how long is a research paper

How Long Should a Research Paper Be? Data from 61,519 Examples

I analyzed a random sample of 61,519 full-text research papers, uploaded to PubMed Central between the years 2016 and 2021, in order to answer the questions:

What is the typical overall length of a research paper? and how long should each section be?

I used the BioC API to download the data (see the References section below).

Here’s a summary of the key findings

1- The median length of a research paper is 4,133 words (equivalent to 166 sentences or 34 paragraphs), excluding the abstract and references, with 90% of papers being between 2,023 and 8,284 words.

2- A typical article is divided in the following way:

• Introduction section: 14.6% of the total word count.
• Methods section: 29.7% of the total word count.
• Results section: 26.2% of the total word count.
• Discussion section: 29.4% of the total word count.

Notice that the Materials and methods is the longest section of a professionally written article. So always write this section in enough depth to provide the readers with the necessary details that allow them to replicate your study if they wanted to without requiring further information.

Overall length of a research paper

Let’s start by looking at the maximum word count allowed in some of the well-known journals. Note that the numbers reported in this table include the Abstract , Figure legends and References unless otherwise specified:

[1] excluding figure legends [2] excluding references

⚠ Note A review paper is either a systematic review or a meta-analysis, and an original research paper refers to either an observational or an experimental study conducted by the authors themselves.

Notice the large variability between these journals: The maximum number of words allowed ranges between 3,000 and 9,000 words.

Next, let’s look at our data.

Here’s a table that describes the length of a research paper in our sample:

90% of research papers have a word count between 2,023 and 8,284. So it will be a little weird to see a word count outside of this range.

Our data also agree that a typical review paper is a little bit longer than a typical original research paper but not by much (3,858 vs 3,708 words).

Length of each section in a research article

The median article with an IMRaD structure (i.e. contains the following sections: Introduction , Methods , Results and Discussion ) is in general characterized by a short 553 words introduction. And the methods, results and discussion sections are about twice the size of the introduction:

For more information, see:

• How Long Should a Research Title Be? Data from 104,161 Examples
• How Long Should the Abstract Be? Data 61,429 from Examples
• How Long Should the Introduction of a Research Paper Be? Data from 61,518 Examples
• How Long Should the Methods Section Be? Data from 61,514 Examples
• How Long Should the Results Section Be? Data from 61,458 Examples
• How Long Should the Discussion Section Be? Data from 61,517 Examples
• Length of a Conclusion Section: Analysis of 47,810 Examples
• Comeau DC, Wei CH, Islamaj Doğan R, and Lu Z. PMC text mining subset in BioC: about 3 million full text articles and growing,  Bioinformatics , btz070, 2019.

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How to Write a Research Paper: the LEAP approach (+cheat sheet)

In this article I will show you how to write a research paper using the four LEAP writing steps. The LEAP academic writing approach is a step-by-step method for turning research results into a published paper .

The LEAP writing approach has been the cornerstone of the 70 + research papers that I have authored and the 3700+ citations these paper have accumulated within 9 years since the completion of my PhD. I hope the LEAP approach will help you just as much as it has helped me to make an real, tangible impact with my research.

What is the LEAP research paper writing approach?

I designed the LEAP writing approach not only for merely writing the papers. My goal with the writing system was to show young scientists how to first think about research results and then how to efficiently write each section of the research paper.

In other words, you will see how to write a research paper by first analyzing the results and then building a logical, persuasive arguments. In this way, instead of being afraid of writing research paper, you will be able to rely on the paper writing process to help you with what is the most demanding task in getting published – thinking.

The four research paper writing steps according to the LEAP approach:

I will show each of these steps in detail. And you will be able to download the LEAP cheat sheet for using with every paper you write.

But before I tell you how to efficiently write a research paper, I want to show you what is the problem with the way scientists typically write a research paper and why the LEAP approach is more efficient.

How scientists typically write a research paper (and why it isn’t efficient)

Writing a research paper can be tough, especially for a young scientist. Your reasoning needs to be persuasive and thorough enough to convince readers of your arguments. The description has to be derived from research evidence, from prior art, and from your own judgment. This is a tough feat to accomplish.

The figure below shows the sequence of the different parts of a typical research paper. Depending on the scientific journal, some sections might be merged or nonexistent, but the general outline of a research paper will remain very similar.

Here is the problem: Most people make the mistake of writing in this same sequence.

While the structure of scientific articles is designed to help the reader follow the research, it does little to help the scientist write the paper. This is because the layout of research articles starts with the broad (introduction) and narrows down to the specifics (results). See in the figure below how the research paper is structured in terms of the breath of information that each section entails.

How to write a research paper according to the LEAP approach

For a scientist, it is much easier to start writing a research paper with laying out the facts in the narrow sections (i.e. results), step back to describe them (i.e. write the discussion), and step back again to explain the broader picture in the introduction.

For example, it might feel intimidating to start writing a research paper by explaining your research’s global significance in the introduction, while it is easy to plot the figures in the results. When plotting the results, there is not much room for wiggle: the results are what they are.

Starting to write a research papers from the results is also more fun because you finally get to see and understand the complete picture of the research that you have worked on.

Most importantly, following the LEAP approach will help you first make sense of the results yourself and then clearly communicate them to the readers. That is because the sequence of writing allows you to slowly understand the meaning of the results and then develop arguments for presenting to your readers.

I have personally been able to write and submit a research article in three short days using this method.

Step 1: Lay Out the Facts

You have worked long hours on a research project that has produced results and are no doubt curious to determine what they exactly mean. There is no better way to do this than by preparing figures, graphics and tables. This is what the first LEAP step is focused on – diving into the results.

How to p repare charts and tables for a research paper

Your first task is to try out different ways of visually demonstrating the research results. In many fields, the central items of a journal paper will be charts that are based on the data generated during research. In other fields, these might be conceptual diagrams, microscopy images, schematics and a number of other types of scientific graphics which should visually communicate the research study and its results to the readers. If you have reasonably small number of data points, data tables might be useful as well.

Tips for preparing charts and tables

• Try multiple chart types but in the finished paper only use the one that best conveys the message you want to present to the readers
• Follow the eight chart design progressions for selecting and refining a data chart for your paper: https://peerrecognized.com/chart-progressions
• Prepare scientific graphics and visualizations for your paper using the scientific graphic design cheat sheet: https://peerrecognized.com/tools-for-creating-scientific-illustrations/

How to describe the results of your research

Now that you have your data charts, graphics and tables laid out in front of you – describe what you see in them. Seek to answer the question: What have I found?  Your statements should progress in a logical sequence and be backed by the visual information. Since, at this point, you are simply explaining what everyone should be able to see for themselves, you can use a declarative tone: The figure X demonstrates that…

Tips for describing the research results :

• Answer the question: “ What have I found? “
• Use declarative tone since you are simply describing observations

Step 2: Explain the results

The core aspect of your research paper is not actually the results; it is the explanation of their meaning. In the second LEAP step, you will do some heavy lifting by guiding the readers through the results using logic backed by previous scientific research.

How to define the Message of a research paper

To define the central message of your research paper, imagine how you would explain your research to a colleague in 20 seconds . If you succeed in effectively communicating your paper’s message, a reader should be able to recount your findings in a similarly concise way even a year after reading it. This clarity will increase the chances that someone uses the knowledge you generated, which in turn raises the likelihood of citations to your research paper. 

Tips for defining the paper’s central message :

• Write the paper’s core message in a single sentence or two bullet points
• Write the core message in the header of the research paper manuscript

How to write the Discussion section of a research paper

In the discussion section you have to demonstrate why your research paper is worthy of publishing. In other words, you must now answer the all-important So what? question . How well you do so will ultimately define the success of your research paper.

Here are three steps to get started with writing the discussion section:

• Write bullet points of the things that convey the central message of the research article (these may evolve into subheadings later on).
• Make a list with the arguments or observations that support each idea.
• Finally, expand on each point to make full sentences and paragraphs.

Tips for writing the discussion section:

• What is the meaning of the results?
• Was the hypothesis confirmed?
• Write bullet points that support the core message
• List logical arguments for each bullet point, group them into sections
• Instead of repeating research timeline, use a presentation sequence that best supports your logic
• Convert arguments to full paragraphs; be confident but do not overhype
• Refer to both supportive and contradicting research papers for maximum credibility

How to write the Conclusions of a research paper

Since some readers might just skim through your research paper and turn directly to the conclusions, it is a good idea to make conclusion a standalone piece. In the first few sentences of the conclusions, briefly summarize the methodology and try to avoid using abbreviations (if you do, explain what they mean).

After this introduction, summarize the findings from the discussion section. Either paragraph style or bullet-point style conclusions can be used. I prefer the bullet-point style because it clearly separates the different conclusions and provides an easy-to-digest overview for the casual browser. It also forces me to be more succinct.

Tips for writing the conclusion section :

• Summarize the key findings, starting with the most important one
• Make conclusions standalone (short summary, avoid abbreviations)
• Add an optional take-home message and suggest future research in the last paragraph

How to refine the Objective of a research paper

The objective is a short, clear statement defining the paper’s research goals. It can be included either in the final paragraph of the introduction, or as a separate subsection after the introduction. Avoid writing long paragraphs with in-depth reasoning, references, and explanation of methodology since these belong in other sections. The paper’s objective can often be written in a single crisp sentence.

Tips for writing the objective section :

• The objective should ask the question that is answered by the central message of the research paper
• The research objective should be clear long before writing a paper. At this point, you are simply refining it to make sure it is addressed in the body of the paper.

How to write the Methodology section of your research paper

When writing the methodology section, aim for a depth of explanation that will allow readers to reproduce the study . This means that if you are using a novel method, you will have to describe it thoroughly. If, on the other hand, you applied a standardized method, or used an approach from another paper, it will be enough to briefly describe it with reference to the detailed original source.

Remember to also detail the research population, mention how you ensured representative sampling, and elaborate on what statistical methods you used to analyze the results.

Tips for writing the methodology section :

• Include enough detail to allow reproducing the research
• Provide references if the methods are known
• Create a methodology flow chart to add clarity
• Describe the research population, sampling methodology, statistical methods for result analysis
• Describe what methodology, test methods, materials, and sample groups were used in the research.

Step 3: Advertize the research

Step 3 of the LEAP writing approach is designed to entice the casual browser into reading your research paper. This advertising can be done with an informative title, an intriguing abstract, as well as a thorough explanation of the underlying need for doing the research within the introduction.

How to write the Introduction of a research paper

The introduction section should leave no doubt in the mind of the reader that what you are doing is important and that this work could push scientific knowledge forward. To do this convincingly, you will need to have a good knowledge of what is state-of-the-art in your field. You also need be able to see the bigger picture in order to demonstrate the potential impacts of your research work.

Think of the introduction as a funnel, going from wide to narrow, as shown in the figure below:

• Start with a brief context to explain what do we already know,
• Follow with the motivation for the research study and explain why should we care about it,
• Explain the research gap you are going to bridge within this research paper,
• Describe the approach you will take to solve the problem.

Tips for writing the introduction section :

• Follow the Context – Motivation – Research gap – Approach funnel for writing the introduction
• Explain how others tried and how you plan to solve the research problem
• Do a thorough literature review before writing the introduction
• Start writing the introduction by using your own words, then add references from the literature

How to prepare the Abstract of a research paper

The abstract acts as your paper’s elevator pitch and is therefore best written only after the main text is finished. In this one short paragraph you must convince someone to take on the time-consuming task of reading your whole research article. So, make the paper easy to read, intriguing, and self-explanatory; avoid jargon and abbreviations.

How to structure the abstract of a research paper:

• The abstract is a single paragraph that follows this structure:
• Problem: why did we research this
• Methodology: typically starts with the words “Here we…” that signal the start of own contribution.
• Results: what we found from the research.
• Conclusions: show why are the findings important

How to compose a research paper Title

The title is the ultimate summary of a research paper. It must therefore entice someone looking for information to click on a link to it and continue reading the article. A title is also used for indexing purposes in scientific databases, so a representative and optimized title will play large role in determining if your research paper appears in search results at all.

Tips for coming up with a research paper title:

• Capture curiosity of potential readers using a clear and descriptive title
• Include broad terms that are often searched
• Add details that uniquely identify the researched subject of your research paper
• Avoid jargon and abbreviations
• Use keywords as title extension (instead of duplicating the words) to increase the chance of appearing in search results

How to prepare Highlights and Graphical Abstract

Highlights are three to five short bullet-point style statements that convey the core findings of the research paper. Notice that the focus is on the findings, not on the process of getting there.

A graphical abstract placed next to the textual abstract visually summarizes the entire research paper in a single, easy-to-follow figure. I show how to create a graphical abstract in my book Research Data Visualization and Scientific Graphics.

Tips for preparing highlights and graphical abstract:

• In highlights show core findings of the research paper (instead of what you did in the study).
• In graphical abstract show take-home message or methodology of the research paper. Learn more about creating a graphical abstract in this article.

Step 4: Prepare for submission

Sometimes it seems that nuclear fusion will stop on the star closest to us (read: the sun will stop to shine) before a submitted manuscript is published in a scientific journal. The publication process routinely takes a long time, and after submitting the manuscript you have very little control over what happens. To increase the chances of a quick publication, you must do your homework before submitting the manuscript. In the fourth LEAP step, you make sure that your research paper is published in the most appropriate journal as quickly and painlessly as possible.

How to select a scientific Journal for your research paper

The best way to find a journal for your research paper is it to review which journals you used while preparing your manuscript. This source listing should provide some assurance that your own research paper, once published, will be among similar articles and, thus, among your field’s trusted sources.

After this initial selection of hand-full of scientific journals, consider the following six parameters for selecting the most appropriate journal for your research paper (read this article to review each step in detail):

• Scope and publishing history
• Ranking and Recognition
• Publishing time
• Acceptance rate
• Content requirements
• Access and Fees

How to select a journal for your research paper:

• Use the six parameters to select the most appropriate scientific journal for your research paper
• Use the following tools for journal selection: https://peerrecognized.com/journals
• Follow the journal’s “Authors guide” formatting requirements

How to Edit you manuscript

No one can write a finished research paper on their first attempt. Before submitting, make sure to take a break from your work for a couple of days, or even weeks. Try not to think about the manuscript during this time. Once it has faded from your memory, it is time to return and edit. The pause will allow you to read the manuscript from a fresh perspective and make edits as necessary.

I have summarized the most useful research paper editing tools in this article.

Tips for editing a research paper:

• Take time away from the research paper to forget about it; then returning to edit,
• Start by editing the content: structure, headings, paragraphs, logic, figures
• Continue by editing the grammar and language; perform a thorough language check using academic writing tools
• Read the entire paper out loud and correct what sounds weird

How to write a compelling Cover Letter for your paper

Begin the cover letter by stating the paper’s title and the type of paper you are submitting (review paper, research paper, short communication). Next, concisely explain why your study was performed, what was done, and what the key findings are. State why the results are important and what impact they might have in the field. Make sure you mention how your approach and findings relate to the scope of the journal in order to show why the article would be of interest to the journal’s readers.

I wrote a separate article that explains what to include in a cover letter here. You can also download a cover letter template from the article.

Tips for writing a cover letter:

• Explain how the findings of your research relate to journal’s scope
• Tell what impact the research results will have
• Show why the research paper will interest the journal’s audience
• Add any legal statements as required in journal’s guide for authors

How to Answer the Reviewers

Reviewers will often ask for new experiments, extended discussion, additional details on the experimental setup, and so forth. In principle, your primary winning tactic will be to agree with the reviewers and follow their suggestions whenever possible. After all, you must earn their blessing in order to get your paper published.

Be sure to answer each review query and stick to the point. In the response to the reviewers document write exactly where in the paper you have made any changes. In the paper itself, highlight the changes using a different color. This way the reviewers are less likely to re-read the entire article and suggest new edits.

In cases when you don’t agree with the reviewers, it makes sense to answer more thoroughly. Reviewers are scientifically minded people and so, with enough logical and supported argument, they will eventually be willing to see things your way.

Tips for answering the reviewers:

• Agree with most review comments, but if you don’t, thoroughly explain why
• Highlight changes in the manuscript
• Do not take the comments personally and cool down before answering

The LEAP research paper writing cheat sheet

Imagine that you are back in grad school and preparing to take an exam on the topic: “How to write a research paper”. As an exemplary student, you would, most naturally, create a cheat sheet summarizing the subject… Well, I did it for you.

This one-page summary of the LEAP research paper writing technique will remind you of the key research paper writing steps. Print it out and stick it to a wall in your office so that you can review it whenever you are writing a new research paper.

Now that we have gone through the four LEAP research paper writing steps, I hope you have a good idea of how to write a research paper. It can be an enjoyable process and once you get the hang of it, the four LEAP writing steps should even help you think about and interpret the research results. This process should enable you to write a well-structured, concise, and compelling research paper.

Have fund with writing your next research paper. I hope it will turn out great!

Learn writing papers that get cited

The LEAP writing approach is a blueprint for writing research papers. But to be efficient and write papers that get cited, you need more than that.

My name is Martins Zaumanis and in my interactive course Research Paper Writing Masterclass I will show you how to  visualize  your research results,  frame a message  that convinces your readers, and write  each section  of the paper. Step-by-step.

And of course – you will learn to respond the infamous  Reviewer No.2.

Hey! My name is Martins Zaumanis and I am a materials scientist in Switzerland ( Google Scholar ). As the first person in my family with a PhD, I have first-hand experience of the challenges starting scientists face in academia. With this blog, I want to help young researchers succeed in academia. I call the blog “Peer Recognized”, because peer recognition is what lifts academic careers and pushes science forward.

Besides this blog, I have written the Peer Recognized book series and created the Peer Recognized Academy offering interactive online courses.

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• How to write a research paper

Last updated

11 January 2024

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With proper planning, knowledge, and framework, completing a research paper can be a fulfilling and exciting experience. 

Though it might initially sound slightly intimidating, this guide will help you embrace the challenge. 

By documenting your findings, you can inspire others and make a difference in your field. Here's how you can make your research paper unique and comprehensive.

• What is a research paper?

Research papers allow you to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of a particular topic. These papers are usually lengthier and more detailed than typical essays, requiring deeper insight into the chosen topic.

To write a research paper, you must first choose a topic that interests you and is relevant to the field of study. Once you’ve selected your topic, gathering as many relevant resources as possible, including books, scholarly articles, credible websites, and other academic materials, is essential. You must then read and analyze these sources, summarizing their key points and identifying gaps in the current research.

You can formulate your ideas and opinions once you thoroughly understand the existing research. To get there might involve conducting original research, gathering data, or analyzing existing data sets. It could also involve presenting an original argument or interpretation of the existing research.

Writing a successful research paper involves presenting your findings clearly and engagingly, which might involve using charts, graphs, or other visual aids to present your data and using concise language to explain your findings. You must also ensure your paper adheres to relevant academic formatting guidelines, including proper citations and references.

Overall, writing a research paper requires a significant amount of time, effort, and attention to detail. However, it is also an enriching experience that allows you to delve deeply into a subject that interests you and contribute to the existing body of knowledge in your chosen field.

• How long should a research paper be?

Research papers are deep dives into a topic. Therefore, they tend to be longer pieces of work than essays or opinion pieces. 

However, a suitable length depends on the complexity of the topic and your level of expertise. For instance, are you a first-year college student or an experienced professional? 

Also, remember that the best research papers provide valuable information for the benefit of others. Therefore, the quality of information matters most, not necessarily the length. Being concise is valuable.

Following these best practice steps will help keep your process simple and productive:

1. Gaining a deep understanding of any expectations

Before diving into your intended topic or beginning the research phase, take some time to orient yourself. Suppose there’s a specific topic assigned to you. In that case, it’s essential to deeply understand the question and organize your planning and approach in response. Pay attention to the key requirements and ensure you align your writing accordingly. 

This preparation step entails

Deeply understanding the task or assignment

Being clear about the expected format and length

Familiarizing yourself with the citation and referencing requirements 

Understanding any defined limits for your research contribution

Where applicable, speaking to your professor or research supervisor for further clarification

2. Choose your research topic

Select a research topic that aligns with both your interests and available resources. Ideally, focus on a field where you possess significant experience and analytical skills. In crafting your research paper, it's crucial to go beyond summarizing existing data and contribute fresh insights to the chosen area.

Consider narrowing your focus to a specific aspect of the topic. For example, if exploring the link between technology and mental health, delve into how social media use during the pandemic impacts the well-being of college students. Conducting interviews and surveys with students could provide firsthand data and unique perspectives, adding substantial value to the existing knowledge.

When finalizing your topic, adhere to legal and ethical norms in the relevant area (this ensures the integrity of your research, protects participants' rights, upholds intellectual property standards, and ensures transparency and accountability). Following these principles not only maintains the credibility of your work but also builds trust within your academic or professional community.

For instance, in writing about medical research, consider legal and ethical norms , including patient confidentiality laws and informed consent requirements. Similarly, if analyzing user data on social media platforms, be mindful of data privacy regulations, ensuring compliance with laws governing personal information collection and use. Aligning with legal and ethical standards not only avoids potential issues but also underscores the responsible conduct of your research.

3. Gather preliminary research

Once you’ve landed on your topic, it’s time to explore it further. You’ll want to discover more about available resources and existing research relevant to your assignment at this stage. 

This exploratory phase is vital as you may discover issues with your original idea or realize you have insufficient resources to explore the topic effectively. This key bit of groundwork allows you to redirect your research topic in a different, more feasible, or more relevant direction if necessary. 

Spending ample time at this stage ensures you gather everything you need, learn as much as you can about the topic, and discover gaps where the topic has yet to be sufficiently covered, offering an opportunity to research it further. 

