other authors have done.

References

Provide a complete bibliography of all the resources that you used to complete your paper. You also need to include tables and graphs that depict your experimental results or statistics. You may also want to have the tables and charts in the section of appendices.

You must understand that it can be a challenging task to write and complete a research paper. The number one thing you need to do is to have enough time to go through it. You can also conduct some research on Chicago research paper formatting .

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