research writing examples

research writing examples

Exploring Effective Research Writing Techniques

1. Introduction to Research Writing

The purpose of the following slides is to help researchers write a research project the chances of whose work being appreciated and valued, by potential peers or readers, will be maximized. Ideas about how to produce a work originated from the experience and expertise of people of different disciplines, who are accustomed to participating in the preliminary, formative and summative stage of research activities. In the last years a number of works have been published about how to write technical texts in English for researchers of health and life sciences. All authors stress the need to adapt language to the specific needs of a target audience by mastering a specialized writing ability. However, the slide presentation aims to offer a wider view of the entire writing process.

You think you have all the skills to develop a good research project from scratch. You work out the objectives, draw an outline, build up your methodology, gather information, refine the interspersed knots of technicalities, and finally, QED. All right, you have your research. But your job is not yet done; you have to describe it to be able to disseminate what you have found. This is what we call writing. You will have to become a writer. It is just an activity finishing in words, but it is inside words that the effectiveness of research really remains informed to the public. Otherwise, it will appear no more important than building castles in the air.

2. Key Components of a Research Paper

A title or title page of a research paper is the most important as the first impression for the reader. It influences the reader’s decision on whether to read the rest of the paper or not. It is critical that it offers an effective title that also reflects the content of the research. A title should be concise (maximum 12-15 words, including appropriate words), informative, and enduring. Typical research paper titles are usually 6-14 words long. Titles should have: (a) no punctuation marks except the hyphen, which should be used as a space connector instead of – and, (b) most important words are in the beginning or ending of the title, and (c) capitalization for all words except for these article words like prepositions, conjunctions, and sums being only a few characters. Paragraphs should be succinct with enough word counts. A word count should have 8-9 characters and should be loaded with keywords and pointers of the paper, (d) Follow format specifics, and (e) Avoid jargon.

This section acquaints the readers with typical research paper sections. Subsections appear in the same order as the following: (a) Title and Title Page, (b) Abstracts, (c) Introductions and Effective Conclusion Writing, (d) Theoretical Body (e.g., Literature Review, Framework-Model Development, Hypothesis Development), (e) Methodology, (f) Data Analysis and Results, (g) Discussion, (h) Limitations, and (i) Conclusions. It gives inside views and provides information about the common items that are included in research papers. Typical content of these items is discussed and examined.

3. Effective Literature Review Strategies

– Library searches – catalogue, electronic databases, bookshelves (or those in your personal study), media and electronic resources, computer webs, government or regional reports, and digital libraries. – Personal contact – current and ex-colleagues, family, friends, and so on. – Other electronic sources, including funding or industry bodies, conference proceedings, and subject and industry-specific resources. – Competitions like Staff or Student Researcher of the Year make life as easy as possible for winners in terms of data handling, but remember to use these resources discreetly as your work may well be reviewed by external examiners who, if your work is not strong, will be suspicious as to how you formed the research arguments you are putting forward. Also, consider using Google Scholar as often as the research equivalent. Going through the databases can be very time-consuming, so think about your search terms, synonyms, and alternative wording carefully and use Boolean logic whenever possible to focus on the most relevant sources. Plus, do not just rely on electronic searches. There is still a wealth of quality information available offline that you may want to consult.

Writing your literature review should not be an entirely independent or isolated exercise, and you are likely to have several potential resources. Unlike other aspects of your research where the literature provides an essential background and framework, here it provides a specific model on which you should ideally base your review. Increasingly, researchers are using computer software to help them manage references or resources. This is a good option, but avoid the temptation to limit the resources you use to such a product. There are many ways you can find resources for your literature review, including through:

4. Data Collection and Analysis Methods

We found that these rather more administratively constructed regions limit the autonomy of regional governing bodies. Their autonomy was further hampered by centralized decision-making and reduced financial autonomy, both at a local level and in the hands of the national government. In the absence of a clear policy direction, neither of these native groups has been able to define a regional mission, and each is struggling to define a clear role through which they can contribute to furthering the region’s development within the context of broader society’s aims. These problems have been reflected in the relative underperformance of each region when cross-sectional statistics were collected.

As already touched upon, Section 3 includes two closely related but distinct stories from the viewpoint of how the research was done. This next section does the opposite: it contains two different stories of the same thing. The collection and analysis of interviews with leaders of regional governing bodies across England. Crossing from the data collection to the data analysis, uniformity is maintained. Starting with the uniform story of how leaders were identified, contacted and arranged to be interviewed. The remainder of this story tells of the small variations. These reflect the geography of regional government in England and the differing structures there, and barriers and challenges to data collection faced, and overcome, in each region visited.

5. Writing and Formatting Tips for Research Papers

It is important to present the title using complete capital letters and bold style. It avoids lengthy titles in short paper presentation. After the title, we must present the list names of the authors. It is important to use the complete name in all cases presenting after the name of author a cursor number (which was presented as a comment in the authors’ list). If a conference paper, use the information on the next items. The collection it belongs and its date must appear as notes, footnotes, and headers. If the source of financial support was from some institution, the author must inform it. They are presented using identifiers and are common information of all conferences and are described in the starting part of conference papers. These directives must be followed strictly! Next, the abstract must be presented. All formatting items are already set. The template contains placeholders that help the authors to fill the elements. This template was prepared for use with Computer Society journal, but the general guidelines must be followed by the authors of this special issue. Flexibility does not mean almost anything. Responsibility on the editing and final presentation, research content and citations are personal items reflecting the author’s decisions. Enjoy and relax regarding scientific text until LaTeX eliminates most manuscript misconfiguration!

This section offers items that we have found to endear our students to the reviewers of their papers. You may find other sets of preferences. It should also be noted that the effectiveness of writing and formatting will not save a paper that is poorly conceptualized, designed, derived, or decoded. Researchers usually have to conduct their research by themselves. Nevertheless, writing a research paper has been seen as the final product of all the work previously done, so it is important to prepare a suitable template for creating and updating a research paper, especially regarding text edition using the LaTeX software. Our purpose with this template is to facilitate containing all elements of article printing needed for conferences, seminars, and journals in the area of Education and Information Technology. We propose the reading and understanding of the text associated with the LaTeX code present on the template to get used to our template whose instructions will be found as notes in the document management template.