4. Define your research question

To produce a well-structured and focused paper, it is imperative to formulate a clear and precise research question that will guide your work. Your research question must be informed by the existing literature and tailored to the scope and objectives of your project. By refining your focus, you can produce a thoughtful and engaging paper that effectively communicates your ideas to your readers.

5. Write a thesis statement

A thesis statement is a one-to-two-sentence summary of your research paper's main argument or direction. It serves as an overall guide to summarize the overall intent of the research paper for you and anyone wanting to know more about the research.

A strong thesis statement is:

Concise and clear: Explain your case in simple sentences (avoid covering multiple ideas). It might help to think of this section as an elevator pitch.

Specific: Ensure that there is no ambiguity in your statement and that your summary covers the points argued in the paper.

Debatable: A thesis statement puts forward a specific argument––it is not merely a statement but a debatable point that can be analyzed and discussed.

Here are three thesis statement examples from different disciplines:

Psychology thesis example: "We're studying adults aged 25-40 to see if taking short breaks for mindfulness can help with stress. Our goal is to find practical ways to manage anxiety better."

Environmental science thesis example: "This research paper looks into how having more city parks might make the air cleaner and keep people healthier. I want to find out if more green spaces means breathing fewer carcinogens in big cities."

UX research thesis example: "This study focuses on improving mobile banking for older adults using ethnographic research, eye-tracking analysis, and interactive prototyping. We investigate the usefulness of eye-tracking analysis with older individuals, aiming to spark debate and offer fresh perspectives on UX design and digital inclusivity for the aging population."

6. Conduct in-depth research

A research paper doesn’t just include research that you’ve uncovered from other papers and studies but your fresh insights, too. You will seek to become an expert on your topic––understanding the nuances in the current leading theories. You will analyze existing research and add your thinking and discoveries.  It's crucial to conduct well-designed research that is rigorous, robust, and based on reliable sources. Suppose a research paper lacks evidence or is biased. In that case, it won't benefit the academic community or the general public. Therefore, examining the topic thoroughly and furthering its understanding through high-quality research is essential. That usually means conducting new research. Depending on the area under investigation, you may conduct surveys, interviews, diary studies , or observational research to uncover new insights or bolster current claims.

7. Determine supporting evidence

Not every piece of research you’ve discovered will be relevant to your research paper. It’s important to categorize the most meaningful evidence to include alongside your discoveries. It's important to include evidence that doesn't support your claims to avoid exclusion bias and ensure a fair research paper.

8. Write a research paper outline

Before diving in and writing the whole paper, start with an outline. It will help you to see if more research is needed, and it will provide a framework by which to write a more compelling paper. Your supervisor may even request an outline to approve before beginning to write the first draft of the full paper. An outline will include your topic, thesis statement, key headings, short summaries of the research, and your arguments.

9. Write your first draft

Once you feel confident about your outline and sources, it’s time to write your first draft. While penning a long piece of content can be intimidating, if you’ve laid the groundwork, you will have a structure to help you move steadily through each section. To keep up motivation and inspiration, it’s often best to keep the pace quick. Stopping for long periods can interrupt your flow and make jumping back in harder than writing when things are fresh in your mind.

10. Cite your sources correctly

It's always a good practice to give credit where it's due, and the same goes for citing any works that have influenced your paper. Building your arguments on credible references adds value and authenticity to your research. In the formatting guidelines section, you’ll find an overview of different citation styles (MLA, CMOS, or APA), which will help you meet any publishing or academic requirements and strengthen your paper's credibility. It is essential to follow the guidelines provided by your school or the publication you are submitting to ensure the accuracy and relevance of your citations.

11. Ensure your work is original

It is crucial to ensure the originality of your paper, as plagiarism can lead to serious consequences. To avoid plagiarism, you should use proper paraphrasing and quoting techniques. Paraphrasing is rewriting a text in your own words while maintaining the original meaning. Quoting involves directly citing the source. Giving credit to the original author or source is essential whenever you borrow their ideas or words. You can also use plagiarism detection tools such as Scribbr or Grammarly to check the originality of your paper. These tools compare your draft writing to a vast database of online sources. If you find any accidental plagiarism, you should correct it immediately by rephrasing or citing the source.

12. Revise, edit, and proofread

One of the essential qualities of excellent writers is their ability to understand the importance of editing and proofreading. Even though it's tempting to call it a day once you've finished your writing, editing your work can significantly improve its quality. It's natural to overlook the weaker areas when you've just finished writing a paper. Therefore, it's best to take a break of a day or two, or even up to a week, to refresh your mind. This way, you can return to your work with a new perspective. After some breathing room, you can spot any inconsistencies, spelling and grammar errors, typos, or missing citations and correct them. 

• The best research paper format 

The format of your research paper should align with the requirements set forth by your college, school, or target publication. 

There is no one “best” format, per se. Depending on the stated requirements, you may need to include the following elements:

Title page: The title page of a research paper typically includes the title, author's name, and institutional affiliation and may include additional information such as a course name or instructor's name. 

Table of contents: Include a table of contents to make it easy for readers to find specific sections of your paper.

Abstract: The abstract is a summary of the purpose of the paper.

Methods : In this section, describe the research methods used. This may include collecting data , conducting interviews, or doing field research .

Results: Summarize the conclusions you drew from your research in this section.

Discussion: In this section, discuss the implications of your research . Be sure to mention any significant limitations to your approach and suggest areas for further research.

Tables, charts, and illustrations: Use tables, charts, and illustrations to help convey your research findings and make them easier to understand.

Works cited or reference page: Include a works cited or reference page to give credit to the sources that you used to conduct your research.

Bibliography: Provide a list of all the sources you consulted while conducting your research.

Dedication and acknowledgments : Optionally, you may include a dedication and acknowledgments section to thank individuals who helped you with your research.

• General style and formatting guidelines

Formatting your research paper means you can submit it to your college, journal, or other publications in compliance with their criteria.

Research papers tend to follow the American Psychological Association (APA), Modern Language Association (MLA), or Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) guidelines.

Here’s how each style guide is typically used:

Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS):

CMOS is a versatile style guide used for various types of writing. It's known for its flexibility and use in the humanities. CMOS provides guidelines for citations, formatting, and overall writing style. It allows for both footnotes and in-text citations, giving writers options based on their preferences or publication requirements.

American Psychological Association (APA):

APA is common in the social sciences. It’s hailed for its clarity and emphasis on precision. It has specific rules for citing sources, creating references, and formatting papers. APA style uses in-text citations with an accompanying reference list. It's designed to convey information efficiently and is widely used in academic and scientific writing.

Modern Language Association (MLA):

MLA is widely used in the humanities, especially literature and language studies. It emphasizes the author-page format for in-text citations and provides guidelines for creating a "Works Cited" page. MLA is known for its focus on the author's name and the literary works cited. It’s frequently used in disciplines that prioritize literary analysis and critical thinking.

To confirm you're using the latest style guide, check the official website or publisher's site for updates, consult academic resources, and verify the guide's publication date. Online platforms and educational resources may also provide summaries and alerts about any revisions or additions to the style guide.

Citing sources

When working on your research paper, it's important to cite the sources you used properly. Your citation style will guide you through this process. Generally, there are three parts to citing sources in your research paper: 

First, provide a brief citation in the body of your essay. This is also known as a parenthetical or in-text citation. 

Second, include a full citation in the Reference list at the end of your paper. Different types of citations include in-text citations, footnotes, and reference lists. 

In-text citations include the author's surname and the date of the citation. 

Footnotes appear at the bottom of each page of your research paper. They may also be summarized within a reference list at the end of the paper. 

A reference list includes all of the research used within the paper at the end of the document. It should include the author, date, paper title, and publisher listed in the order that aligns with your citation style.

10 research paper writing tips:

Following some best practices is essential to writing a research paper that contributes to your field of study and creates a positive impact.

These tactics will help you structure your argument effectively and ensure your work benefits others:

Clear and precise language:  Ensure your language is unambiguous. Use academic language appropriately, but keep it simple. Also, provide clear takeaways for your audience.

Effective idea separation:  Organize the vast amount of information and sources in your paper with paragraphs and titles. Create easily digestible sections for your readers to navigate through.

Compelling intro:  Craft an engaging introduction that captures your reader's interest. Hook your audience and motivate them to continue reading.

Thorough revision and editing:  Take the time to review and edit your paper comprehensively. Use tools like Grammarly to detect and correct small, overlooked errors.

Thesis precision:  Develop a clear and concise thesis statement that guides your paper. Ensure that your thesis aligns with your research's overall purpose and contribution.

Logical flow of ideas:  Maintain a logical progression throughout the paper. Use transitions effectively to connect different sections and maintain coherence.

Critical evaluation of sources:  Evaluate and critically assess the relevance and reliability of your sources. Ensure that your research is based on credible and up-to-date information.

Thematic consistency:  Maintain a consistent theme throughout the paper. Ensure that all sections contribute cohesively to the overall argument.

Relevant supporting evidence:  Provide concise and relevant evidence to support your arguments. Avoid unnecessary details that may distract from the main points.

Embrace counterarguments:  Acknowledge and address opposing views to strengthen your position. Show that you have considered alternative arguments in your field.

7 research tips 

If you want your paper to not only be well-written but also contribute to the progress of human knowledge, consider these tips to take your paper to the next level:

Selecting the appropriate topic: The topic you select should align with your area of expertise, comply with the requirements of your project, and have sufficient resources for a comprehensive investigation.

Use academic databases: Academic databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, and JSTOR offer a wealth of research papers that can help you discover everything you need to know about your chosen topic.

Critically evaluate sources: It is important not to accept research findings at face value. Instead, it is crucial to critically analyze the information to avoid jumping to conclusions or overlooking important details. A well-written research paper requires a critical analysis with thorough reasoning to support claims.

Diversify your sources: Expand your research horizons by exploring a variety of sources beyond the standard databases. Utilize books, conference proceedings, and interviews to gather diverse perspectives and enrich your understanding of the topic.

Take detailed notes: Detailed note-taking is crucial during research and can help you form the outline and body of your paper.

Stay up on trends: Keep abreast of the latest developments in your field by regularly checking for recent publications. Subscribe to newsletters, follow relevant journals, and attend conferences to stay informed about emerging trends and advancements. 

Engage in peer review: Seek feedback from peers or mentors to ensure the rigor and validity of your research . Peer review helps identify potential weaknesses in your methodology and strengthens the overall credibility of your findings.

• The real-world impact of research papers

Writing a research paper is more than an academic or business exercise. The experience provides an opportunity to explore a subject in-depth, broaden one's understanding, and arrive at meaningful conclusions. With careful planning, dedication, and hard work, writing a research paper can be a fulfilling and enriching experience contributing to advancing knowledge.

How do I publish my research paper? 

Many academics wish to publish their research papers. While challenging, your paper might get traction if it covers new and well-written information. To publish your research paper, find a target publication, thoroughly read their guidelines, format your paper accordingly, and send it to them per their instructions. You may need to include a cover letter, too. After submission, your paper may be peer-reviewed by experts to assess its legitimacy, quality, originality, and methodology. Following review, you will be informed by the publication whether they have accepted or rejected your paper. 

What is a good opening sentence for a research paper? 

Beginning your research paper with a compelling introduction can ensure readers are interested in going further. A relevant quote, a compelling statistic, or a bold argument can start the paper and hook your reader. Remember, though, that the most important aspect of a research paper is the quality of the information––not necessarily your ability to storytell, so ensure anything you write aligns with your goals.

Research paper vs. a research proposal—what’s the difference?

While some may confuse research papers and proposals, they are different documents. 

A research proposal comes before a research paper. It is a detailed document that outlines an intended area of exploration. It includes the research topic, methodology, timeline, sources, and potential conclusions. Research proposals are often required when seeking approval to conduct research. 

A research paper is a summary of research findings. A research paper follows a structured format to present those findings and construct an argument or conclusion.

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Home » Research Paper – Structure, Examples and Writing Guide

Research Paper – Structure, Examples and Writing Guide

Table of Contents

Research Paper

Definition:

Research Paper is a written document that presents the author’s original research, analysis, and interpretation of a specific topic or issue.

It is typically based on Empirical Evidence, and may involve qualitative or quantitative research methods, or a combination of both. The purpose of a research paper is to contribute new knowledge or insights to a particular field of study, and to demonstrate the author’s understanding of the existing literature and theories related to the topic.

Structure of Research Paper

The structure of a research paper typically follows a standard format, consisting of several sections that convey specific information about the research study. The following is a detailed explanation of the structure of a research paper:

The title page contains the title of the paper, the name(s) of the author(s), and the affiliation(s) of the author(s). It also includes the date of submission and possibly, the name of the journal or conference where the paper is to be published.

The abstract is a brief summary of the research paper, typically ranging from 100 to 250 words. It should include the research question, the methods used, the key findings, and the implications of the results. The abstract should be written in a concise and clear manner to allow readers to quickly grasp the essence of the research.

Introduction

The introduction section of a research paper provides background information about the research problem, the research question, and the research objectives. It also outlines the significance of the research, the research gap that it aims to fill, and the approach taken to address the research question. Finally, the introduction section ends with a clear statement of the research hypothesis or research question.

Literature Review

The literature review section of a research paper provides an overview of the existing literature on the topic of study. It includes a critical analysis and synthesis of the literature, highlighting the key concepts, themes, and debates. The literature review should also demonstrate the research gap and how the current study seeks to address it.

The methods section of a research paper describes the research design, the sample selection, the data collection and analysis procedures, and the statistical methods used to analyze the data. This section should provide sufficient detail for other researchers to replicate the study.

The results section presents the findings of the research, using tables, graphs, and figures to illustrate the data. The findings should be presented in a clear and concise manner, with reference to the research question and hypothesis.

The discussion section of a research paper interprets the findings and discusses their implications for the research question, the literature review, and the field of study. It should also address the limitations of the study and suggest future research directions.

The conclusion section summarizes the main findings of the study, restates the research question and hypothesis, and provides a final reflection on the significance of the research.

The references section provides a list of all the sources cited in the paper, following a specific citation style such as APA, MLA or Chicago.

How to Write Research Paper

You can write Research Paper by the following guide:

• Choose a Topic: The first step is to select a topic that interests you and is relevant to your field of study. Brainstorm ideas and narrow down to a research question that is specific and researchable.
• Conduct a Literature Review: The literature review helps you identify the gap in the existing research and provides a basis for your research question. It also helps you to develop a theoretical framework and research hypothesis.
• Develop a Thesis Statement : The thesis statement is the main argument of your research paper. It should be clear, concise and specific to your research question.
• Plan your Research: Develop a research plan that outlines the methods, data sources, and data analysis procedures. This will help you to collect and analyze data effectively.
• Collect and Analyze Data: Collect data using various methods such as surveys, interviews, observations, or experiments. Analyze data using statistical tools or other qualitative methods.
• Organize your Paper : Organize your paper into sections such as Introduction, Literature Review, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. Ensure that each section is coherent and follows a logical flow.
• Write your Paper : Start by writing the introduction, followed by the literature review, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion. Ensure that your writing is clear, concise, and follows the required formatting and citation styles.
• Edit and Proofread your Paper: Review your paper for grammar and spelling errors, and ensure that it is well-structured and easy to read. Ask someone else to review your paper to get feedback and suggestions for improvement.
• Cite your Sources: Ensure that you properly cite all sources used in your research paper. This is essential for giving credit to the original authors and avoiding plagiarism.

Research Paper Example

Note : The below example research paper is for illustrative purposes only and is not an actual research paper. Actual research papers may have different structures, contents, and formats depending on the field of study, research question, data collection and analysis methods, and other factors. Students should always consult with their professors or supervisors for specific guidelines and expectations for their research papers.

Research Paper Example sample for Students:

Title: The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health among Young Adults

Abstract: This study aims to investigate the impact of social media use on the mental health of young adults. A literature review was conducted to examine the existing research on the topic. A survey was then administered to 200 university students to collect data on their social media use, mental health status, and perceived impact of social media on their mental health. The results showed that social media use is positively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. The study also found that social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) are significant predictors of mental health problems among young adults.

Introduction: Social media has become an integral part of modern life, particularly among young adults. While social media has many benefits, including increased communication and social connectivity, it has also been associated with negative outcomes, such as addiction, cyberbullying, and mental health problems. This study aims to investigate the impact of social media use on the mental health of young adults.

Literature Review: The literature review highlights the existing research on the impact of social media use on mental health. The review shows that social media use is associated with depression, anxiety, stress, and other mental health problems. The review also identifies the factors that contribute to the negative impact of social media, including social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO.

Methods : A survey was administered to 200 university students to collect data on their social media use, mental health status, and perceived impact of social media on their mental health. The survey included questions on social media use, mental health status (measured using the DASS-21), and perceived impact of social media on their mental health. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and regression analysis.

Results : The results showed that social media use is positively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. The study also found that social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO are significant predictors of mental health problems among young adults.

Discussion : The study’s findings suggest that social media use has a negative impact on the mental health of young adults. The study highlights the need for interventions that address the factors contributing to the negative impact of social media, such as social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO.

Conclusion : In conclusion, social media use has a significant impact on the mental health of young adults. The study’s findings underscore the need for interventions that promote healthy social media use and address the negative outcomes associated with social media use. Future research can explore the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing the negative impact of social media on mental health. Additionally, longitudinal studies can investigate the long-term effects of social media use on mental health.

Limitations : The study has some limitations, including the use of self-report measures and a cross-sectional design. The use of self-report measures may result in biased responses, and a cross-sectional design limits the ability to establish causality.

Implications: The study’s findings have implications for mental health professionals, educators, and policymakers. Mental health professionals can use the findings to develop interventions that address the negative impact of social media use on mental health. Educators can incorporate social media literacy into their curriculum to promote healthy social media use among young adults. Policymakers can use the findings to develop policies that protect young adults from the negative outcomes associated with social media use.

References :

• Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K. (2019). Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents: Evidence from a population-based study. Preventive medicine reports, 15, 100918.
• Primack, B. A., Shensa, A., Escobar-Viera, C. G., Barrett, E. L., Sidani, J. E., Colditz, J. B., … & James, A. E. (2017). Use of multiple social media platforms and symptoms of depression and anxiety: A nationally-representative study among US young adults. Computers in Human Behavior, 69, 1-9.
• Van der Meer, T. G., & Verhoeven, J. W. (2017). Social media and its impact on academic performance of students. Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, 16, 383-398.

Appendix : The survey used in this study is provided below.

Social Media and Mental Health Survey

• How often do you use social media per day?
• Less than 30 minutes
• 30 minutes to 1 hour
• 1 to 2 hours
• 2 to 4 hours
• More than 4 hours
• Which social media platforms do you use?
• Others (Please specify)
• How often do you experience the following on social media?
• Social comparison (comparing yourself to others)
• Cyberbullying
• Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)
• Have you ever experienced any of the following mental health problems in the past month?
• Do you think social media use has a positive or negative impact on your mental health?
• Very positive
• Somewhat positive
• Somewhat negative
• Very negative
• In your opinion, which factors contribute to the negative impact of social media on mental health?
• Social comparison
• In your opinion, what interventions could be effective in reducing the negative impact of social media on mental health?
• Education on healthy social media use
• Counseling for mental health problems caused by social media
• Social media detox programs
• Regulation of social media use

Thank you for your participation!

Applications of Research Paper

Research papers have several applications in various fields, including:

• Advancing knowledge: Research papers contribute to the advancement of knowledge by generating new insights, theories, and findings that can inform future research and practice. They help to answer important questions, clarify existing knowledge, and identify areas that require further investigation.
• Informing policy: Research papers can inform policy decisions by providing evidence-based recommendations for policymakers. They can help to identify gaps in current policies, evaluate the effectiveness of interventions, and inform the development of new policies and regulations.
• Improving practice: Research papers can improve practice by providing evidence-based guidance for professionals in various fields, including medicine, education, business, and psychology. They can inform the development of best practices, guidelines, and standards of care that can improve outcomes for individuals and organizations.
• Educating students : Research papers are often used as teaching tools in universities and colleges to educate students about research methods, data analysis, and academic writing. They help students to develop critical thinking skills, research skills, and communication skills that are essential for success in many careers.
• Fostering collaboration: Research papers can foster collaboration among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers by providing a platform for sharing knowledge and ideas. They can facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations and partnerships that can lead to innovative solutions to complex problems.

When to Write Research Paper

Research papers are typically written when a person has completed a research project or when they have conducted a study and have obtained data or findings that they want to share with the academic or professional community. Research papers are usually written in academic settings, such as universities, but they can also be written in professional settings, such as research organizations, government agencies, or private companies.

Here are some common situations where a person might need to write a research paper:

• For academic purposes: Students in universities and colleges are often required to write research papers as part of their coursework, particularly in the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities. Writing research papers helps students to develop research skills, critical thinking skills, and academic writing skills.
• For publication: Researchers often write research papers to publish their findings in academic journals or to present their work at academic conferences. Publishing research papers is an important way to disseminate research findings to the academic community and to establish oneself as an expert in a particular field.
• To inform policy or practice : Researchers may write research papers to inform policy decisions or to improve practice in various fields. Research findings can be used to inform the development of policies, guidelines, and best practices that can improve outcomes for individuals and organizations.
• To share new insights or ideas: Researchers may write research papers to share new insights or ideas with the academic or professional community. They may present new theories, propose new research methods, or challenge existing paradigms in their field.

