When you are all set to do academic writing on a research paper, you must have three things in mind; clarity in writing, organized form of presentation and comprehensive arguments. It would be hard to write a research paper with the first sentence of introduction and then writing paragraphs and paragraphs unless you write the last sentence of the conclusion, but you can trounce over these challenges if you follow the following steps.
Draw skeletal outlines
Outline the introduction section that includes background which states previous studies, research gap, and your actions. For example, suppose your topic is “general history of music”, the outlines for the background section will include:
Background
General history of music
-
- Origin of music
- Music of India
- Formation of the first musical instrument
- Musical learning
- Past trends of the use of musical instruments
Consulting resources for information in Academic Writing
The next step is to go through references to collect information. If you are writing a manuscript, you will refer books, articles and database for gathering information. However, if you have made experiential studies, you will use your research records to describe methods and findings.
Write Rough Sentences
Forming rough sentences along with noting down references can be helpful at the time of drafting a scientific paper. Take notes of words or phrases from information resources and make meaningful sentences from them. By this way, you will be already clear with an idea what you have to include in your paper. For example,
Background
- General history of music
- Music has been the part of every known culture.
- Hindustani music was found in central, eastern and northern regions.
- Music has been in existence for over 50,000 years.
- In the 10th and 11th centuries musical methods were developed.
- The first music was invented in Africa.
- The oldest musical instrument was believed to be a flute.
- Music is likely to have begun with clapping and beating hands on surfaces.
- Carnatic music was found in the peninsula region.
- Dancing girl sculpture was found in Indus Valley Civilisation.
- In the 17th century music was recommended for religious purpose.
- Originally the shape of a flute was supposed to be like a bull’s horn.
Organise these Sentences as per Subheadings
You have a long list of complete statements. Now you will arrange them in each subheading to make paragraphs. To make a focused paragraph, you should arrange sentences related to a particular theme or subject. To illustrate,
Background
General history of music
-
- Origin of music
- Music has been the part of every known culture.
- Music has been in existence for over 50,000 years.
- The first music was invented in Africa.
- Music is likely to have begun with clapping and beating hands on surfaces.
-
- Music of India
- Hindustani music was found in central, eastern and northern regions.
- Carnatic music was found in the peninsula region.
- Dancing girl sculpture was found in Indus Valley Civilisation.
- In the 17th century music was recommended for religious purpose
-
- Formation of the first musical instrument
- The oldest musical instrument was believed to be a flute.
- Originally the shape of a flute was supposed to be like a bull’s horn.
Build Paragraphs for Academic Writing
You have made pointers that have to be included to define a section, so the next step is to club them to make a paragraph. The first sentence should be a summary of what you are going to explain in the section, and rest sentences should be introduced to expand the summary. For instance, you can write the following summary sentence for the first group of sentences mentioned above – “the origin of music is yet unknown”.
You will have rough paragraphs for each topic or section, so the next step is to consolidate them. Decide which paragraph most directly addresses the issue, and toss out paragraphs that contains a great deal of peripheral information.
Improve your writing draft
Your rach statement should be declarative and coherent. There should be a flow between each sentence. If sentences are complex, try to break them in consecutive simple sentences. Look out for extraneous sentences and try to fit that into a section where it belongs to. Remove nonessential information and try to explain one point in one paragraph.