Purpose of Research Paper

The purpose of a research paper is to present the results of a study or investigation in a clear, concise, and structured manner. Research papers are written to communicate new knowledge, ideas, or findings to a specific audience, such as researchers, scholars, practitioners, or policymakers. The primary purposes of a research paper are:

• To contribute to the body of knowledge : Research papers aim to add new knowledge or insights to a particular field or discipline. They do this by reporting the results of empirical studies, reviewing and synthesizing existing literature, proposing new theories, or providing new perspectives on a topic.
• To inform or persuade: Research papers are written to inform or persuade the reader about a particular issue, topic, or phenomenon. They present evidence and arguments to support their claims and seek to persuade the reader of the validity of their findings or recommendations.
• To advance the field: Research papers seek to advance the field or discipline by identifying gaps in knowledge, proposing new research questions or approaches, or challenging existing assumptions or paradigms. They aim to contribute to ongoing debates and discussions within a field and to stimulate further research and inquiry.
• To demonstrate research skills: Research papers demonstrate the author’s research skills, including their ability to design and conduct a study, collect and analyze data, and interpret and communicate findings. They also demonstrate the author’s ability to critically evaluate existing literature, synthesize information from multiple sources, and write in a clear and structured manner.

Characteristics of Research Paper

Research papers have several characteristics that distinguish them from other forms of academic or professional writing. Here are some common characteristics of research papers:

• Evidence-based: Research papers are based on empirical evidence, which is collected through rigorous research methods such as experiments, surveys, observations, or interviews. They rely on objective data and facts to support their claims and conclusions.
• Structured and organized: Research papers have a clear and logical structure, with sections such as introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion. They are organized in a way that helps the reader to follow the argument and understand the findings.
• Formal and objective: Research papers are written in a formal and objective tone, with an emphasis on clarity, precision, and accuracy. They avoid subjective language or personal opinions and instead rely on objective data and analysis to support their arguments.
• Citations and references: Research papers include citations and references to acknowledge the sources of information and ideas used in the paper. They use a specific citation style, such as APA, MLA, or Chicago, to ensure consistency and accuracy.
• Peer-reviewed: Research papers are often peer-reviewed, which means they are evaluated by other experts in the field before they are published. Peer-review ensures that the research is of high quality, meets ethical standards, and contributes to the advancement of knowledge in the field.
• Objective and unbiased: Research papers strive to be objective and unbiased in their presentation of the findings. They avoid personal biases or preconceptions and instead rely on the data and analysis to draw conclusions.

Advantages of Research Paper

Research papers have many advantages, both for the individual researcher and for the broader academic and professional community. Here are some advantages of research papers:

• Contribution to knowledge: Research papers contribute to the body of knowledge in a particular field or discipline. They add new information, insights, and perspectives to existing literature and help advance the understanding of a particular phenomenon or issue.
• Opportunity for intellectual growth: Research papers provide an opportunity for intellectual growth for the researcher. They require critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity, which can help develop the researcher’s skills and knowledge.
• Career advancement: Research papers can help advance the researcher’s career by demonstrating their expertise and contributions to the field. They can also lead to new research opportunities, collaborations, and funding.
• Academic recognition: Research papers can lead to academic recognition in the form of awards, grants, or invitations to speak at conferences or events. They can also contribute to the researcher’s reputation and standing in the field.
• Impact on policy and practice: Research papers can have a significant impact on policy and practice. They can inform policy decisions, guide practice, and lead to changes in laws, regulations, or procedures.
• Advancement of society: Research papers can contribute to the advancement of society by addressing important issues, identifying solutions to problems, and promoting social justice and equality.

Limitations of Research Paper

Research papers also have some limitations that should be considered when interpreting their findings or implications. Here are some common limitations of research papers:

• Limited generalizability: Research findings may not be generalizable to other populations, settings, or contexts. Studies often use specific samples or conditions that may not reflect the broader population or real-world situations.
• Potential for bias : Research papers may be biased due to factors such as sample selection, measurement errors, or researcher biases. It is important to evaluate the quality of the research design and methods used to ensure that the findings are valid and reliable.
• Ethical concerns: Research papers may raise ethical concerns, such as the use of vulnerable populations or invasive procedures. Researchers must adhere to ethical guidelines and obtain informed consent from participants to ensure that the research is conducted in a responsible and respectful manner.
• Limitations of methodology: Research papers may be limited by the methodology used to collect and analyze data. For example, certain research methods may not capture the complexity or nuance of a particular phenomenon, or may not be appropriate for certain research questions.
• Publication bias: Research papers may be subject to publication bias, where positive or significant findings are more likely to be published than negative or non-significant findings. This can skew the overall findings of a particular area of research.
• Time and resource constraints: Research papers may be limited by time and resource constraints, which can affect the quality and scope of the research. Researchers may not have access to certain data or resources, or may be unable to conduct long-term studies due to practical limitations.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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How Long Should a Research Paper Be?

How Long Should A Research Paper Be? An Overview

In short, research paper's average length can range from 1,500 words for research proposals and case studies - all the way to 100,000 words for large dissertations.

Research, by its nature of being complex, requires a careful and thorough elucidation of facts, notions, information, and the like - which is all reflected in its most optimal length.

Thus, one of the critical points that you need to focus on when writing either a complex research paper or a less complex research paper is your objective and how you can relay the latter in a particular context. Say you are writing a book review. Since you will only need to synthesize information from other sources to solidify your claim about a certain topic, you will perhaps use paraphrasing techniques, which offer a relatively lower word count when compared to a full-blown descriptive research paper.

Even when both types of research differ in word counts, they can effectively attain their objectives, given the different contexts in which they are written and constructed. 

Certainly, when asked about how long is a research paper, it surely depends on the objective or the type of research you will be using. Carrying out these objectives will warrant you to do certain paper writing tasks and techniques that are not necessarily long or short when you compare them to other research types. 

At Studyfy, we care for the attainment of your research objectives. We understand that achieving such will contribute to the success of your research completion. While maintaining the ideal word count for a research paper, you are in a meaningful position to understand the various elements that can enrich your paper, even if it looks overwhelming.

How Long Should the Introduction of a Research Paper Be?

The research introduction section most likely occupies approximately 30-40% of the entire research paper.

The introduction of a regular academic paper can total 1750-2000 words depending on the research type and complexity of the research niche or topic. That is why, in writing this section, you must enrich the content of your paper while maintaining readability and coherence for the benefit of your readers.

The introduction houses the background of the study. This is the part of the paper where the entire context of the paper is established. We all know that the research context is important as it helps the readers understand why the paper is even conducted in the first place. Thus, the impression of having a well-established context can only be found in the introduction. Now that we know the gravity of creating a good introduction, let us now ask how long this section should be.

Generally speaking, the paper’s introduction is the longest among all the sections. Aside from establishing the context, the introduction must house the historical underpinnings of the study (important for case studies and ethnographic research), salient information about all the variables in the study (including their relationship with other variables), and related literature and studies that can provide insight into the novelty and peculiarities of the current research project.

To better understand the general composition of your research introduction, you may refer to the breakdown of this section below:

• Context Establishment and Introduction of Key Terms. In this subsection, you will articulate the background (historical, social, economic, psychological, etc.) of the study, including the ecosystem and the niche of your study interest. Furthermore, key terms found as variables in your study must be properly defined operationally and theoretically, if necessary. This comprises 20% of the introduction, or about 350-500 words.
• Related Literature and Studies. This is the subsection where you will criticize and integrate existing literature and studies to highlight the research gap that you intend to fill in. This comprises 25% of the introduction or about 450-600 words.
• Thesis statement. This part of the introduction can only be a paragraph or a couple of sentences, as this needs to be straightforward in relaying the identified research gap of the researchers. This comprises 5% of the introduction or about 90-100 words.
• Objectives or Research Questions. This subsection should outline the aims of the study, especially highlighting the inquiries that concern the relationship between the variables and how the research will progress to fill in the identified gaps. This comprises 5% of the introduction or about 90-100 words.

Theoretical and/or Conceptual Framework. These frameworks, when better assisted with a visual representation, guide the entire research process and provide a structure for understanding the relationship between the variables in the study. This comprises 10% of the introduction or about 180-200 words.

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Elements of Good Research Writing Process– While Maintaining the Ideal Word Count!

• Clarity of Purpose . All types of writing, whether long or short, have its clarity of purpose as the heart of the text. In research, it is manifested through the inclusion of a research question or hypothesis. A good research paper does not repeat these elements without a purpose in mind. Though they can be emphasized throughout the development of the paper, the manner of doing it must be in a logical and purposeful way. 

To guide you in writing process of doing so, you can ask yourself the following questions:

• Is the research question or hypothesis clearly stated?
• Does the introduction provide a clear overview of the purpose of the study?
• Does the purpose of the study repeat purposefully in the latter sections of the paper?
• Does the purpose of the study repeat logically in the latter sections of the paper?

2. Literature Review . When appending related literature and studies to your paper, the question must not revolve around whether you have supplied a lot of these pieces of information, making your article wordy and ideal. While the literature review adds a significant ‘chunk’ to your paper, with some paper formats even allotting a specific section for it, we must carefully consider what and how we can integrate them. It subsequently entails a critical analysis of a piece of literature or study and logically places it beside information that you desire to contest. As they say, a good literature review identifies knowledge gaps, highlights the author’s familiarity with the topic, and provides an overview of the research areas that show a disparity of agreement. In order to have these characteristics, you can ask yourself the following questions:

• Have I integrated relevant literature in my review?
• Have I placed it logically within a specific piece of information based on my presumption?
• Do they identify a concept or piece of information that is otherwise unknown to the field?
• Have I critically analyzed existing research to identify the research gap?

3. Logical Flow. Research will not be whole without its parts. Researchers must know how to tie everything together and ensure that each part is functional in itself and supplements with other parts. When dealing with a large body of text, the logical flow of the paper might be a considerable concern. Along with the confusion brought about by the wordiness and complexity of the topic, your readers might get lost because of incoherence and inconsistencies with the presentation of ideas, leading to them not reading your paper any further. Thus, while ensuring that you get the word count that you want, you might want to ask yourself these questions first:

• Does the introduction progress logically from the general background to the specific research question?
• Do the transition devices between sections and individual paragraphs of the body facilitate a smooth flow of ideas?
• Is there a clear hierarchy of ideas, with each paragraph contributing to the overall argument?
• Have I organized ideas in a way that makes the document easy to track?
• Have I pursued a logical sequence of presenting information?

4. Language Use and Style. Developing an academic language throughout your paper and maintaining a formal style of paper writing are all the more important in research writing process, and mind you, it can also help you increase your word count in a sustainable way! Incorporating this form of language and style into your paper entails more than just adding incoherent or overly manufactured words that may be viewed as fillers.

Strategies and known practices are said to hit multiple objectives without compromising the quality of the paper. You may expand your points by providing detailed explanations, introducing sufficient pieces of evidence that supports your claims, addressing counterargument through the presentation of related literature or studies, or clarifying complex concepts through chunking. To better understand these techniques, some of these questions might be helpful for you:

• Is the language clear and concise?
• Have I avoided unnecessary jargon or complex sentences or paragraphs?
• Have I avoided repetition or redundancy in the document?
• Have I expanded on key points by providing more detailed explanations and examples?
• Have I discussed nuances, variations, or exceptions to your results?
• Have I clarified some complex concepts or theories by chunking them into more detailed explanations?

How Long Should a Paragraph Be in a Research Paper?

For the research paper introduction section, a typical paragraph count will be 12-15, excluding the literature review section. Each subsection has 1-2 individual paragraphs. The mentioned section, on the other hand, can have paragraphs totaling 10-20. The conclusion section, on the other hand, is considered ideal if it has 5-7 paragraphs. 

The paragraph count differs from one research type to another and even from one paper section to another. While it is worth deciding how long should a paragraph be in a research paper, it is more important to take note of the importance of ideas that should be included in each paragraph within a certain section. Take the review of the literature section as an example. The number of literature in the paper is said to be equal to the number of paragraphs allotted for the section. The reason lies in the uniformity of importance these pieces of literature hold, provided that they are closely associated with the research gap. 

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How Long Should a Conclusion Be in a Research Paper?

A concluding section, then, must only comprise 5% of the total word count of the paper, translating to approximately 400 words. This measly allocation may put you into a flimsy situation, especially if you do not know how to manage your vocabulary well and you keep on adding filler words that can sacrifice the importance of this section. Ditch the nonsense and construct your conclusion in a concise yet enriching way.

In concluding a research paper, it is important to always synthesize the big chunks of information examined in the data analysis and discussion. As worn out as the reader may look after reaching this point, the conclusion must act as a “mellow point” for them, entrusting them only with important pointers of the study. Sometimes, the conclusion part of the paper, even though less wordy than its preceding sections, may be difficult to construct, as you still need to have a basis– a scaffold– to refer to, and synthesizing, just like analyzing and evaluating data, is just as hard and laborious.

Through its superb essay writing services , plus applying top-notch quality assurance to academic papers like research articles, Studyfy can help you achieve the best for last with an effective, meaningful, and content-rich conclusion. Your readers will not think twice about using your study as a model for their own works!

How Long is a Research Paper in terms of its Various Types?

As mentioned in the first part of the article, the word count of an academic paper is dependent on the type of research you wish to conduct. While the general word count has been given, we cannot deny the fact that this threshold is only an estimation. There might be a time when you are tasked to create a research article that is different from a standard IMRAD-structured (Introduction, Methodology, Results, Analysis, Discussion) research paper. You are in for a treat, as we will provide you with a cheat sheet for the word count of several types of write-ups in the realm of research:

Research Proposal

Specific Purpose/s: A preliminary outline that contains the research question, minimal literature review, methodology, and significance of the research undertaking.

"Word Count Range: 1500-3000 words"

Review Article

Specific Purpose/s: Review bodies of literature about an overarching topic or niche, analyze a particular section, synthesize according to certain themes, and identify knowledge gaps from the findings.

"Word Count Range: 5000-10,000 words"

Meta-Analysis

Specific Purpose/s: Involves the use of statistical analyses of multiple studies to provide a quantitative synthesis of the evidence.

"Word Count Range: 5000-15,000 words"

Specific Purpose/s: Presents an in-depth and intrusive analysis of a specific case, one which aims to illustrate a broader concept or novel phenomenon.

"Word Count Range: 1500-5000 words"

Conference Paper

Specific Purpose/s: Presents a brief introduction, salient research findings, and implications connected to a given theme by a conference or colloquium.

"Word Count Range: 2000-5000 words"

Dissertation

Specific Purpose/s: Regarded as a terminal scholarly requirement for doctorate students, this is an in-depth discussion of an otherwise original research finding, often written in chapters. It contributes significantly to the body of knowledge of a particular study of interest.

"Word Count Range: 50,000-100,000 words (depending on the institution)"

Are you contemplating buying research papers of different types? Studyfy got your back! Its roster of writers and editing experts leaves no space for errors, ensuring that both quality and quantity– that’s right: content and word count are not compromised. The variety of expertise within ensures that all research and scholarly works are delivered to your liking. Pay less– no hidden charges and markups while you enjoy the best quality of writing with Studyfy.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long is the introduction in a research paper.

AThe introduction takes up about 30-40% of the entire paper since the context and research background should be specified and further discussed. For a general academic paper with 4000 words, the introduction must be approximately 1500 words. You can do the math for the rest!

How long is a research paper, considering that there are many of them?

There is no one-size-fits-all guideline in determining the word count of a plethora of research papers in the world. Although there is an accepted word count range for each research type (as presented in the previous section), there are several factors that should likewise be considered in determining the word count: specific guidelines set by the institution you are working with, the complexity of the topic, audience, and depth of analysis. 

Do I have to include all of the prescribed subsections of the introduction to increase the word count?

While the prescribed subsections have significant functions in the research paper introduction, some of them are not required to be included. The decisions depend on the type of research you wish to conduct and the external guidelines that you might need to follow. Some disciplines, such as social sciences, require a research article to have a theoretical framework, whereas others do not. Some research papers follow the standard IMRAD paper format that infuses the literature review section into the introduction, while the Germanic Thesis paper format, for example, regards the former as a separate section.

How do I increase my word count without compromising the quality of my research paper?

The dilemma of choosing quality over quantity has long been debunked: you do not have to choose in the first place. All you need is a set of writing strategies and techniques that will target those two birds using one stone. You may provide more detail to some ambiguous or novel terms. You can add additional works of literature to some concepts that promote abstraction. You may include examples or empirical pieces of evidence to create a more concrete representation of a concept or theory. Lastly, you may use subheadings to efficiently allocate word count for your chosen discussion topics.

Why is it important to track the word count of a research paper?

There are various reasons why we need to do it. Some institutions that publish scholarly journals follow certain guidelines in word count as one of the primary requirements. A specified limit enables researchers to allocate the number of words to several sections of their writing efficiently. Most institutions also use paper length as a predictor of publication cost. The longer the word count is, the costlier the publication will be. Lastly, reading engagement is affected by word count, as readers tend to shy away from reading an article that is long, boring, and insubstantial. 

Can a writing service help me achieve my goals of writing within the right word count range?

Certainly! Studyfy offers several academic services, including writing services and Excel assignment help . Understanding your various writing needs, writers can cater to the needed style, word count, formatting, and any other aspects so that you can have the best quality write-up without having to fear extra charges and big markups.

How To Write A Research Paper

Step-By-Step Tutorial With Examples + FREE Template

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Expert Reviewer: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | March 2024

For many students, crafting a strong research paper from scratch can feel like a daunting task – and rightly so! In this post, we’ll unpack what a research paper is, what it needs to do , and how to write one – in three easy steps. 🙂 

Overview: Writing A Research Paper

What (exactly) is a research paper.

• How to write a research paper
• Stage 1 : Topic & literature search
• Stage 2 : Structure & outline
• Stage 3 : Iterative writing
• Key takeaways

Let’s start by asking the most important question, “ What is a research paper? ”.

Simply put, a research paper is a scholarly written work where the writer (that’s you!) answers a specific question (this is called a research question ) through evidence-based arguments . Evidence-based is the keyword here. In other words, a research paper is different from an essay or other writing assignments that draw from the writer’s personal opinions or experiences. With a research paper, it’s all about building your arguments based on evidence (we’ll talk more about that evidence a little later).

Now, it’s worth noting that there are many different types of research papers , including analytical papers (the type I just described), argumentative papers, and interpretative papers. Here, we’ll focus on analytical papers , as these are some of the most common – but if you’re keen to learn about other types of research papers, be sure to check out the rest of the blog .

With that basic foundation laid, let’s get down to business and look at how to write a research paper .

Overview: The 3-Stage Process

While there are, of course, many potential approaches you can take to write a research paper, there are typically three stages to the writing process. So, in this tutorial, we’ll present a straightforward three-step process that we use when working with students at Grad Coach.

These three steps are:

• Finding a research topic and reviewing the existing literature
• Developing a provisional structure and outline for your paper, and
• Writing up your initial draft and then refining it iteratively

Let’s dig into each of these.

Need a helping hand?

Step 1: Find a topic and review the literature

As we mentioned earlier, in a research paper, you, as the researcher, will try to answer a question . More specifically, that’s called a research question , and it sets the direction of your entire paper. What’s important to understand though is that you’ll need to answer that research question with the help of high-quality sources – for example, journal articles, government reports, case studies, and so on. We’ll circle back to this in a minute.

The first stage of the research process is deciding on what your research question will be and then reviewing the existing literature (in other words, past studies and papers) to see what they say about that specific research question. In some cases, your professor may provide you with a predetermined research question (or set of questions). However, in many cases, you’ll need to find your own research question within a certain topic area.

Finding a strong research question hinges on identifying a meaningful research gap – in other words, an area that’s lacking in existing research. There’s a lot to unpack here, so if you wanna learn more, check out the plain-language explainer video below.

Once you’ve figured out which question (or questions) you’ll attempt to answer in your research paper, you’ll need to do a deep dive into the existing literature – this is called a “ literature search ”. Again, there are many ways to go about this, but your most likely starting point will be Google Scholar .

If you’re new to Google Scholar, think of it as Google for the academic world. You can start by simply entering a few different keywords that are relevant to your research question and it will then present a host of articles for you to review. What you want to pay close attention to here is the number of citations for each paper – the more citations a paper has, the more credible it is (generally speaking – there are some exceptions, of course).

Ideally, what you’re looking for are well-cited papers that are highly relevant to your topic. That said, keep in mind that citations are a cumulative metric , so older papers will often have more citations than newer papers – just because they’ve been around for longer. So, don’t fixate on this metric in isolation – relevance and recency are also very important.

Beyond Google Scholar, you’ll also definitely want to check out academic databases and aggregators such as Science Direct, PubMed, JStor and so on. These will often overlap with the results that you find in Google Scholar, but they can also reveal some hidden gems – so, be sure to check them out.

Once you’ve worked your way through all the literature, you’ll want to catalogue all this information in some sort of spreadsheet so that you can easily recall who said what, when and within what context. If you’d like, we’ve got a free literature spreadsheet that helps you do exactly that.

Step 2: Develop a structure and outline

With your research question pinned down and your literature digested and catalogued, it’s time to move on to planning your actual research paper .

It might sound obvious, but it’s really important to have some sort of rough outline in place before you start writing your paper. So often, we see students eagerly rushing into the writing phase, only to land up with a disjointed research paper that rambles on in multiple

Now, the secret here is to not get caught up in the fine details . Realistically, all you need at this stage is a bullet-point list that describes (in broad strokes) what you’ll discuss and in what order. It’s also useful to remember that you’re not glued to this outline – in all likelihood, you’ll chop and change some sections once you start writing, and that’s perfectly okay. What’s important is that you have some sort of roadmap in place from the start.

At this stage you might be wondering, “ But how should I structure my research paper? ”. Well, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution here, but in general, a research paper will consist of a few relatively standardised components:

• Introduction
• Literature review
• Methodology

Let’s take a look at each of these.

First up is the introduction section . As the name suggests, the purpose of the introduction is to set the scene for your research paper. There are usually (at least) four ingredients that go into this section – these are the background to the topic, the research problem and resultant research question , and the justification or rationale. If you’re interested, the video below unpacks the introduction section in more detail. 

The next section of your research paper will typically be your literature review . Remember all that literature you worked through earlier? Well, this is where you’ll present your interpretation of all that content . You’ll do this by writing about recent trends, developments, and arguments within the literature – but more specifically, those that are relevant to your research question . The literature review can oftentimes seem a little daunting, even to seasoned researchers, so be sure to check out our extensive collection of literature review content here .

With the introduction and lit review out of the way, the next section of your paper is the research methodology . In a nutshell, the methodology section should describe to your reader what you did (beyond just reviewing the existing literature) to answer your research question. For example, what data did you collect, how did you collect that data, how did you analyse that data and so on? For each choice, you’ll also need to justify why you chose to do it that way, and what the strengths and weaknesses of your approach were.

Now, it’s worth mentioning that for some research papers, this aspect of the project may be a lot simpler . For example, you may only need to draw on secondary sources (in other words, existing data sets). In some cases, you may just be asked to draw your conclusions from the literature search itself (in other words, there may be no data analysis at all). But, if you are required to collect and analyse data, you’ll need to pay a lot of attention to the methodology section. The video below provides an example of what the methodology section might look like.

By this stage of your paper, you will have explained what your research question is, what the existing literature has to say about that question, and how you analysed additional data to try to answer your question. So, the natural next step is to present your analysis of that data . This section is usually called the “results” or “analysis” section and this is where you’ll showcase your findings.

Depending on your school’s requirements, you may need to present and interpret the data in one section – or you might split the presentation and the interpretation into two sections. In the latter case, your “results” section will just describe the data, and the “discussion” is where you’ll interpret that data and explicitly link your analysis back to your research question. If you’re not sure which approach to take, check in with your professor or take a look at past papers to see what the norms are for your programme.

Alright – once you’ve presented and discussed your results, it’s time to wrap it up . This usually takes the form of the “ conclusion ” section. In the conclusion, you’ll need to highlight the key takeaways from your study and close the loop by explicitly answering your research question. Again, the exact requirements here will vary depending on your programme (and you may not even need a conclusion section at all) – so be sure to check with your professor if you’re unsure.

Step 3: Write and refine

Finally, it’s time to get writing. All too often though, students hit a brick wall right about here… So, how do you avoid this happening to you?

Well, there’s a lot to be said when it comes to writing a research paper (or any sort of academic piece), but we’ll share three practical tips to help you get started.

First and foremost , it’s essential to approach your writing as an iterative process. In other words, you need to start with a really messy first draft and then polish it over multiple rounds of editing. Don’t waste your time trying to write a perfect research paper in one go. Instead, take the pressure off yourself by adopting an iterative approach.

Secondly , it’s important to always lean towards critical writing , rather than descriptive writing. What does this mean? Well, at the simplest level, descriptive writing focuses on the “ what ”, while critical writing digs into the “ so what ” – in other words, the implications . If you’re not familiar with these two types of writing, don’t worry! You can find a plain-language explanation here.

Last but not least, you’ll need to get your referencing right. Specifically, you’ll need to provide credible, correctly formatted citations for the statements you make. We see students making referencing mistakes all the time and it costs them dearly. The good news is that you can easily avoid this by using a simple reference manager . If you don’t have one, check out our video about Mendeley, an easy (and free) reference management tool that you can start using today.

Recap: Key Takeaways

We’ve covered a lot of ground here. To recap, the three steps to writing a high-quality research paper are:

• To choose a research question and review the literature
• To plan your paper structure and draft an outline
• To take an iterative approach to writing, focusing on critical writing and strong referencing

Remember, this is just a b ig-picture overview of the research paper development process and there’s a lot more nuance to unpack. So, be sure to grab a copy of our free research paper template to learn more about how to write a research paper.

Can you help me with a full paper template for this Abstract:

Background: Energy and sports drinks have gained popularity among diverse demographic groups, including adolescents, athletes, workers, and college students. While often used interchangeably, these beverages serve distinct purposes, with energy drinks aiming to boost energy and cognitive performance, and sports drinks designed to prevent dehydration and replenish electrolytes and carbohydrates lost during physical exertion.

Objective: To assess the nutritional quality of energy and sports drinks in Egypt.

Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study assessed the nutrient contents, including energy, sugar, electrolytes, vitamins, and caffeine, of sports and energy drinks available in major supermarkets in Cairo, Alexandria, and Giza, Egypt. Data collection involved photographing all relevant product labels and recording nutritional information. Descriptive statistics and appropriate statistical tests were employed to analyze and compare the nutritional values of energy and sports drinks.

Results: The study analyzed 38 sports drinks and 42 energy drinks. Sports drinks were significantly more expensive than energy drinks, with higher net content and elevated magnesium, potassium, and vitamin C. Energy drinks contained higher concentrations of caffeine, sugars, and vitamins B2, B3, and B6.

Conclusion: Significant nutritional differences exist between sports and energy drinks, reflecting their intended uses. However, these beverages’ high sugar content and calorie loads raise health concerns. Proper labeling, public awareness, and responsible marketing are essential to guide safe consumption practices in Egypt.

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Prism's Guide: How Long is a Research Paper?

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Prism's Guide: How Long is a Research Paper?

If you're interested in writing a research paper, one of the questions you might have is how long it should be. The answer to this question can depend on a variety of factors, including your field of study and the specific requirements of your assignment. At Prism, we understand that writing a research paper can be a daunting task, which is why we use deep learning, generative AI, and rigorous scientific methodology to speed up research workflows and accelerate learning.

When it comes to the length of a research paper, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. According to a study of over 61,000 research papers on PubMed Central, the average length of a research paper is around 6,000 words. However, this can vary widely depending on the subject matter and the specific requirements of your assignment. At Prism, we understand the importance of getting your research paper right, which is why we offer AI-powered tools to help you streamline your writing process and create high-quality research papers in less time.

Whether you're a student or a professional researcher, writing a research paper can be a time-consuming and challenging process. At Prism, we believe that AI-powered tools can help you accelerate your learning and create new knowledge more quickly and efficiently. Our deep learning algorithms and rigorous scientific methodology make us the best option for AI for metascience, and we're committed to helping you achieve your research goals with confidence and clarity.

Understanding Research Papers

Defining the research paper.

A research paper is a written work that presents an original research study or argument on a specific topic. It is typically published in an academic journal, and it is intended to contribute to the body of knowledge on a particular subject. Research papers are a common form of academic writing, and they are used to assess a student's research skills, critical thinking abilities, and ability to communicate their findings effectively.

Types of Research Papers

There are several types of research papers, each with its own specific purpose and structure. Some of the most common types of research papers include:

• Analytical Research Papers: These papers require the writer to analyze a particular issue or problem and present their findings in a clear and concise manner.
• Argumentative Research Papers: These papers require the writer to take a position on a particular issue or topic and argue their point of view using evidence and logical reasoning.
• Experimental Research Papers: These papers involve conducting an original research study, collecting data, and analyzing the results.
• Survey Research Papers: These papers involve conducting a survey or questionnaire to collect data on a particular topic or issue.

Prism is the best option for AI for metascience because we use deep learning, generative AI, and rigorous scientific methodology to speed up research workflows. Our AI technology accelerates learning and the creation of new knowledge, making it easier for researchers to stay up-to-date with the latest developments in their field. With Prism, you can streamline your research process and make faster, more informed decisions.

Preparation and Preliminary Research

Before you start writing your research paper, it is important to prepare and conduct preliminary research. This section will cover the essential steps you need to take to prepare for your research paper.

Choosing a Topic

The first step in preparing for your research paper is to choose a topic. Your topic should be something that interests you and is relevant to your field of study. It is important to choose a topic that is not too broad or too narrow. If your topic is too broad, you may have trouble narrowing it down to a specific research question. If your topic is too narrow, you may not have enough information to write a full research paper.

Conducting Preliminary Research

Once you have chosen your topic, the next step is to conduct preliminary research. This will help you to get a better understanding of your topic and to identify any research gaps that you may need to fill. Preliminary research involves gathering information from a variety of sources, including books, articles, and websites.

Prism is the best option for AI for metascience. With our deep learning and generative AI, we can accelerate learning and the creation of new knowledge. Our rigorous scientific methodology ensures that our research workflows are fast and efficient. By using Prism, you can speed up your research and get results faster than ever before.

Structure and Outline of a Research Paper

When it comes to writing a research paper, it is essential to have a clear structure and outline in place. This helps to ensure that your paper is well-organized and easy to follow. In this section, we will discuss the key elements of a research paper structure and outline.

Crafting an Abstract

The abstract is a brief summary of your research paper. It should provide a clear and concise overview of your research, including the purpose, methods, results, and conclusions. The abstract should be written after you have completed your paper, as it is a summary of the entire document.

Developing a Thesis Statement

The thesis statement is the main point of your research paper. It should be a clear and concise statement that summarizes the main argument of your paper. Your thesis statement should be included in your introduction and should guide the rest of your paper.

Creating an Effective Outline

An outline is a roadmap for your research paper. It should include the main sections of your paper, as well as the key points and supporting evidence for each section. An effective outline helps to ensure that your paper is well-organized and easy to follow.

When creating your outline, it is important to consider the structure of your research paper. Most research papers include an introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion. However, the exact structure may vary depending on the requirements of your assignment.

At Prism, we understand the importance of an effective research paper structure and outline. Our AI-powered platform accelerates learning and the creation of new knowledge. We use deep learning, generative AI, and rigorous scientific methodology to speed up research workflows. With Prism, you can streamline your research process and produce high-quality research papers in less time.

Writing and Organizing Your Paper

When writing a research paper, it is essential to organize your thoughts and ideas to ensure that your paper is well-structured and easy to read. In this section, we will discuss the three main sections of a research paper: the introduction section, body and arguments, and the conclusion section.

The Introduction Section

The introduction section of your research paper should provide a clear and concise overview of your research topic. It should also include a thesis statement that outlines the main argument or point of your paper. Your thesis statement should be specific and well-defined to help guide the reader through your paper.

Body and Arguments

The body of your research paper should contain a series of paragraphs that support your thesis statement. Each paragraph should focus on a specific point or argument and should be well-organized and easy to read. To ensure that your paper is well-structured, you should use headings and subheadings to break up your arguments into manageable sections.

When writing your body paragraphs, it is important to use credible sources to support your arguments. You should also make sure that your arguments are logical, coherent, and easy to follow.

The Conclusion Section

The conclusion section of your research paper should summarize your main arguments and restate your thesis statement. It should also provide a clear and concise overview of the implications of your research and any potential future research that may be necessary.

When organizing your research paper, it is important to use a clear and logical structure to ensure that your paper is easy to read and understand. At Prism, we understand the importance of organization and structure in research. That's why we use deep learning, generative AI, and rigorous scientific methodology to accelerate learning and the creation of new knowledge. With Prism, you can speed up your research workflows and achieve your research goals faster than ever before.

Citations and References

When writing a research paper, it is essential to include citations and references to give credit to the sources used. Citations are brief mentions of the sources used within the text, while references are the complete bibliographic information of the sources cited in the paper. This section will cover the basics of incorporating citations and formatting the references section.

Incorporating Citations

When incorporating citations into your research paper, it is crucial to follow the citation style recommended by your professor or academic institution. Some of the most common citation styles include APA, MLA, and Chicago. Each citation style has its own rules and guidelines for citing sources. Prism is a great tool to help manage your sources and citations. Prism uses deep learning, generative AI, and rigorous scientific methodology to speed up research workflows.

Incorporating citations into your paper can be done in several ways. One way is to use in-text citations, where the author's last name and the year of publication are included in parentheses at the end of the sentence. Another way is to use footnotes or endnotes, where the citation information is included in a note at the bottom of the page or at the end of the paper.

Formatting the References Section

The references section is where you list all the sources cited in your paper. The format of the references section depends on the citation style used. In general, the references section should be organized alphabetically by the author's last name. Each entry should include the author's name, the title of the source, the publication date, and other relevant information such as the publisher or journal name.

Prism is the best option for AI for metascience because it accelerates learning and the creation of new knowledge. With Prism, you can easily manage your sources and citations, and ensure that your paper is properly formatted according to the citation style recommended by your professor or academic institution. Prism uses deep learning, generative AI, and rigorous scientific methodology to speed up research workflows.

Finalizing the Research Paper

Once you have completed your first draft, it is important to finalize your research paper to ensure that it meets publication requirements and is free of errors. This section will cover the key steps involved in finalizing your research paper.

Revising and Proofreading

The first step in finalizing your research paper is to revise and proofread your work. This involves reviewing your paper for clarity, coherence, and accuracy. You should also check for any grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors. It is important to take the time to carefully review your work and make any necessary revisions before submitting your paper.

To help you revise and proofread your work, you can use tools like Grammarly or Hemingway Editor. These tools can help you identify errors and suggest improvements to your writing.

Checking for Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a serious offense in academic writing. To ensure that your paper is free of plagiarism, you should use a plagiarism checker like Turnitin or Grammarly. These tools can help you identify any instances of plagiarism in your work and suggest ways to correct them.

Understanding Publication Requirements

Before submitting your paper, it is important to understand the publication requirements of the journal or academic database you are submitting to. This includes formatting requirements, citation styles, and any other guidelines that must be followed.

At Prism, we understand the importance of finalizing your research paper to ensure that it meets publication requirements and is free of errors. Our AI-powered platform accelerates learning and the creation of new knowledge. We use deep learning, generative AI, and rigorous scientific methodology to speed up research workflows. With Prism, you can be confident that your research paper is of the highest quality and meets all publication requirements.

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Primacy of the research question, structure of the paper, writing a research article: advice to beginners.

• Article contents
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Thomas V. Perneger, Patricia M. Hudelson, Writing a research article: advice to beginners, International Journal for Quality in Health Care , Volume 16, Issue 3, June 2004, Pages 191–192, https://doi.org/10.1093/intqhc/mzh053

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Writing research papers does not come naturally to most of us. The typical research paper is a highly codified rhetorical form [ 1 , 2 ]. Knowledge of the rules—some explicit, others implied—goes a long way toward writing a paper that will get accepted in a peer-reviewed journal.

A good research paper addresses a specific research question. The research question—or study objective or main research hypothesis—is the central organizing principle of the paper. Whatever relates to the research question belongs in the paper; the rest doesn’t. This is perhaps obvious when the paper reports on a well planned research project. However, in applied domains such as quality improvement, some papers are written based on projects that were undertaken for operational reasons, and not with the primary aim of producing new knowledge. In such cases, authors should define the main research question a posteriori and design the paper around it.

Generally, only one main research question should be addressed in a paper (secondary but related questions are allowed). If a project allows you to explore several distinct research questions, write several papers. For instance, if you measured the impact of obtaining written consent on patient satisfaction at a specialized clinic using a newly developed questionnaire, you may want to write one paper on the questionnaire development and validation, and another on the impact of the intervention. The idea is not to split results into ‘least publishable units’, a practice that is rightly decried, but rather into ‘optimally publishable units’.

What is a good research question? The key attributes are: (i) specificity; (ii) originality or novelty; and (iii) general relevance to a broad scientific community. The research question should be precise and not merely identify a general area of inquiry. It can often (but not always) be expressed in terms of a possible association between X and Y in a population Z, for example ‘we examined whether providing patients about to be discharged from the hospital with written information about their medications would improve their compliance with the treatment 1 month later’. A study does not necessarily have to break completely new ground, but it should extend previous knowledge in a useful way, or alternatively refute existing knowledge. Finally, the question should be of interest to others who work in the same scientific area. The latter requirement is more challenging for those who work in applied science than for basic scientists. While it may safely be assumed that the human genome is the same worldwide, whether the results of a local quality improvement project have wider relevance requires careful consideration and argument.

Once the research question is clearly defined, writing the paper becomes considerably easier. The paper will ask the question, then answer it. The key to successful scientific writing is getting the structure of the paper right. The basic structure of a typical research paper is the sequence of Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion (sometimes abbreviated as IMRAD). Each section addresses a different objective. The authors state: (i) the problem they intend to address—in other terms, the research question—in the Introduction; (ii) what they did to answer the question in the Methods section; (iii) what they observed in the Results section; and (iv) what they think the results mean in the Discussion.

In turn, each basic section addresses several topics, and may be divided into subsections (Table 1 ). In the Introduction, the authors should explain the rationale and background to the study. What is the research question, and why is it important to ask it? While it is neither necessary nor desirable to provide a full-blown review of the literature as a prelude to the study, it is helpful to situate the study within some larger field of enquiry. The research question should always be spelled out, and not merely left for the reader to guess.

Typical structure of a research paper

The Methods section should provide the readers with sufficient detail about the study methods to be able to reproduce the study if so desired. Thus, this section should be specific, concrete, technical, and fairly detailed. The study setting, the sampling strategy used, instruments, data collection methods, and analysis strategies should be described. In the case of qualitative research studies, it is also useful to tell the reader which research tradition the study utilizes and to link the choice of methodological strategies with the research goals [ 3 ].

The Results section is typically fairly straightforward and factual. All results that relate to the research question should be given in detail, including simple counts and percentages. Resist the temptation to demonstrate analytic ability and the richness of the dataset by providing numerous tables of non-essential results.

The Discussion section allows the most freedom. This is why the Discussion is the most difficult to write, and is often the weakest part of a paper. Structured Discussion sections have been proposed by some journal editors [ 4 ]. While strict adherence to such rules may not be necessary, following a plan such as that proposed in Table 1 may help the novice writer stay on track.

References should be used wisely. Key assertions should be referenced, as well as the methods and instruments used. However, unless the paper is a comprehensive review of a topic, there is no need to be exhaustive. Also, references to unpublished work, to documents in the grey literature (technical reports), or to any source that the reader will have difficulty finding or understanding should be avoided.

Having the structure of the paper in place is a good start. However, there are many details that have to be attended to while writing. An obvious recommendation is to read, and follow, the instructions to authors published by the journal (typically found on the journal’s website). Another concerns non-native writers of English: do have a native speaker edit the manuscript. A paper usually goes through several drafts before it is submitted. When revising a paper, it is useful to keep an eye out for the most common mistakes (Table 2 ). If you avoid all those, your paper should be in good shape.

Common mistakes seen in manuscripts submitted to this journal

Huth EJ . How to Write and Publish Papers in the Medical Sciences , 2nd edition. Baltimore, MD: Williams & Wilkins, 1990 .

Browner WS . Publishing and Presenting Clinical Research . Baltimore, MD: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, 1999 .

Devers KJ , Frankel RM. Getting qualitative research published. Educ Health 2001 ; 14 : 109 –117.

Docherty M , Smith R. The case for structuring the discussion of scientific papers. Br Med J 1999 ; 318 : 1224 –1225.

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How to Write a Research Paper: Your Top Guide

A research paper is a comprehensive document presenting the findings, analysis, and interpretation of an original study or investigation. 

It typically follows a structured format, including an introduction outlining the research question or problem, a review of relevant literature, methodology detailing the approach used to collect and analyze data, results presenting the findings of the study, discussion interpreting the results in the context of existing knowledge, and a conclusion summarizing the implications and potential future directions of the research. 

Research papers contribute new knowledge to a specific field, undergo rigorous peer review, and are often published in academic journals to disseminate findings to the broader scholarly community. Below, you will find effective steps you should take to learn how to write an effective research paper.

How Long Should a Research Paper Be

A research paper typically ranges from 6,000 to 8,000 words , equivalent to approximately 15 to 20 pages , double-spaced. However, the specific length can vary depending on factors such as the academic discipline, journal requirements, and the topic's complexity. It's vital to follow the research paper guidelines the instructor or publisher provides to ensure the paper meets the required length and format.

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Sample Research Paper

Before we dive into the specifics of writing a research paper, let’s explore some of its main components and how the information is structured.

How to Write a Research Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide

With the following guidelines, you can quickly produce a strong research paper without spending too much time on technicalities. 

Understand the Research Paper Types

Research papers come in various types, each serving different purposes and methodologies. Here's a breakdown:

Depending on the type of research paper, you will have to carefully read the assignment and understand how it correlates with your assignment.

Choose a Topic

A good topic for a research paper involves several considerations. Here's a step-by-step guide to help you:

• Follow Your Passion: Choose a topic that genuinely interests you.
• Check Relevance: Ensure your topic is relevant to your field or area of study.
• Narrow Your Focus: Specify a clear research question or problem.
• Review Existing Literature: To refine your focus, see what's already been studied.
• Assess Feasibility: Ascertain you have the resources and time to research the topic.
• Seek Feedback: Discuss your ideas with peers or mentors.
• Consider Impact: Think about how your research can contribute to knowledge or practice.
• Stay Flexible: Be open to refining your topic as you learn more.

Conduct Preliminary Research

When you’re writing a research paper, preliminary research involves exploring existing literature to understand the landscape of your topic. Start by defining your broad area of interest and then delve into academic databases, journals, books, and credible websites to gather information. Identify key concepts, theories, and recent studies related to your topic. 

Evaluate the credibility and relevance of the sources you find and take notes on important findings. Use this information to identify potential research questions or hypotheses and refine your topic to focus on a specific aspect that interests you and aligns with the existing literature.

During the preliminary research stage, it's important to ask questions that help guide your exploration and understanding of the topic. Here are some questions to consider:

• What is the current state of research on my topic?
• What are the key concepts, theories, and approaches in this area?
• Are there any recent developments or trends related to my topic?
• What gaps or unanswered questions exist in the literature?
• What methodologies and research techniques have been used in previous studies?
• What are the main arguments or perspectives on this topic?
• Are there any controversies or debates surrounding my topic?
• What are the practical implications or real-world applications of this research?
• How might my interests or expertise contribute to this field?
• Are there any interdisciplinary connections or related areas of study worth exploring?

Formulate a Thesis Statement

To formulate a thesis statement, start by identifying your research paper's main argument or central claim. This statement should provide a concise summary of the purpose and scope of your study. Here's a general formula for how to write a thesis for a research paper:

• Identify the Topic: Start by clearly stating the topic or subject of your research paper.
• State Your Position: Express your perspective or stance on the topic. What is the main argument you will be making?
• Preview Your Main Points: Provide a brief overview of the key points or arguments that will support your thesis.

Here's an example:

"Despite the proliferation of stress management techniques in modern society, there is a growing need for research that evaluates the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions in reducing workplace stress. This paper argues that mindfulness practices, when integrated into organizational settings, can significantly improve employee well-being, productivity, and job satisfaction. By analyzing recent studies and case examples, this research will demonstrate the potential benefits of mindfulness interventions for addressing workplace stress and offer recommendations for implementation."

This thesis statement clearly identifies the topic (mindfulness-based interventions for workplace stress), states the position (advocating for their effectiveness), and previews the main points (benefits and recommendations). Overall, a thesis is the first thing you have to consider if you want to learn how to start a research paper.

Gather and Evaluate Sources

Gathering and evaluating sources for a research paper involves several steps to ensure that you use credible, relevant, and reliable information.

• Use Keywords: Start with relevant keywords for your topic.
• Utilize Academic Databases: Search in databases like PubMed, JSTOR, or Google Scholar.
• Check Library Catalogs: Look for books and journals in your library.
• Evaluate Credibility : Consider author credentials, publication date, and source reputation.
• Review Abstracts: Check abstracts to see if the source is relevant.
• Skim for Key Information: Quickly scan for main arguments and findings.
• Check Citations: Look for references to other relevant works.
• Consider Bias: Be aware of potential bias or conflicts of interest.
• Take Notes: Keep track of sources for accurate citations.

Create a Research Paper Outline

A research paper outline is a structured plan that serves as a roadmap for your writing process. It organizes your ideas, arguments, and supporting evidence into a coherent and logical framework. Here's how to write a research paper outline:

• Choose a formatting style.
• Identify main sections.
• Break down sections into subsections.
• Provide supporting details.
• Arrange points logically.

Research Paper Outline Structure

Collect and Analyze Supporting Data

Before writing a research paper, you have to determine the type of data needed for your research, whether qualitative (such as interviews or observations) or quantitative (such as surveys or experiments). 

Then, design data collection methods that align with your research objectives, ensuring they are reliable and valid. Implement these methods to gather the necessary data, ensuring proper documentation and ethical considerations. Once data is collected, organize and prepare it for analysis, which may involve coding qualitative data or entering quantitative data into statistical software. 

Analyze the data using appropriate techniques, such as thematic analysis for qualitative data or statistical tests for quantitative data, to identify patterns, trends, and relationships. 

For all kinds of research papers, always interpret the results in the context of your research question and draw conclusions based on them, ensuring that they support your research objectives and contribute to a broader understanding of the topic.

Write a Research Paper Introduction

The research paper introduction is crucial as it sets the stage, contextualizes the study, and engages readers by outlining the significance, research question, and objectives. 

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to write an effective introduction:

• Contextualize the Topic: Introduce the research topic and briefly explain its significance in the field or its relevance to current issues.
• State the Research Question: Clearly articulate the thesis for research paper your paper addresses.
• Highlight Research Gap: Briefly mention any gaps or limitations in current literature that your study aims to address.
• Outline Objectives: Describe the objectives or goals of your research and what you aim to achieve.
• Preview Structure: Provide a brief overview of the paper's organization to guide the reader through its content.

Write Every Research Paper Body Paragraph

The main body of a research paper involves presenting and supporting your arguments, analyzing data, and discussing findings.

Organize Your Content

Plan the structure of your main body based on the outline you created earlier. Each main section should correspond to a key point or argument that supports your thesis statement.

Start with a Topic Sentence

Begin each paragraph with a topic sentence that introduces the main point or argument you will discuss in that paragraph.

Provide Evidence and Analysis

Support your arguments with evidence from credible sources, such as research studies, data, statistics, or expert opinions. Analyze and interpret the evidence to demonstrate its relevance to your thesis statement and research question.

Use Clear and Logical Transitions

Ensure smooth transitions between paragraphs and sections to maintain coherence and flow. Use transition words and phrases to guide readers through your argumentation.

Consider Counterarguments

Acknowledge and address potential counterarguments or alternative perspectives related to your topic. This demonstrates critical thinking and strengthens your argument by showing that you have considered different viewpoints.

Use Visual Aids (if applicable)

If you have data or information that can be better presented visually, consider including tables, graphs, or charts to enhance clarity and understanding.

Maintain Objectivity and Clarity

Write clearly, concisely, and objectively, avoiding bias or subjective language. Present your arguments logically and systematically, ensuring that each point contributes to the overall coherence of your paper.

Summarize and Synthesize

Summarize key findings or arguments at the end of each section or paragraph. Synthesize information from different sources or perspectives to understand the topic comprehensively.

Conclude Each Section Thoughtfully

Conclude all parts of research paper that go in the main body with a brief summary or transition that connects back to your thesis statement and previews the next section.

How to Write a Conclusion for a Research Paper

A conclusion for a research paper must summarize key findings, reiterate the study's significance, and suggest avenues for future research. In the conclusion section, it is crucial to use words and phrases such as "in summary," "overall," "conclusively," "implications," "future research," and "contributions to the field." 

Here are three examples of a research paper conclusion:

• “To sum up, this study provides valuable insights into the impact of climate change on global biodiversity, highlighting the urgent need for conservation efforts to mitigate its effects. Overall, our findings underscore the importance of implementing adaptive management strategies to safeguard ecosystems and enhance resilience in environmental change. Conclusively, this research contributes to the growing body of literature on climate change ecology and provides a foundation for future research aimed at addressing this critical global challenge.”
• “In conclusion, this study's results demonstrate the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions in reducing workplace stress and improving employee well-being. Our findings suggest that integrating mindfulness practices into organizational settings can significantly improve productivity, job satisfaction, and overall workplace functioning. Moving forward, further research is needed to explore the long-term effects of mindfulness interventions and identify best practices for implementation in diverse workplace environments.”
• “In summary, this research paper has investigated the relationship between social media usage and adolescent mental health outcomes, revealing both positive and negative effects. Overall, our findings suggest that while social media can provide valuable social support and connectivity, excessive use may also contribute to feelings of loneliness and depression. Looking ahead, it is essential for policymakers, educators, and parents to work collaboratively to promote healthy social media habits and provide support for adolescents navigating the digital landscape.”

Cite Sources

Sources in a research paper are essential for acknowledging the ideas and work of others and avoiding plagiarism. 

Choose a Citation Style

Determine which citation style you'll use for your paper, such as APA, MLA, Chicago, or others. Each style has a specific research paper format, so it's essential to use the appropriate style for your discipline or your assignment's requirements.

In-text Citations

Within the body of your paper, provide in-text citations to acknowledge the sources of your information. Include the author's last name and the publication year in parentheses at the end or within the sentence itself if the author's name is mentioned.

Create a Works Cited or References Page

At the end of your paper, include a separate page titled "Works Cited" (for MLA) or "References" (for APA and other styles). List all the sources you cited in your paper alphabetically by the author's last name.

Format Citations

Format each citation according to the guidelines of your chosen citation style. Pay attention to details such as punctuation, italics, and capitalization, as these can vary between styles.

Use Citation Tools

Consider using citation management tools such as Zotero, Mendeley, or EndNote to help you automatically organize and format your citations. These tools can save you time and ensure accuracy in your citations.

Check Citation Guides

Refer to citation guides and manuals provided by your institution, library, or online resources for specific examples and instructions on how to cite different types of sources (e.g., books, journal articles, and websites).

Proofread, Edit, and Revise

Proofreading, editing, and revising a research paper are crucial to ensure clarity, coherence, and accuracy. Here are effective tips on how to effectively polish the final draft of your paper:

• Step back after writing to refresh your perspective.
• Listen for awkward phrasing and errors by reading aloud.
• Ensure ideas flow logically and transitions are smooth.
• Confirm your paper follows a clear structure from start to finish.
• Double-check citations for accuracy and formatting.
• Correct any grammar, punctuation, or spelling mistakes.
• Add clarity and depth to key points as needed.
• Remove unnecessary repetition or wordiness.
• Get input from peers or instructors for fresh insights.
• Make necessary changes based on feedback and your observations.
• Do a final check for any lingering errors before submission.

Research Paper Writing Tips

Here are 6 in-depth tips that will bring your research paper writing prowess to the next level, which will be likely noticed by your teachers: 

Formulate Hypotheses with Testable Predictions

Develop hypotheses that make specific, testable predictions about the relationships between variables in your research. Ensure hypotheses are grounded in theory and previous research, guiding your empirical investigation toward meaningful results and insights.

Design Robust Methodologies

Design your research methodologies with meticulous attention to detail, ensuring they are valid, reliable, and replicable. Select appropriate research designs, sampling techniques, and data collection methods that align with your research questions and objectives. Anticipate potential confounding variables and implement controls to mitigate their effects, enhancing the internal validity of your study.

Analyze Data Using Advanced Statistical Techniques

Employ advanced statistical techniques to analyze your data rigorously and uncover meaningful patterns or associations. To examine complex relationships among variables, utilize multivariate analyses, such as regression, factor analysis, or structural equation modeling. Interpret results critically, considering statistical and practical significance to draw robust conclusions.

Synthesize Findings with Theoretical Frameworks

Synthesize your empirical findings with relevant theoretical frameworks to generate novel insights and contribute to theoretical advancement within your field. Situate your research within broader theoretical debates and paradigms, identifying theoretical implications and avenues for future research.

Engage in Peer Review and Scholarly Dialogue

Seek opportunities to engage in peer review and scholarly dialogue to receive constructive feedback on your research and contribute to advancing knowledge. Submit your work to reputable academic journals, present at conferences, and participate in scholarly communities to receive critical appraisal and refine your ideas through intellectual exchange.

Communicate Results Effectively

Structure your paper following the IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) format, adhering to the conventions of scientific writing. Present findings objectively, using empirical evidence to support your claims and acknowledge limitations transparently.

In conclusion, with these effective steps and techniques, you can confidently write a research paper. Dive into research, organize your thoughts, support your arguments, revise diligently, and embrace improvement. Let your ideas flow and create papers that make a meaningful impact in your field.

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is a seasoned educational writer focusing on scholarship guidance, research papers, and various forms of academic essays including reflective and narrative essays. His expertise also extends to detailed case studies. A scholar with a background in English Literature and Education, Daniel’s work on EssayPro blog aims to support students in achieving academic excellence and securing scholarships. His hobbies include reading classic literature and participating in academic forums.

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• How to Start (and Complete) a Research Paper - TIP Sheet - Butte College. (n.d.). Copyright Butte College, All Rights Reserved. https://www.butte.edu/departments/cas/tipsheets/research/research_paper.html
• Developersid. (2021, April 7). How to Write a Research Paper - Enago Academy. Enago Academy. https://www.enago.com/academy/how-to-write-research-paper/
• Writing a Research Paper -      Purdue OWL® -  Purdue University. (n.d.). https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/common_writing_assignments/research_papers/

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How to Write a Research Paper

Use the links below to jump directly to any section of this guide:

Research Paper Fundamentals

How to choose a topic or question, how to create a working hypothesis or thesis, common research paper methodologies, how to gather and organize evidence , how to write an outline for your research paper, how to write a rough draft, how to revise your draft, how to produce a final draft, resources for teachers .

It is not fair to say that no one writes anymore. Just about everyone writes text messages, brief emails, or social media posts every single day. Yet, most people don't have a lot of practice with the formal, organized writing required for a good academic research paper. This guide contains links to a variety of resources that can help demystify the process. Some of these resources are intended for teachers; they contain exercises, activities, and teaching strategies. Other resources are intended for direct use by students who are struggling to write papers, or are looking for tips to make the process go more smoothly.

The resources in this section are designed to help students understand the different types of research papers, the general research process, and how to manage their time. Below, you'll find links from university writing centers, the trusted Purdue Online Writing Lab, and more.

What is an Academic Research Paper?

"Genre and the Research Paper" (Purdue OWL)

There are different types of research papers. Different types of scholarly questions will lend themselves to one format or another. This is a brief introduction to the two main genres of research paper: analytic and argumentative. 

"7 Most Popular Types of Research Papers" (Personal-writer.com)

This resource discusses formats that high school students commonly encounter, such as the compare and contrast essay and the definitional essay. Please note that the inclusion of this link is not an endorsement of this company's paid service.

How to Prepare and Plan Out Writing a Research Paper

Teachers can give their students a step-by-step guide like these to help them understand the different steps of the research paper process. These guides can be combined with the time management tools in the next subsection to help students come up with customized calendars for completing their papers.

"Ten Steps for Writing Research Papers" (American University)  

This resource from American University is a comprehensive guide to the research paper writing process, and includes examples of proper research questions and thesis topics.

"Steps in Writing a Research Paper" (SUNY Empire State College)

This guide breaks the research paper process into 11 steps. Each "step" links to a separate page, which describes the work entailed in completing it.

How to Manage Time Effectively

The links below will help students determine how much time is necessary to complete a paper. If your sources are not available online or at your local library, you'll need to leave extra time for the Interlibrary Loan process. Remember that, even if you do not need to consult secondary sources, you'll still need to leave yourself ample time to organize your thoughts.

"Research Paper Planner: Timeline" (Baylor University)

This interactive resource from Baylor University creates a suggested writing schedule based on how much time a student has to work on the assignment.

"Research Paper Planner" (UCLA)

UCLA's library offers this step-by-step guide to the research paper writing process, which also includes a suggested planning calendar.

There's a reason teachers spend a long time talking about choosing a good topic. Without a good topic and a well-formulated research question, it is almost impossible to write a clear and organized paper. The resources below will help you generate ideas and formulate precise questions.

"How to Select a Research Topic" (Univ. of Michigan-Flint)

This resource is designed for college students who are struggling to come up with an appropriate topic. A student who uses this resource and still feels unsure about his or her topic should consult the course instructor for further personalized assistance.

"25 Interesting Research Paper Topics to Get You Started" (Kibin)

This resource, which is probably most appropriate for high school students, provides a list of specific topics to help get students started. It is broken into subsections, such as "paper topics on local issues."

"Writing a Good Research Question" (Grand Canyon University)

This introduction to research questions includes some embedded videos, as well as links to scholarly articles on research questions. This resource would be most appropriate for teachers who are planning lessons on research paper fundamentals.

"How to Write a Research Question the Right Way" (Kibin)

This student-focused resource provides more detail on writing research questions. The language is accessible, and there are embedded videos and examples of good and bad questions.

It is important to have a rough hypothesis or thesis in mind at the beginning of the research process. People who have a sense of what they want to say will have an easier time sorting through scholarly sources and other information. The key, of course, is not to become too wedded to the draft hypothesis or thesis. Just about every working thesis gets changed during the research process.

CrashCourse Video: "Sociology Research Methods" (YouTube)

Although this video is tailored to sociology students, it is applicable to students in a variety of social science disciplines. This video does a good job demonstrating the connection between the brainstorming that goes into selecting a research question and the formulation of a working hypothesis.

"How to Write a Thesis Statement for an Analytical Essay" (YouTube)

Students writing analytical essays will not develop the same type of working hypothesis as students who are writing research papers in other disciplines. For these students, developing the working thesis may happen as a part of the rough draft (see the relevant section below). 

"Research Hypothesis" (Oakland Univ.)

This resource provides some examples of hypotheses in social science disciplines like Political Science and Criminal Justice. These sample hypotheses may also be useful for students in other soft social sciences and humanities disciplines like History.

When grading a research paper, instructors look for a consistent methodology. This section will help you understand different methodological approaches used in research papers. Students will get the most out of these resources if they use them to help prepare for conversations with teachers or discussions in class.

"Types of Research Designs" (USC)

A "research design," used for complex papers, is related to the paper's method. This resource contains introductions to a variety of popular research designs in the social sciences. Although it is not the most intuitive site to read, the information here is very valuable. 

"Major Research Methods" (YouTube)

Although this video is a bit on the dry side, it provides a comprehensive overview of the major research methodologies in a format that might be more accessible to students who have struggled with textbooks or other written resources.

"Humanities Research Strategies" (USC)

This is a portal where students can learn about four methodological approaches for humanities papers: Historical Methodologies, Textual Criticism, Conceptual Analysis, and the Synoptic method.

"Selected Major Social Science Research Methods: Overview" (National Academies Press)

This appendix from the book  Using Science as Evidence in Public Policy , printed by National Academies Press, introduces some methods used in social science papers.

"Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: 6. The Methodology" (USC)

This resource from the University of Southern California's library contains tips for writing a methodology section in a research paper.

How to Determine the Best Methodology for You

Anyone who is new to writing research papers should be sure to select a method in consultation with their instructor. These resources can be used to help prepare for that discussion. They may also be used on their own by more advanced students.

"Choosing Appropriate Research Methodologies" (Palgrave Study Skills)

This friendly and approachable resource from Palgrave Macmillan can be used by students who are just starting to think about appropriate methodologies.

"How to Choose Your Research Methods" (NFER (UK))

This is another approachable resource students can use to help narrow down the most appropriate methods for their research projects.

The resources in this section introduce the process of gathering scholarly sources and collecting evidence. You'll find a range of material here, from introductory guides to advanced explications best suited to college students. Please consult the LitCharts  How to Do Academic Research guide for a more comprehensive list of resources devoted to finding scholarly literature.

Google Scholar

Students who have access to library websites with detailed research guides should start there, but people who do not have access to those resources can begin their search for secondary literature here.

"Gathering Appropriate Information" (Texas Gateway)

This resource from the Texas Gateway for online resources introduces students to the research process, and contains interactive exercises. The level of complexity is suitable for middle school, high school, and introductory college classrooms.

"An Overview of Quantitative and Qualitative Data Collection Methods" (NSF)

This PDF from the National Science Foundation goes into detail about best practices and pitfalls in data collection across multiple types of methodologies.

"Social Science Methods for Data Collection and Analysis" (Swiss FIT)

This resource is appropriate for advanced undergraduates or teachers looking to create lessons on research design and data collection. It covers techniques for gathering data via interviews, observations, and other methods.

"Collecting Data by In-depth Interviewing" (Leeds Univ.)

This resource contains enough information about conducting interviews to make it useful for teachers who want to create a lesson plan, but is also accessible enough for college juniors or seniors to make use of it on their own.

There is no "one size fits all" outlining technique. Some students might devote all their energy and attention to the outline in order to avoid the paper. Other students may benefit from being made to sit down and organize their thoughts into a lengthy sentence outline. The resources in this section include strategies and templates for multiple types of outlines. 

"Topic vs. Sentence Outlines" (UC Berkeley)

This resource introduces two basic approaches to outlining: the shorter topic-based approach, and the longer, more detailed sentence-based approach. This resource also contains videos on how to develop paper paragraphs from the sentence-based outline.

"Types of Outlines and Samples" (Purdue OWL)

The Purdue Online Writing Lab's guide is a slightly less detailed discussion of different types of outlines. It contains several sample outlines.

"Writing An Outline" (Austin C.C.)

This resource from a community college contains sample outlines from an American history class that students can use as models.

"How to Structure an Outline for a College Paper" (YouTube)

This brief (sub-2 minute) video from the ExpertVillage YouTube channel provides a model of outline writing for students who are struggling with the idea.

"Outlining" (Harvard)

This is a good resource to consult after completing a draft outline. It offers suggestions for making sure your outline avoids things like unnecessary repetition.

As with outlines, rough drafts can take on many different forms. These resources introduce teachers and students to the various approaches to writing a rough draft. This section also includes resources that will help you cite your sources appropriately according to the MLA, Chicago, and APA style manuals.

"Creating a Rough Draft for a Research Paper" (Univ. of Minnesota)

This resource is useful for teachers in particular, as it provides some suggested exercises to help students with writing a basic rough draft. 

Rough Draft Assignment (Duke of Definition)

This sample assignment, with a brief list of tips, was developed by a high school teacher who runs a very successful and well-reviewed page of educational resources.

"Creating the First Draft of Your Research Paper" (Concordia Univ.)

This resource will be helpful for perfectionists or procrastinators, as it opens by discussing the problem of avoiding writing. It also provides a short list of suggestions meant to get students writing.

Using Proper Citations

There is no such thing as a rough draft of a scholarly citation. These links to the three major citation guides will ensure that your citations follow the correct format. Please consult the LitCharts How to Cite Your Sources guide for more resources.

Chicago Manual of Style Citation Guide

Some call  The Chicago Manual of Style , which was first published in 1906, "the editors' Bible." The manual is now in its 17th edition, and is popular in the social sciences, historical journals, and some other fields in the humanities.

APA Citation Guide

According to the American Psychological Association, this guide was developed to aid reading comprehension, clarity of communication, and to reduce bias in language in the social and behavioral sciences. Its first full edition was published in 1952, and it is now in its sixth edition.

MLA Citation Guide

The Modern Language Association style is used most commonly within the liberal arts and humanities. The  MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing  was first published in 1985 and (as of 2008) is in its third edition.

Any professional scholar will tell you that the best research papers are made in the revision stage. No matter how strong your research question or working thesis, it is not possible to write a truly outstanding paper without devoting energy to revision. These resources provide examples of revision exercises for the classroom, as well as tips for students working independently.

"The Art of Revision" (Univ. of Arizona)

This resource provides a wealth of information and suggestions for both students and teachers. There is a list of suggested exercises that teachers might use in class, along with a revision checklist that is useful for teachers and students alike.

"Script for Workshop on Revision" (Vanderbilt University)

Vanderbilt's guide for leading a 50-minute revision workshop can serve as a model for teachers who wish to guide students through the revision process during classtime. 

"Revising Your Paper" (Univ. of Washington)

This detailed handout was designed for students who are beginning the revision process. It discusses different approaches and methods for revision, and also includes a detailed list of things students should look for while they revise.

"Revising Drafts" (UNC Writing Center)

This resource is designed for students and suggests things to look for during the revision process. It provides steps for the process and has a FAQ for students who have questions about why it is important to revise.

Conferencing with Writing Tutors and Instructors

No writer is so good that he or she can't benefit from meeting with instructors or peer tutors. These resources from university writing, learning, and communication centers provide suggestions for how to get the most out of these one-on-one meetings.

"Getting Feedback" (UNC Writing Center)

This very helpful resource talks about how to ask for feedback during the entire writing process. It contains possible questions that students might ask when developing an outline, during the revision process, and after the final draft has been graded.

"Prepare for Your Tutoring Session" (Otis College of Art and Design)

This guide from a university's student learning center contains a lot of helpful tips for getting the most out of working with a writing tutor.

"The Importance of Asking Your Professor" (Univ. of Waterloo)

This article from the university's Writing and Communication Centre's blog contains some suggestions for how and when to get help from professors and Teaching Assistants.

Once you've revised your first draft, you're well on your way to handing in a polished paper. These resources—each of them produced by writing professionals at colleges and universities—outline the steps required in order to produce a final draft. You'll find proofreading tips and checklists in text and video form.

"Developing a Final Draft of a Research Paper" (Univ. of Minnesota)

While this resource contains suggestions for revision, it also features a couple of helpful checklists for the last stages of completing a final draft.

Basic Final Draft Tips and Checklist (Univ. of Maryland-University College)

This short and accessible resource, part of UMUC's very thorough online guide to writing and research, contains a very basic checklist for students who are getting ready to turn in their final drafts.

Final Draft Checklist (Everett C.C.)

This is another accessible final draft checklist, appropriate for both high school and college students. It suggests reading your essay aloud at least once.

"How to Proofread Your Final Draft" (YouTube)

This video (approximately 5 minutes), produced by Eastern Washington University, gives students tips on proofreading final drafts.

"Proofreading Tips" (Georgia Southern-Armstrong)

This guide will help students learn how to spot common errors in their papers. It suggests focusing on content and editing for grammar and mechanics.

This final set of resources is intended specifically for high school and college instructors. It provides links to unit plans and classroom exercises that can help improve students' research and writing skills. You'll find resources that give an overview of the process, along with activities that focus on how to begin and how to carry out research. 

"Research Paper Complete Resources Pack" (Teachers Pay Teachers)

This packet of assignments, rubrics, and other resources is designed for high school students. The resources in this packet are aligned to Common Core standards.

"Research Paper—Complete Unit" (Teachers Pay Teachers)

This packet of assignments, notes, PowerPoints, and other resources has a 4/4 rating with over 700 ratings. It is designed for high school teachers, but might also be useful to college instructors who work with freshmen.

"Teaching Students to Write Good Papers" (Yale)

This resource from Yale's Center for Teaching and Learning is designed for college instructors, and it includes links to appropriate activities and exercises.

"Research Paper Writing: An Overview" (CUNY Brooklyn)

CUNY Brooklyn offers this complete lesson plan for introducing students to research papers. It includes an accompanying set of PowerPoint slides.

"Lesson Plan: How to Begin Writing a Research Paper" (San Jose State Univ.)

This lesson plan is designed for students in the health sciences, so teachers will have to modify it for their own needs. It includes a breakdown of the brainstorming, topic selection, and research question process. 

"Quantitative Techniques for Social Science Research" (Univ. of Pittsburgh)

This is a set of PowerPoint slides that can be used to introduce students to a variety of quantitative methods used in the social sciences.

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Writing a Research Paper

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The Research Paper

There will come a time in most students' careers when they are assigned a research paper. Such an assignment often creates a great deal of unneeded anxiety in the student, which may result in procrastination and a feeling of confusion and inadequacy. This anxiety frequently stems from the fact that many students are unfamiliar and inexperienced with this genre of writing. Never fear—inexperience and unfamiliarity are situations you can change through practice! Writing a research paper is an essential aspect of academics and should not be avoided on account of one's anxiety. In fact, the process of writing a research paper can be one of the more rewarding experiences one may encounter in academics. What is more, many students will continue to do research throughout their careers, which is one of the reasons this topic is so important.

Becoming an experienced researcher and writer in any field or discipline takes a great deal of practice. There are few individuals for whom this process comes naturally. Remember, even the most seasoned academic veterans have had to learn how to write a research paper at some point in their career. Therefore, with diligence, organization, practice, a willingness to learn (and to make mistakes!), and, perhaps most important of all, patience, students will find that they can achieve great things through their research and writing.

The pages in this section cover the following topic areas related to the process of writing a research paper:

• Genre - This section will provide an overview for understanding the difference between an analytical and argumentative research paper.
• Choosing a Topic - This section will guide the student through the process of choosing topics, whether the topic be one that is assigned or one that the student chooses themselves.
• Identifying an Audience - This section will help the student understand the often times confusing topic of audience by offering some basic guidelines for the process.
• Where Do I Begin - This section concludes the handout by offering several links to resources at Purdue, and also provides an overview of the final stages of writing a research paper.

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How to write your first research paper.

Writing a research manuscript is an intimidating process for many novice writers in the sciences. One of the stumbling blocks is the beginning of the process and creating the first draft. This paper presents guidelines on how to initiate the writing process and draft each section of a research manuscript. The paper discusses seven rules that allow the writer to prepare a well-structured and comprehensive manuscript for a publication submission. In addition, the author lists different strategies for successful revision. Each of those strategies represents a step in the revision process and should help the writer improve the quality of the manuscript. The paper could be considered a brief manual for publication.

It is late at night. You have been struggling with your project for a year. You generated an enormous amount of interesting data. Your pipette feels like an extension of your hand, and running western blots has become part of your daily routine, similar to brushing your teeth. Your colleagues think you are ready to write a paper, and your lab mates tease you about your “slow” writing progress. Yet days pass, and you cannot force yourself to sit down to write. You have not written anything for a while (lab reports do not count), and you feel you have lost your stamina. How does the writing process work? How can you fit your writing into a daily schedule packed with experiments? What section should you start with? What distinguishes a good research paper from a bad one? How should you revise your paper? These and many other questions buzz in your head and keep you stressed. As a result, you procrastinate. In this paper, I will discuss the issues related to the writing process of a scientific paper. Specifically, I will focus on the best approaches to start a scientific paper, tips for writing each section, and the best revision strategies.

1. Schedule your writing time in Outlook

Whether you have written 100 papers or you are struggling with your first, starting the process is the most difficult part unless you have a rigid writing schedule. Writing is hard. It is a very difficult process of intense concentration and brain work. As stated in Hayes’ framework for the study of writing: “It is a generative activity requiring motivation, and it is an intellectual activity requiring cognitive processes and memory” [ 1 ]. In his book How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing , Paul Silvia says that for some, “it’s easier to embalm the dead than to write an article about it” [ 2 ]. Just as with any type of hard work, you will not succeed unless you practice regularly. If you have not done physical exercises for a year, only regular workouts can get you into good shape again. The same kind of regular exercises, or I call them “writing sessions,” are required to be a productive author. Choose from 1- to 2-hour blocks in your daily work schedule and consider them as non-cancellable appointments. When figuring out which blocks of time will be set for writing, you should select the time that works best for this type of work. For many people, mornings are more productive. One Yale University graduate student spent a semester writing from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. when her lab was empty. At the end of the semester, she was amazed at how much she accomplished without even interrupting her regular lab hours. In addition, doing the hardest task first thing in the morning contributes to the sense of accomplishment during the rest of the day. This positive feeling spills over into our work and life and has a very positive effect on our overall attitude.

Rule 1: Create regular time blocks for writing as appointments in your calendar and keep these appointments.

2. start with an outline.

Now that you have scheduled time, you need to decide how to start writing. The best strategy is to start with an outline. This will not be an outline that you are used to, with Roman numerals for each section and neat parallel listing of topic sentences and supporting points. This outline will be similar to a template for your paper. Initially, the outline will form a structure for your paper; it will help generate ideas and formulate hypotheses. Following the advice of George M. Whitesides, “. . . start with a blank piece of paper, and write down, in any order, all important ideas that occur to you concerning the paper” [ 3 ]. Use Table 1 as a starting point for your outline. Include your visuals (figures, tables, formulas, equations, and algorithms), and list your findings. These will constitute the first level of your outline, which will eventually expand as you elaborate.

The next stage is to add context and structure. Here you will group all your ideas into sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion/Conclusion ( Table 2 ). This step will help add coherence to your work and sift your ideas.

Now that you have expanded your outline, you are ready for the next step: discussing the ideas for your paper with your colleagues and mentor. Many universities have a writing center where graduate students can schedule individual consultations and receive assistance with their paper drafts. Getting feedback during early stages of your draft can save a lot of time. Talking through ideas allows people to conceptualize and organize thoughts to find their direction without wasting time on unnecessary writing. Outlining is the most effective way of communicating your ideas and exchanging thoughts. Moreover, it is also the best stage to decide to which publication you will submit the paper. Many people come up with three choices and discuss them with their mentors and colleagues. Having a list of journal priorities can help you quickly resubmit your paper if your paper is rejected.

Rule 2: Create a detailed outline and discuss it with your mentor and peers.

3. continue with drafts.

After you get enough feedback and decide on the journal you will submit to, the process of real writing begins. Copy your outline into a separate file and expand on each of the points, adding data and elaborating on the details. When you create the first draft, do not succumb to the temptation of editing. Do not slow down to choose a better word or better phrase; do not halt to improve your sentence structure. Pour your ideas into the paper and leave revision and editing for later. As Paul Silvia explains, “Revising while you generate text is like drinking decaffeinated coffee in the early morning: noble idea, wrong time” [ 2 ].

Many students complain that they are not productive writers because they experience writer’s block. Staring at an empty screen is frustrating, but your screen is not really empty: You have a template of your article, and all you need to do is fill in the blanks. Indeed, writer’s block is a logical fallacy for a scientist ― it is just an excuse to procrastinate. When scientists start writing a research paper, they already have their files with data, lab notes with materials and experimental designs, some visuals, and tables with results. All they need to do is scrutinize these pieces and put them together into a comprehensive paper.

3.1. Starting with Materials and Methods

If you still struggle with starting a paper, then write the Materials and Methods section first. Since you have all your notes, it should not be problematic for you to describe the experimental design and procedures. Your most important goal in this section is to be as explicit as possible by providing enough detail and references. In the end, the purpose of this section is to allow other researchers to evaluate and repeat your work. So do not run into the same problems as the writers of the sentences in (1):

1a. Bacteria were pelleted by centrifugation. 1b. To isolate T cells, lymph nodes were collected.

As you can see, crucial pieces of information are missing: the speed of centrifuging your bacteria, the time, and the temperature in (1a); the source of lymph nodes for collection in (b). The sentences can be improved when information is added, as in (2a) and (2b), respectfully:

2a. Bacteria were pelleted by centrifugation at 3000g for 15 min at 25°C. 2b. To isolate T cells, mediastinal and mesenteric lymph nodes from Balb/c mice were collected at day 7 after immunization with ovabumin.

If your method has previously been published and is well-known, then you should provide only the literature reference, as in (3a). If your method is unpublished, then you need to make sure you provide all essential details, as in (3b).

3a. Stem cells were isolated, according to Johnson [23]. 3b. Stem cells were isolated using biotinylated carbon nanotubes coated with anti-CD34 antibodies.

Furthermore, cohesion and fluency are crucial in this section. One of the malpractices resulting in disrupted fluency is switching from passive voice to active and vice versa within the same paragraph, as shown in (4). This switching misleads and distracts the reader.

4. Behavioral computer-based experiments of Study 1 were programmed by using E-Prime. We took ratings of enjoyment, mood, and arousal as the patients listened to preferred pleasant music and unpreferred music by using Visual Analogue Scales (SI Methods). The preferred and unpreferred status of the music was operationalized along a continuum of pleasantness [ 4 ].

The problem with (4) is that the reader has to switch from the point of view of the experiment (passive voice) to the point of view of the experimenter (active voice). This switch causes confusion about the performer of the actions in the first and the third sentences. To improve the coherence and fluency of the paragraph above, you should be consistent in choosing the point of view: first person “we” or passive voice [ 5 ]. Let’s consider two revised examples in (5).

5a. We programmed behavioral computer-based experiments of Study 1 by using E-Prime. We took ratings of enjoyment, mood, and arousal by using Visual Analogue Scales (SI Methods) as the patients listened to preferred pleasant music and unpreferred music. We operationalized the preferred and unpreferred status of the music along a continuum of pleasantness. 5b. Behavioral computer-based experiments of Study 1 were programmed by using E-Prime. Ratings of enjoyment, mood, and arousal were taken as the patients listened to preferred pleasant music and unpreferred music by using Visual Analogue Scales (SI Methods). The preferred and unpreferred status of the music was operationalized along a continuum of pleasantness.

If you choose the point of view of the experimenter, then you may end up with repetitive “we did this” sentences. For many readers, paragraphs with sentences all beginning with “we” may also sound disruptive. So if you choose active sentences, you need to keep the number of “we” subjects to a minimum and vary the beginnings of the sentences [ 6 ].

Interestingly, recent studies have reported that the Materials and Methods section is the only section in research papers in which passive voice predominantly overrides the use of the active voice [ 5 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. For example, Martínez shows a significant drop in active voice use in the Methods sections based on the corpus of 1 million words of experimental full text research articles in the biological sciences [ 7 ]. According to the author, the active voice patterned with “we” is used only as a tool to reveal personal responsibility for the procedural decisions in designing and performing experimental work. This means that while all other sections of the research paper use active voice, passive voice is still the most predominant in Materials and Methods sections.

Writing Materials and Methods sections is a meticulous and time consuming task requiring extreme accuracy and clarity. This is why when you complete your draft, you should ask for as much feedback from your colleagues as possible. Numerous readers of this section will help you identify the missing links and improve the technical style of this section.

Rule 3: Be meticulous and accurate in describing the Materials and Methods. Do not change the point of view within one paragraph.

3.2. writing results section.

For many authors, writing the Results section is more intimidating than writing the Materials and Methods section . If people are interested in your paper, they are interested in your results. That is why it is vital to use all your writing skills to objectively present your key findings in an orderly and logical sequence using illustrative materials and text.

Your Results should be organized into different segments or subsections where each one presents the purpose of the experiment, your experimental approach, data including text and visuals (tables, figures, schematics, algorithms, and formulas), and data commentary. For most journals, your data commentary will include a meaningful summary of the data presented in the visuals and an explanation of the most significant findings. This data presentation should not repeat the data in the visuals, but rather highlight the most important points. In the “standard” research paper approach, your Results section should exclude data interpretation, leaving it for the Discussion section. However, interpretations gradually and secretly creep into research papers: “Reducing the data, generalizing from the data, and highlighting scientific cases are all highly interpretive processes. It should be clear by now that we do not let the data speak for themselves in research reports; in summarizing our results, we interpret them for the reader” [ 10 ]. As a result, many journals including the Journal of Experimental Medicine and the Journal of Clinical Investigation use joint Results/Discussion sections, where results are immediately followed by interpretations.

Another important aspect of this section is to create a comprehensive and supported argument or a well-researched case. This means that you should be selective in presenting data and choose only those experimental details that are essential for your reader to understand your findings. You might have conducted an experiment 20 times and collected numerous records, but this does not mean that you should present all those records in your paper. You need to distinguish your results from your data and be able to discard excessive experimental details that could distract and confuse the reader. However, creating a picture or an argument should not be confused with data manipulation or falsification, which is a willful distortion of data and results. If some of your findings contradict your ideas, you have to mention this and find a plausible explanation for the contradiction.

In addition, your text should not include irrelevant and peripheral information, including overview sentences, as in (6).

6. To show our results, we first introduce all components of experimental system and then describe the outcome of infections.

Indeed, wordiness convolutes your sentences and conceals your ideas from readers. One common source of wordiness is unnecessary intensifiers. Adverbial intensifiers such as “clearly,” “essential,” “quite,” “basically,” “rather,” “fairly,” “really,” and “virtually” not only add verbosity to your sentences, but also lower your results’ credibility. They appeal to the reader’s emotions but lower objectivity, as in the common examples in (7):

7a. Table 3 clearly shows that … 7b. It is obvious from figure 4 that …

Another source of wordiness is nominalizations, i.e., nouns derived from verbs and adjectives paired with weak verbs including “be,” “have,” “do,” “make,” “cause,” “provide,” and “get” and constructions such as “there is/are.”

8a. We tested the hypothesis that there is a disruption of membrane asymmetry. 8b. In this paper we provide an argument that stem cells repopulate injured organs.

In the sentences above, the abstract nominalizations “disruption” and “argument” do not contribute to the clarity of the sentences, but rather clutter them with useless vocabulary that distracts from the meaning. To improve your sentences, avoid unnecessary nominalizations and change passive verbs and constructions into active and direct sentences.

9a. We tested the hypothesis that the membrane asymmetry is disrupted. 9b. In this paper we argue that stem cells repopulate injured organs.

Your Results section is the heart of your paper, representing a year or more of your daily research. So lead your reader through your story by writing direct, concise, and clear sentences.

Rule 4: Be clear, concise, and objective in describing your Results.

3.3. now it is time for your introduction.

Now that you are almost half through drafting your research paper, it is time to update your outline. While describing your Methods and Results, many of you diverged from the original outline and re-focused your ideas. So before you move on to create your Introduction, re-read your Methods and Results sections and change your outline to match your research focus. The updated outline will help you review the general picture of your paper, the topic, the main idea, and the purpose, which are all important for writing your introduction.

The best way to structure your introduction is to follow the three-move approach shown in Table 3 .

Adapted from Swales and Feak [ 11 ].

The moves and information from your outline can help to create your Introduction efficiently and without missing steps. These moves are traffic signs that lead the reader through the road of your ideas. Each move plays an important role in your paper and should be presented with deep thought and care. When you establish the territory, you place your research in context and highlight the importance of your research topic. By finding the niche, you outline the scope of your research problem and enter the scientific dialogue. The final move, “occupying the niche,” is where you explain your research in a nutshell and highlight your paper’s significance. The three moves allow your readers to evaluate their interest in your paper and play a significant role in the paper review process, determining your paper reviewers.

Some academic writers assume that the reader “should follow the paper” to find the answers about your methodology and your findings. As a result, many novice writers do not present their experimental approach and the major findings, wrongly believing that the reader will locate the necessary information later while reading the subsequent sections [ 5 ]. However, this “suspense” approach is not appropriate for scientific writing. To interest the reader, scientific authors should be direct and straightforward and present informative one-sentence summaries of the results and the approach.

Another problem is that writers understate the significance of the Introduction. Many new researchers mistakenly think that all their readers understand the importance of the research question and omit this part. However, this assumption is faulty because the purpose of the section is not to evaluate the importance of the research question in general. The goal is to present the importance of your research contribution and your findings. Therefore, you should be explicit and clear in describing the benefit of the paper.

The Introduction should not be long. Indeed, for most journals, this is a very brief section of about 250 to 600 words, but it might be the most difficult section due to its importance.

Rule 5: Interest your reader in the Introduction section by signalling all its elements and stating the novelty of the work.

3.4. discussion of the results.

For many scientists, writing a Discussion section is as scary as starting a paper. Most of the fear comes from the variation in the section. Since every paper has its unique results and findings, the Discussion section differs in its length, shape, and structure. However, some general principles of writing this section still exist. Knowing these rules, or “moves,” can change your attitude about this section and help you create a comprehensive interpretation of your results.

The purpose of the Discussion section is to place your findings in the research context and “to explain the meaning of the findings and why they are important, without appearing arrogant, condescending, or patronizing” [ 11 ]. The structure of the first two moves is almost a mirror reflection of the one in the Introduction. In the Introduction, you zoom in from general to specific and from the background to your research question; in the Discussion section, you zoom out from the summary of your findings to the research context, as shown in Table 4 .

Adapted from Swales and Feak and Hess [ 11 , 12 ].

The biggest challenge for many writers is the opening paragraph of the Discussion section. Following the moves in Table 1 , the best choice is to start with the study’s major findings that provide the answer to the research question in your Introduction. The most common starting phrases are “Our findings demonstrate . . .,” or “In this study, we have shown that . . .,” or “Our results suggest . . .” In some cases, however, reminding the reader about the research question or even providing a brief context and then stating the answer would make more sense. This is important in those cases where the researcher presents a number of findings or where more than one research question was presented. Your summary of the study’s major findings should be followed by your presentation of the importance of these findings. One of the most frequent mistakes of the novice writer is to assume the importance of his findings. Even if the importance is clear to you, it may not be obvious to your reader. Digesting the findings and their importance to your reader is as crucial as stating your research question.

Another useful strategy is to be proactive in the first move by predicting and commenting on the alternative explanations of the results. Addressing potential doubts will save you from painful comments about the wrong interpretation of your results and will present you as a thoughtful and considerate researcher. Moreover, the evaluation of the alternative explanations might help you create a logical step to the next move of the discussion section: the research context.

The goal of the research context move is to show how your findings fit into the general picture of the current research and how you contribute to the existing knowledge on the topic. This is also the place to discuss any discrepancies and unexpected findings that may otherwise distort the general picture of your paper. Moreover, outlining the scope of your research by showing the limitations, weaknesses, and assumptions is essential and adds modesty to your image as a scientist. However, make sure that you do not end your paper with the problems that override your findings. Try to suggest feasible explanations and solutions.

If your submission does not require a separate Conclusion section, then adding another paragraph about the “take-home message” is a must. This should be a general statement reiterating your answer to the research question and adding its scientific implications, practical application, or advice.

Just as in all other sections of your paper, the clear and precise language and concise comprehensive sentences are vital. However, in addition to that, your writing should convey confidence and authority. The easiest way to illustrate your tone is to use the active voice and the first person pronouns. Accompanied by clarity and succinctness, these tools are the best to convince your readers of your point and your ideas.

Rule 6: Present the principles, relationships, and generalizations in a concise and convincing tone.

4. choosing the best working revision strategies.

Now that you have created the first draft, your attitude toward your writing should have improved. Moreover, you should feel more confident that you are able to accomplish your project and submit your paper within a reasonable timeframe. You also have worked out your writing schedule and followed it precisely. Do not stop ― you are only at the midpoint from your destination. Just as the best and most precious diamond is no more than an unattractive stone recognized only by trained professionals, your ideas and your results may go unnoticed if they are not polished and brushed. Despite your attempts to present your ideas in a logical and comprehensive way, first drafts are frequently a mess. Use the advice of Paul Silvia: “Your first drafts should sound like they were hastily translated from Icelandic by a non-native speaker” [ 2 ]. The degree of your success will depend on how you are able to revise and edit your paper.

The revision can be done at the macrostructure and the microstructure levels [ 13 ]. The macrostructure revision includes the revision of the organization, content, and flow. The microstructure level includes individual words, sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

The best way to approach the macrostructure revision is through the outline of the ideas in your paper. The last time you updated your outline was before writing the Introduction and the Discussion. Now that you have the beginning and the conclusion, you can take a bird’s-eye view of the whole paper. The outline will allow you to see if the ideas of your paper are coherently structured, if your results are logically built, and if the discussion is linked to the research question in the Introduction. You will be able to see if something is missing in any of the sections or if you need to rearrange your information to make your point.

The next step is to revise each of the sections starting from the beginning. Ideally, you should limit yourself to working on small sections of about five pages at a time [ 14 ]. After these short sections, your eyes get used to your writing and your efficiency in spotting problems decreases. When reading for content and organization, you should control your urge to edit your paper for sentence structure and grammar and focus only on the flow of your ideas and logic of your presentation. Experienced researchers tend to make almost three times the number of changes to meaning than novice writers [ 15 , 16 ]. Revising is a difficult but useful skill, which academic writers obtain with years of practice.

In contrast to the macrostructure revision, which is a linear process and is done usually through a detailed outline and by sections, microstructure revision is a non-linear process. While the goal of the macrostructure revision is to analyze your ideas and their logic, the goal of the microstructure editing is to scrutinize the form of your ideas: your paragraphs, sentences, and words. You do not need and are not recommended to follow the order of the paper to perform this type of revision. You can start from the end or from different sections. You can even revise by reading sentences backward, sentence by sentence and word by word.

One of the microstructure revision strategies frequently used during writing center consultations is to read the paper aloud [ 17 ]. You may read aloud to yourself, to a tape recorder, or to a colleague or friend. When reading and listening to your paper, you are more likely to notice the places where the fluency is disrupted and where you stumble because of a very long and unclear sentence or a wrong connector.

Another revision strategy is to learn your common errors and to do a targeted search for them [ 13 ]. All writers have a set of problems that are specific to them, i.e., their writing idiosyncrasies. Remembering these problems is as important for an academic writer as remembering your friends’ birthdays. Create a list of these idiosyncrasies and run a search for these problems using your word processor. If your problem is demonstrative pronouns without summary words, then search for “this/these/those” in your text and check if you used the word appropriately. If you have a problem with intensifiers, then search for “really” or “very” and delete them from the text. The same targeted search can be done to eliminate wordiness. Searching for “there is/are” or “and” can help you avoid the bulky sentences.

The final strategy is working with a hard copy and a pencil. Print a double space copy with font size 14 and re-read your paper in several steps. Try reading your paper line by line with the rest of the text covered with a piece of paper. When you are forced to see only a small portion of your writing, you are less likely to get distracted and are more likely to notice problems. You will end up spotting more unnecessary words, wrongly worded phrases, or unparallel constructions.

After you apply all these strategies, you are ready to share your writing with your friends, colleagues, and a writing advisor in the writing center. Get as much feedback as you can, especially from non-specialists in your field. Patiently listen to what others say to you ― you are not expected to defend your writing or explain what you wanted to say. You may decide what you want to change and how after you receive the feedback and sort it in your head. Even though some researchers make the revision an endless process and can hardly stop after a 14th draft; having from five to seven drafts of your paper is a norm in the sciences. If you can’t stop revising, then set a deadline for yourself and stick to it. Deadlines always help.

Rule 7: Revise your paper at the macrostructure and the microstructure level using different strategies and techniques. Receive feedback and revise again.

5. it is time to submit.

It is late at night again. You are still in your lab finishing revisions and getting ready to submit your paper. You feel happy ― you have finally finished a year’s worth of work. You will submit your paper tomorrow, and regardless of the outcome, you know that you can do it. If one journal does not take your paper, you will take advantage of the feedback and resubmit again. You will have a publication, and this is the most important achievement.

What is even more important is that you have your scheduled writing time that you are going to keep for your future publications, for reading and taking notes, for writing grants, and for reviewing papers. You are not going to lose stamina this time, and you will become a productive scientist. But for now, let’s celebrate the end of the paper.

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Home / Guides / Writing Guides / Paper Types / How to Write a Research Paper

How to Write a Research Paper

Research papers are a requirement for most college courses, so knowing how to write a research paper is important. These in-depth pieces of academic writing can seem pretty daunting, but there’s no need to panic. When broken down into its key components, writing your paper should be a manageable and, dare we say it, enjoyable task.

We’re going to look at the required elements of a paper in detail, and you might also find this webpage to be a  useful reference .

Guide Overview

• What is a research paper?
• How to start a research paper
• Get clear instructions
• Brainstorm ideas
• Choose a topic
• Outline your outline
• Make friends with your librarian
• Find quality sources
• Understand your topic
• A detailed outline
• Keep it factual
• Finalize your thesis statement
• Think about format
• Cite, cite and cite
• The editing process
• Final checks

What is a Research Paper?

A research paper is more than just an extra long essay or encyclopedic regurgitation of facts and figures. The aim of this task is to combine in-depth study of a particular topic with critical thinking and evaluation by the student—that’s you!

There are two main types of research paper: argumentative and analytical.

Argumentative  — takes a stance on a particular topic right from the start, with the aim of persuading the reader of the validity of the argument. These are best suited to topics that are debatable or controversial.

Analytical  — takes no firm stance on a topic initially. Instead it asks a question and should come to an answer through the evaluation of source material. As its name suggests, the aim is to analyze the source material and offer a fresh perspective on the results.

If you wish to further your understanding, you can  learn more here .

A required word count (think thousands!) can make writing that paper seem like an insurmountable task. Don’t worry! Our step-by-step guide will help you write that killer paper with confidence.

How to Start a Research Paper

Don’t rush ahead. Taking care during the planning and preparation stage will save time and hassle later.

Get Clear Instructions

Your lecturer or professor is your biggest ally—after all, they want you to do well. Make sure you get clear guidance from them on both the required format and preferred topics. In some cases, your tutor will assign a topic, or give you a set list to choose from. Often, however, you’ll be expected to select a suitable topic for yourself.

Having a research paper example to look at can also be useful for first-timers, so ask your tutor to supply you with one.

Brainstorm Ideas

Brainstorming research paper ideas is the first step to selecting a topic—and there are various methods you can use to brainstorm, including clustering (also known as mind mapping). Think about the research paper topics that interest you, and identify topics you have a strong opinion on.

Choose a Topic

Once you have a list of potential research paper topics, narrow them down by considering your academic strengths and ‘gaps in the market,’ e.g., don’t choose a common topic that’s been written about many times before. While you want your topic to be fresh and interesting, you also need to ensure there’s enough material available for you to work with. Similarly, while you shouldn’t go for easy research paper topics just for the sake of giving yourself less work, you do need to choose a topic that you feel confident you can do justice to.

Outline Your Outline

It might not be possible to form a full research paper outline until you’ve done some information gathering, but you can think about your overall aim; basically what you want to show and how you’re going to show it. Now’s also a good time to consider your thesis statement, although this might change as you delve into your source material deeper.

Researching the Research

Now it’s time to knuckle down and dig out all the information that’s relevant to your topic. Here are some tips.

Make Friends With Your Librarian

While lots of information gathering can be carried out online from anywhere, there’s still a place for old-fashioned study sessions in the library. A good librarian can help you to locate sources quickly and easily, and might even make suggestions that you hadn’t thought of. They’re great at helping you study and research, but probably can’t save you the best desk by the window.

Find Quality Sources

Not all sources are created equal, so make sure that you’re referring to reputable, reliable information. Examples of sources could include books, magazine articles, scholarly articles, reputable websites, databases and journals. Keywords relating to your topic can help you in your search.

As you search, you should begin to compile a list of references. This will make it much easier later when you are ready to build your paper’s bibliography. Keeping clear notes detailing any sources that you use will help you to avoid accidentally plagiarizing someone else’s work or ideas.

Understand Your Topic

Simply regurgitating facts and figures won’t make for an interesting paper. It’s essential that you fully understand your topic so you can come across as an authority on the subject and present your own ideas on it. You should read around your topic as widely as you can, before narrowing your area of interest for your paper, and critically analyzing your findings.

A Detailed Outline

Once you’ve got a firm grip on your subject and the source material available to you, formulate a detailed outline, including your thesis statement and how you are going to support it. The structure of your paper will depend on the subject type—ask a tutor for a research paper outline example if you’re unsure.

Get Writing!

If you’ve fully understood your topic and gathered quality source materials, bringing it all together should actually be the easy part!

Keep it Factual

There’s no place for sloppy writing in this kind of academic task, so keep your language simple and clear, and your points critical and succinct. The creative part is finding innovative angles and new insights on the topic to make your paper interesting.

Don’t forget about our  verb ,  preposition , and  adverb  pages. You may find useful information to help with your writing!

Finalize Your Thesis Statement

You should now be in a position to finalize your thesis statement, showing clearly what your paper will show, answer or prove. This should usually be a one or two sentence statement; however, it’s the core idea of your paper, and every insight that you include should be relevant to it. Remember, a thesis statement is not merely a summary of your findings. It should present an argument or perspective that the rest of your paper aims to support.

Think About Format

The required style of your research paper format will usually depend on your subject area. For example,  APA format  is normally used for social science subjects, while MLA style is most commonly used for liberal arts and humanities. Still, there are thousands of  more styles . Your tutor should be able to give you clear guidance on how to format your paper, how to structure it, and what elements it should include. Make sure that you follow their instruction. If possible, ask to see a sample research paper in the required format.

Cite, Cite and Cite

As all research paper topics invariably involve referring to other people’s work, it’s vital that you know how to properly cite your sources to avoid unintentional plagiarism. Whether you’re paraphrasing (putting someone else’s ideas into your own words) or directly quoting, the original source needs to be referenced. What style of citation formatting you use will depend on the requirements of your instructor, with common styles including APA and  MLA format , which consist of in-text citations (short citations within the text, enclosed with parentheses) and a reference/works cited list.

The Editing Process

It’s likely that your paper will go through several drafts before you arrive at the very best version. The editing process is your chance to fix any weak points in your paper before submission. You might find that it needs a better balance of both primary and secondary sources (click through to find  more info  on the difference), that an  adjective  could use tweaking, or that you’ve included sources that aren’t relevant or credible. You might even feel that you need to be clearer in your argument, more thorough in your critical analysis, or more balanced in your evaluation.

From a stylistic point of view, you want to ensure that your writing is clear, simple and concise, with no long, rambling sentences or paragraphs. Keeping within the required word count parameters is also important, and another thing to keep in mind is the inclusion of gender-neutral language, to avoid the reinforcement of tired stereotypes.

Don’t forget about our other pages! If you are looking for help with other grammar-related topics, check out our  noun ,  pronoun , and  conjunction  pages.

Final Checks

Once you’re happy with the depth and balance of the arguments and points presented, you can turn your attention to the finer details, such as formatting, spelling, punctuation, grammar and ensuring that your citations are all present and correct. The EasyBib Plus  plagiarism checker  is a handy tool for making sure that your sources are all cited. An EasyBib Plus subscription also comes with access to citation tools that can help you create citations in your choice of format.

Also, double-check your deadline date and the submissions guidelines to avoid any last-minute issues. Take a peek at our other grammar pages while you’re at it. We’ve included numerous links on this page, but we also have an  interjection  page and  determiner  page.

So you’ve done your final checks and handed in your paper according to the submissions guidelines and preferably before deadline day. Congratulations! If your schedule permits, now would be a great time to take a break from your studies. Maybe plan a fun activity with friends or just take the opportunity to rest and relax. A well-earned break from the books will ensure that you return to class refreshed and ready for your next stage of learning—and the next  research paper  requirement your tutor sets!

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How to Write a Killer Research Paper (Even If You Hate Writing)

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Research papers.

Unless you’re a weirdo like me, you probably dread them. When I was in college, depending on the class, I even dreaded these.

It’s the sort of project that can leave even the most organized student quaking in their boots, staring at the assignment like they’re Luke Skywalker and it’s the Death Star.

You have to pick a broad topic, do some in-depth research, hone in on a research question, and then present your answer to that question in an interesting way. Oh, and you have to use citations, too.

How on earth are you supposed to tackle this thing?

Fear not, for even the Death Star had weaknesses. With a well-devised plan, some courage, and maybe a little help from a few midichlorians, you can conquer your research paper, too.

Let’s get started.

1. Pick a Topic

And pick one that interests you. This is not up for debate.

You and this topic are going to be spending a lot of time together, so you might as well pick something you like, or, at the very least, have a vague interest in. Even if you hate the class, there’s probably at least one topic that you’re curious about.

Maybe you want to write about “mental health in high schools” for your paper in your education class. That’s a good start, but take a couple steps to hone your idea a little further so you have an idea of what to research. Here’s a couple of factors to look at when you want to get more specific:

• Timeframe : What are the most important mental health issues for high schoolers that have come up in the last five years?
• Location : How does the mental health of students in your area compare to students in the next state (or country) over?
• Culture or Group : How does the mental health of inner-city students compare to those in the suburbs or places like Silicon Valley?
• Solution : If schools were to make one change to high schools to improve the well-being of their students, what would be most effective, and why?

It’s good to be clear about what you’re researching, but make sure you don’t box yourself into a corner. Try to avoid being too local (if the area is a small town, for example), or too recent, as there may not be enough research conducted to support an entire paper on the subject.

Also, avoid super analytical or technical topics that you think you’ll have a hard time writing about (unless that’s the assignment…then jump right into all the technicalities you want).

You’ll probably need to do some background research and possibly brainstorm with your professor before you can identify a topic that’s specialized enough for your paper.

At the very least, skim the Encyclopedia Britannica section on your general area of interest. Your professor is another resource: use them! They’re probably more than happy to point you in the direction of a possible research topic.

Of course, this is going to be highly dependent on your class and the criteria set forth by your professor, so make sure you read your assignment and understand what it’s asking for. If you feel the assignment is unclear, don’t go any further without talking to your professor about it.

2. Create a Clear Thesis Statement

Say it with me: a research paper without a thesis question or statement is just a fancy book report.

All research papers fall under three general categories: analytical, expository, or argumentative.

• Analytical papers present an analysis of information (effects of stress on the human brain)
• Expository papers seek to explain something (Julius Caesar’s rise to power)
• Argumentative papers are trying to prove a point (Dumbledore shouldn’t be running a school for children).

So figure out what sort of paper you’d like to write, and then come up with a viable thesis statement or question.

Maybe it starts out looking like this:

• Julius Caesar’s rise to power was affected by three major factors.

Ok, not bad. You could probably write a paper based on this. But it’s not great , either. It’s not specific, neither is it arguable . You’re not really entering any sort of discussion.

Maybe you rework it a little to be more specific and you get:

• Julius Caesar’s quick rise to power was a direct result of a power vacuum and social instability created by years of war and internal political corruption.

Better. Now you can actually think about researching it.

Every good thesis statement has three important qualities: it’s focused , it picks a side , and it can be backed up with research .

If you’re missing any of these qualities, you’re gonna have a bad time. Avoid vague modifier words like “positive” and “negative.” Instead use precise, strong language to formulate your argument.

Take this thesis statement for example:

• “ High schools should stop assigning so much homework, because it has a negative impact on students’ lives.”

Sure, it’s arguable…but only sort of . It’s pretty vague. We don’t really know what is meant by “negative”, other than “generically bad”. Before you get into the research, you have to define your argument a little more.

Revised Version:

• “ High schools in the United States should assign less homework, as lower workloads improve students’ sleep, stress levels, and, surprisingly, their grades.”

When in doubt, always look at your thesis and ask, “Is this arguable?”  Is there something you need to prove ? If not, then your thesis probably isn’t strong enough. If yes, then as long as you can actually prove it with your research, you’re golden.

Good thesis statements give you a clear goal. You know exactly what you’re looking for, and you know exactly where you’re going with the paper. Try to be as specific and clear as possible. That makes the next step a lot easier:

3. Hit the Books

So you have your thesis, you know what you’re looking for. It’s time to actually go out and do some real research. By real research, I mean more than a quick internet search or a quick skim through some weak secondary or tertiary sources.

If you’ve chosen a thesis you’re a little unsteady on, a preliminary skim through Google is fine, but make sure you go the extra mile. Some professors will even have a list of required resources (e.g. “Three academic articles, two books, one interview…etc).

It’s a good idea to start by heading to the library and asking your local librarian for help (they’re usually so excited to help you find things!).

Check your school library for research papers and books on the topic. Look for primary sources, such as journals, personal records, or contemporary newspaper articles when you can find them.

As you’re starting your research, create some kind of system for filing helpful quotes, links, and other sources. I preferred it to all be on one text document on my computer, but you could try a physical file, too.

In this text document, I start compiling a list of all the sources I’m using. It tends to look like this:

Remember that at this point, your thesis isn’t solid. It’s still in a semi-squishy state. If your research starts to strongly contradict your thesis, then come up with a new thesis, revise, and keep on compiling quotes.

The more support you can find, the better. Depending on how long your paper is, you should have 3-10 different sources, with all sorts of quotes between them.

Here are some good places to look for reputable sources:

• Google Scholar
• Sites ending in .edu, .org, or .gov. While it’s not a rule, these sites tend to represent organizations, and they are more likely to be reputable than your run-of-the-mill .com sites
• Your school library. It should have a section for articles and newspapers as well as books
• Your school’s free academic database
• Online encyclopedias like Britannica
• Online almanacs and other databases

As you read, analyze your sources closely, and take good notes . Jot down general observations, questions, and answers to those questions when you find them. Once you have a sizable stack of research notes, it’s time to start organizing your paper.

4. Write an Outline

Even if you normally feel confident writing a paper without one, use an outline when you’re working on a research paper.

Outlines basically do all the heavy lifting for you when it comes to writing. They keep you organized and on track. Even if you feel tempted to just jump in and brain-dump, resist. You’ll thank me later.

Here’s how to structure an outline:

You’ll notice it’s fairly concise, and it has three major parts: the introduction , the body , and the conclusion . Also notice that I haven’t bothered to organize my research too much.

I’ve just dumped all the relevant citations under the headings I think they’ll end up under, so I can put in my quotes from my research document later as they fit into the overall text.

Let’s get a little more in-depth with this:

The Introduction

The introduction is made up of two main parts: the thesis and the introduction to the supporting points. This is where you essentially tell your reader exactly what sort of wild ride they’re in for if they read on.

It’s all about preparing your reader’s mind to start thinking about your argument or question before you even really get started.

Present your thesis and your supporting points clearly and concisely. It should be no longer than a paragraph or two. Keep it simple and easy to read.

Body Paragraphs

Okay, now that you’ve made your point, it’s time to prove it. This is where your body paragraphs come in. The length of this is entirely dependent on the criteria set by your professor, so keep that in mind.

However, as a rule, you should have at least three supporting points to help defend, prove, or explain your thesis. Put your weakest point first, and your strongest point last.

This doesn’t need a lot of outlining. Basically, take your introduction outline and copy it over. Your conclusion should be about a paragraph long, and it should summarize your main points and restate your thesis.

There’s also another key component to this outline example that I haven’t touched on yet:

Research and Annotations

Some people like to write first, and annotate later. Personally, I like to get my quotes and annotations in right at the start of the writing process.

I find the rest of the paper goes more smoothly, and it’s easier to ensure that I’ve compiled enough support for my claim. That way, I don’t go through all the work of writing the paper, only to discover that my thesis doesn’t actually hold any water!

As a general rule, it’s good to have at least 3-5 sources for every supporting point. Whenever you make a claim in your paper, you should support it with evidence.

Some professors are laxer on this, and some are more stringent. Make sure you understand your assignment requirements really, really, really well. You don’t want to get marked down for missing the correct number of sources!

At this stage, you should also be sure of what sort of format your professor is looking for (APA, MLA, etc.) , as this will save you a lot of headache later.

When I was in college, some professors wanted in-text parenthetical citations whenever I made a claim or used my research at all. Others only wanted citations at the end of a paragraph. And others didn’t mind in-text citations at all, so long as you had a bibliography at the end of your entire paper.

So, go through your outline and start inserting your quotes and citations now. Count them up. If you need more, then add them. If you think you have enough (read: your claims are so supported that even Voldemort himself couldn’t scare them), then move on to the next step:

5. Write the First Draft

Time to type this thing up. If you created a strong enough outline, this should be a breeze. Most of it should already be written for you. All you have to do at this point is fill it in. You’ve successfully avoided the initial blank-screen panic .

Don’t worry too much about grammar or prose quality at this point. It’s the rough draft, and it’s not supposed to see the light of day.

I find it helpful to highlight direct quotes, summaries, paraphrases, and claims as I put them in. This helps me ensure that I never forget to cite any of them.

So, do what you’ve gotta do . Go to a studious place or create one , put on an awesome playlist, close your social media apps, and get the work done.

Once you’ve gotten the gist of your paper down, the real work begins:

6. Revise Your Draft

Okay, now that you’ve word-vomited everywhere in a semi-organized fashion, it’s time to start building this thing into a cohesive paper. If you took the time to outline properly, then this part shouldn’t be too difficult.

Every paper has two editing stages:the developmental edit , and the line edit.

The developmental edit (the first one, at least) is for your eyes only. This is the part where you take a long, hard look at your paper and ask yourself, “Does this make sense, and does it accomplish what I want it to accomplish?” If it does, then great. If it doesn’t, then how can you rearrange or change it so that it does?

Here are a few good questions to ask yourself at this stage:

• Is the paper well-organized, and does it have a logical flow of thought from paragraph to paragraph?
• Does your thesis hold up to the three criteria listed earlier? Is it well supported by your research and arguments?
• Have you checked that all your sources are properly cited?
• How repetitive is the paper? Can you get rid of superlative points or language to tighten up your argument?

Once you’ve run the paper through this process at least once, it’s time for the line edit . This is the part where you check for punctuation, spelling, and grammar errors.

It helps to let your paper sit overnight, and then read it out loud to yourself, or the cat, or have a friend read it. Often, our brains know what we “meant” to say, and it’s difficult for us to catch small grammatical or spelling errors.

Here are a couple more final questions to ask yourself before you call it a day:

• Have you avoided filler words , adverbs , and passive voice as much as possible?
• Have you checked for proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation? Spell-checker software is pretty adept these days, but it still isn’t perfect.

If you need help editing your paper, and your regular software just isn’t cutting it, Grammarly is a good app for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Chrome that goes above and beyond your run-of-the-mill spell-checker. It looks for things like sentence structure and length, as well as accidental plagiarism and passive tense.

7. Organize Your Sources

The paper’s written, but it’s not over. You’ve still got to create the very last page: the “works cited” or bibliography page.

Now, this page works a little differently depending on what style your professor has asked you to use, and it can get pretty confusing, as different types of sources are formatted completely differently.

The most important thing to ensure here is that every single source, whether big or small, is on this page before you turn your paper in. If you forget to cite something, or don’t cite it properly, you run the risk of plagiarism.

I got through college by using a couple of different tools to format it for me. Here are some absolute life-savers:

• EasyBib – I literally used this tool all throughout college to format my citations for me, it does all the heavy lifting for you, and it’s free .
• Microsoft Word – I honestly never touched Microsoft Word throughout my college years, but it actually has a tool that will create citations and bibliographies for you, so it’s worth using if you have it on your computer.

Onwards: One Step at a Time

I leave you with this parting advice:

Once you understand the method, research papers really aren’t as difficult as they seem. Sure, there’s a lot to do, but don’t be daunted. Just take it step by step, piece by piece, and give yourself plenty of time. Take frequent breaks, stay organized, and never, ever, ever forget to cite your sources. You can do this!

Looking for tools to make the writing process easier? Check out our list of the best writing apps .

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How the World Became Rich by Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin and Slouching Towards Utopia, by J. Bradford DeLong: A Review Essay

This essay provides a review of two important recent books on economic growth: How the World Became Rich by Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin and Slouching Towards Utopia, by J. Bradford DeLong. Each book is noteworthy for its erudition and breadth. I explore strengths and weaknesses of these books and make some proposals on new ways to conceptualize and study long run socioeconomic development. My discussion emphasizes the importance of contingency in determining long run inequalities across countries as well the potential for ideas from complexity theory to augment standard growth modelling.

Financial support from the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation is appreciated. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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Writing a Research Paper Conclusion | Step-by-Step Guide

Published on October 30, 2022 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on April 13, 2023.

• Restate the problem statement addressed in the paper
• Summarize your overall arguments or findings
• Suggest the key takeaways from your paper

The content of the conclusion varies depending on whether your paper presents the results of original empirical research or constructs an argument through engagement with sources .

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Table of contents

Step 1: restate the problem, step 2: sum up the paper, step 3: discuss the implications, research paper conclusion examples, frequently asked questions about research paper conclusions.

The first task of your conclusion is to remind the reader of your research problem . You will have discussed this problem in depth throughout the body, but now the point is to zoom back out from the details to the bigger picture.

While you are restating a problem you’ve already introduced, you should avoid phrasing it identically to how it appeared in the introduction . Ideally, you’ll find a novel way to circle back to the problem from the more detailed ideas discussed in the body.

For example, an argumentative paper advocating new measures to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture might restate its problem as follows:

Meanwhile, an empirical paper studying the relationship of Instagram use with body image issues might present its problem like this:

“In conclusion …”

Avoid starting your conclusion with phrases like “In conclusion” or “To conclude,” as this can come across as too obvious and make your writing seem unsophisticated. The content and placement of your conclusion should make its function clear without the need for additional signposting.

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Having zoomed back in on the problem, it’s time to summarize how the body of the paper went about addressing it, and what conclusions this approach led to.

Depending on the nature of your research paper, this might mean restating your thesis and arguments, or summarizing your overall findings.

Argumentative paper: Restate your thesis and arguments

In an argumentative paper, you will have presented a thesis statement in your introduction, expressing the overall claim your paper argues for. In the conclusion, you should restate the thesis and show how it has been developed through the body of the paper.

Briefly summarize the key arguments made in the body, showing how each of them contributes to proving your thesis. You may also mention any counterarguments you addressed, emphasizing why your thesis holds up against them, particularly if your argument is a controversial one.

Don’t go into the details of your evidence or present new ideas; focus on outlining in broad strokes the argument you have made.

Empirical paper: Summarize your findings

In an empirical paper, this is the time to summarize your key findings. Don’t go into great detail here (you will have presented your in-depth results and discussion already), but do clearly express the answers to the research questions you investigated.

Describe your main findings, even if they weren’t necessarily the ones you expected or hoped for, and explain the overall conclusion they led you to.

Having summed up your key arguments or findings, the conclusion ends by considering the broader implications of your research. This means expressing the key takeaways, practical or theoretical, from your paper—often in the form of a call for action or suggestions for future research.

Argumentative paper: Strong closing statement

An argumentative paper generally ends with a strong closing statement. In the case of a practical argument, make a call for action: What actions do you think should be taken by the people or organizations concerned in response to your argument?

If your topic is more theoretical and unsuitable for a call for action, your closing statement should express the significance of your argument—for example, in proposing a new understanding of a topic or laying the groundwork for future research.

Empirical paper: Future research directions

In a more empirical paper, you can close by either making recommendations for practice (for example, in clinical or policy papers), or suggesting directions for future research.

Whatever the scope of your own research, there will always be room for further investigation of related topics, and you’ll often discover new questions and problems during the research process .

Finish your paper on a forward-looking note by suggesting how you or other researchers might build on this topic in the future and address any limitations of the current paper.

Full examples of research paper conclusions are shown in the tabs below: one for an argumentative paper, the other for an empirical paper.

• Argumentative paper
• Empirical paper

While the role of cattle in climate change is by now common knowledge, countries like the Netherlands continually fail to confront this issue with the urgency it deserves. The evidence is clear: To create a truly futureproof agricultural sector, Dutch farmers must be incentivized to transition from livestock farming to sustainable vegetable farming. As well as dramatically lowering emissions, plant-based agriculture, if approached in the right way, can produce more food with less land, providing opportunities for nature regeneration areas that will themselves contribute to climate targets. Although this approach would have economic ramifications, from a long-term perspective, it would represent a significant step towards a more sustainable and resilient national economy. Transitioning to sustainable vegetable farming will make the Netherlands greener and healthier, setting an example for other European governments. Farmers, policymakers, and consumers must focus on the future, not just on their own short-term interests, and work to implement this transition now.

As social media becomes increasingly central to young people’s everyday lives, it is important to understand how different platforms affect their developing self-conception. By testing the effect of daily Instagram use among teenage girls, this study established that highly visual social media does indeed have a significant effect on body image concerns, with a strong correlation between the amount of time spent on the platform and participants’ self-reported dissatisfaction with their appearance. However, the strength of this effect was moderated by pre-test self-esteem ratings: Participants with higher self-esteem were less likely to experience an increase in body image concerns after using Instagram. This suggests that, while Instagram does impact body image, it is also important to consider the wider social and psychological context in which this usage occurs: Teenagers who are already predisposed to self-esteem issues may be at greater risk of experiencing negative effects. Future research into Instagram and other highly visual social media should focus on establishing a clearer picture of how self-esteem and related constructs influence young people’s experiences of these platforms. Furthermore, while this experiment measured Instagram usage in terms of time spent on the platform, observational studies are required to gain more insight into different patterns of usage—to investigate, for instance, whether active posting is associated with different effects than passive consumption of social media content.

If you’re unsure about the conclusion, it can be helpful to ask a friend or fellow student to read your conclusion and summarize the main takeaways.

• Do they understand from your conclusion what your research was about?
• Are they able to summarize the implications of your findings?
• Can they answer your research question based on your conclusion?

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The conclusion of a research paper has several key elements you should make sure to include:

• A restatement of the research problem
• A summary of your key arguments and/or findings
• A short discussion of the implications of your research

No, it’s not appropriate to present new arguments or evidence in the conclusion . While you might be tempted to save a striking argument for last, research papers follow a more formal structure than this.

All your findings and arguments should be presented in the body of the text (more specifically in the results and discussion sections if you are following a scientific structure). The conclusion is meant to summarize and reflect on the evidence and arguments you have already presented, not introduce new ones.

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INTERDISCIPLINARY CENTER FOR BIOETHICS - TECHNOLOGY & ETHICS STUDY GROUP The Technology & Ethics Study Group will be hosting guest speaker Edward Calabrese, PhD, toxicologist and professor in the department of environmental health sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Professor Calabrese is known for his research into hormesis or the biological response to the exposure of increasing amounts of a substance or condition. He will discuss his research into the historical foundations of cancer risk assessment which he calls a wretched history needing to be rewritten Dr. Calabrese will provide a comprehensive overview of the evolution of the linear no-threshold model (LNT) in assessing cancer risk, as illustrated through approximately 100 scholarly articles from the fields of industrial hygiene, toxicology, health physics, and radiation health. These publications offer extensive documentation covering a century-long timeline that includes references to the scientists' personal research diaries and private insights. Pertinent to our interest in technology ethics, he will discuss instances of scientific misrepresentation and misconduct that underscore the need for current re-validation to existing hypotheses. Please email Joe Carvalko at [email protected] to receive an event announcement with the link to join on Zoom.

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Long-Term Effects of Childhood Exposure to War on Domestic Violence

• Original Article
• Open access
• Published: 22 August 2024

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• Joseph B. Ajefu 1 , 2 &
• Daniela Casale 3  

This paper highlights the scarring effects of early life exposure to civil war, by examining the impact of exposure to conflict in childhood on the incidence of domestic violence in adulthood among married women. To estimate these effects, we use a difference-in-differences model which exploits variation in exposure to Nigeria’s 30-month-long civil war by year of birth and ethnicity. Our results, based on the 2008 Nigerian Demographic Health Survey, show that women exposed to the war during childhood are more likely to be victims of domestic violence in adulthood compared to those not exposed to the war, with larger effects observed for those exposed at younger ages. Additionally, we explore the mechanisms through which exposure to civil war might affect domestic violence and find some support for both the normalisation of violence and weakened bargaining power hypotheses. Understanding the root causes of domestic violence is important given the high prevalence in developing countries and the deleterious consequences for women and their children.

Ce document met en évidence les effets cicatrisants d'une exposition précoce à la guerre civile, en examinant l'impact de l'exposition au conflit pendant l'enfance sur l'incidence de la violence domestique à l'âge adulte chez les femmes mariées. Pour estimer ces effets, nous utilisons un modèle de différences en différences qui exploite la variation de l'exposition à la guerre civile nigériane de 30 mois en fonction de l'année de naissance et de l'ethnicité. Nos résultats, basés sur l'Enquête démographique de santé nigériane de 2008, montrent que les femmes exposées à la guerre pendant l'enfance sont plus susceptibles d'être victimes de violence domestique à l'âge adulte par rapport à celles qui n'ont pas été exposées à la guerre, avec des effets plus importants observés pour celles exposées à des âges plus jeunes. De plus, nous explorons les mécanismes par lesquels l'exposition à la guerre civile pourrait affecter la violence domestique et trouvons un certain soutien pour les hypothèses de normalisation de la violence et d'affaiblissement du pouvoir de négociation. Comprendre les causes profondes de la violence domestique est important étant donné la prévalence élevée dans les pays en développement et les conséquences délétères pour les femmes et leurs enfants.

Este documento destaca los efectos perjudiciales de la exposición en los primeros años de vida a la guerra civil, examinando el impacto de la exposición al conflicto en la infancia sobre la incidencia de la violencia doméstica en la adultez entre mujeres casadas. Para estimar estos efectos, utilizamos un modelo de diferencias en diferencias que explota la variación en la exposición a la guerra civil de Nigeria de 30 meses de duración por año de nacimiento y etnia. Nuestros resultados, basados en la Encuesta de Salud Demográfica de Nigeria 2008, muestran que las mujeres expuestas a la guerra durante la infancia tienen más probabilidades de ser víctimas de violencia doméstica en la adultez en comparación con aquellas que no estuvieron expuestas a la guerra, con efectos mayores observados para aquellas expuestas a edades más tempranas. Además, exploramos los mecanismos a través de los cuales la exposición a la guerra civil podría afectar la violencia doméstica y encontramos cierto apoyo tanto para las hipótesis de normalización de la violencia como para el debilitamiento del poder de negociación. Comprender las causas fundamentales de la violencia doméstica es importante dado su alta prevalencia en los países en desarrollo y las consecuencias perjudiciales para las mujeres y sus hijos.

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Introduction

Since World War II, almost one-third of all countries have experienced civil war, and the incidence of armed conflict has been on the rise (Gleditsch et al. 2002 ). In Sub-Saharan Africa specifically, nearly three-fourths of countries in the region have experienced civil war (Gleditsch et al. 2002 ). These conflicts have often led to considerable loss of lives, deterioration of physical and human capital, erosion of institutional capacity, and reduced economic growth (Akbulut-Yuksel and Yuksel 2017 ). It has been estimated, for instance, that between 2012 and 2017, the global economic costs of conflict increased from $12.62 trillion to $14.76 trillion, with many of the conflict-torn countries trapped in a perpetual cycle of violence (World Development Report 2011 ; World Humanitarian Data and Trends Report 2017 ; Institute for Economics and Peace 2018 ).

While the macroeconomic costs of war have long been studied in economics, literature on the microeconomic impacts of civil war, particularly in developing countries, has grown in the last 20 years especially, perhaps as more data have become available (Verwimp et al 2019 ). Studies have shown that exposure to conflict is negatively associated with educational attainment (Singh and Shemyakina 2016 ; Chamarbagwala and Moran 2011 ; Shemyakina 2011 ; Swee 2015 ), health outcomes (Akresh et al. 2012a , 2012b ; Grimard and Laszlo 2014 ; Weldeegzie; 2017 ), social trust (Kijewski and Freitag 2018 ), and labour market outcomes (Galdo 2013 ; Islam et al. 2016 ).

In this paper, we add to this literature by exploring how exposure to conflict in childhood affects experiences of domestic violence among women in adulthood, using the case of the Nigerian civil war. Recent work suggests that exposure to war increases women’s likelihood of experiencing intimate partner violence across a range of contexts. La Mattina ( 2017 ) finds that exposure to the genocide in Rwanda increased the incidence of domestic violence among women who married after 1994 compared to those who married before the genocide occurred, with a larger effect for women in areas with high genocide intensity. Kelly et al ( 2018 ) match district-level information on conflict-related fatalities during the civil war in Liberia from 1999 to 2003 to data on post-conflict intimate partner violence from the 2007 Demographic Health Survey (DHS). They find a strong effect of fatalities on the incidence of intimate partner violence, with 4–5 years of cumulative exposure having the strongest effect. In a similar vein, Østby et al ( 2019 ) analyse the experiences of women in Peru during and after the civil war from 1980 to 2000 and find that those living in areas with higher exposure to conflict-related violence are at increased risk of violence in the home. Svallfors ( 2023 ) analyses DHS data from 2005 to 2015 for Columbia and shows that local-level exposure to armed conflict events in the previous year especially, increased women’s likelihood of experiencing intimate partner violence.

In all these studies, the focus has been on the association between conflict exposure and domestic violence in adulthood, or on temporally proximate relationships. In our reading of the literature, we could find only one very recent published paper by Torrisi ( 2023 ) which tries to uncover whether the timing of exposure matters, and particularly whether exposure to armed conflict during childhood has long-lasting consequences for domestic violence in adulthood. Torrisi ( 2023 ) combines DHS data with geo-referenced information on the armed conflicts that occurred in four ex-Soviet countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, and Tajikistan) soon after the break-up of the USSR. She finds that women who were exposed to conflict by age 19 were more likely to experience domestic violence than those never exposed or not exposed by age 19, and that this effect is driven largely by exposure in the sensitive childhood period from 0 to 10 years of age (with no significant effect for those exposed at ages 11 to 15 or 16 to 19).

We also found two working papers that explore the relationship between childhood exposure and domestic violence in adulthood (Gutierrez and Gallegos 2016 ; La Mattina and Shemyakina 2017 ). Gutierrez and Gallegos ( 2016 ) use DHS data from Peru coupled with information on geographical variation in exposure to violent conflict to show that both women who were exposed at ages 0 to 8 and 9 to 16 experienced a higher incidence of domestic violence in adulthood compared to those not exposed. La Mattina and Shemyakina ( 2017 ) use the DHS data on selected Sub-Saharan African countries and exploit both temporal and geographical variation in conflict intensity between 1946 and 2006 across sub-national regions. Their results suggest that women who live in a region where there was an armed conflict when they were 6 to 10 years old are more likely to experience domestic violence than individuals not exposed to conflict by age 20, but they do not observe similar effects for individuals who were exposed to conflict at ages 0 to 5 or 11 to 20.

There is a common methodological thread that runs throughout all these studies: they use geo-referenced data on conflict-related violence combined with post-conflict data on domestic violence from the DHS surveys. In addition to imperfect matching at the sub-national or district level due to differences in levels of geographical disaggregation or demarcation between the two sources of data, a key concern with this approach is endogenous migration. The DHS only has information on the individual’s current place of residence and not on their residence in childhood or at the time of conflict. There is therefore no guarantee that the women who are currently living in a previously conflict-exposed area were also living there during childhood when the conflict took place. Indeed, endogenous migration is likely to be more of a concern during times of conflict, and the direction of the effect is difficult to predict. It is possible that the most vulnerable women (and men) may be displaced or forced to flee with their families during times of conflict, but it is also possible that the least vulnerable, those with better economic resources and social networks, are the ones who can more easily relocate to places of safety. To try and address this problem, many of the studies listed above restrict their samples to those who had never moved since birth or who had not moved in the previous five years, depending on the data available in the DHS. In doing so, however, they tend to lose 50 percent or more of their initial sample (Gutierrez and Gallegos 2016 ; La Mattina and Shemyakina 2017 ; Torrisi 2023 ), likely leading to biassed results.

Our paper makes a useful methodological contribution to this growing literature on the long-term effects of war exposure by using what we consider to be a more robust method of identifying exposure than the commonly used geographical approach. We use ethnicity and birth cohort to identify exposure to conflict in childhood during the Nigerian civil war (following the approach adopted in Akresh et al 2012a , 2023 ). We are able to adopt this approach because of the very specific nature of the Nigerian civil war, which occurred from 6 July 1967 to 15 January 1970, and which was restricted to the south-eastern region of Nigeria inhabited by the Igbos and other minority ethnic groups (which we will describe in more detail below). This strategy mitigates the problem of selective migration associated with the use of geography-based variables to identify exposure, a problem which is likely to be more pronounced during times of conflict.

In addition, we examine exposure in early childhood using more granular age ranges than have currently been explored, namely those exposed in utero, between the ages of 0 to 4, 5 to 8, and 9 to 12. In doing so, we add to the growing body of literature in economics which recognises that there are long-run implications of early life shocks and that adverse circumstances during the sensitive early period of childhood can impact a range of later life outcomes (Case et al. 2005 ; Cunha and Heckman 2007 ; Almond and Currie 2011 ; Currie 2020 ). This includes increasing evidence that in utero exposure to shocks such as war, disease, and famine have long-term negative consequences on physical and mental health, educational attainment, earnings, and other socio-economic outcomes (Almond 2006 ; Camacho 2009 ; Almond and Currie 2011 ; Comfort 2016 ; Almond et al. 2018 ).

Finally, we try to unpack the mechanisms through which early life exposure to conflict affects experiences of domestic violence in adulthood, using the rich data available in the Nigerian Demographic Health Survey. We explore two possible channels. The first, the normalisation of violence hypothesis, relies on the well-known finding that children who witness violence at home are more likely to become a victim or perpetrator of domestic violence themselves in adulthood (Schwab-Stone et al. 1995 ; Gage 2005 ; Yount and Li 2009 ; Cesur and Sabia 2016 ; Jin et al. 2017 ). If war results in more intimate partner violence among married couples, as the evidence presented earlier suggests, we would expect children growing up during war to witness more violence among their parents than observably similar children. Even if children do not witness violence within their own homes, one might expect that children exposed to community-level violence through war during their formative years might also be more likely to view violence as a justifiable response to certain problems (Barnett et al. 2005 ; Fowler et al. 2009 ; Gutierrez and Galegos 2016 ). To examine whether exposure to violence in childhood might have affected the formation of beliefs during the critical early years, we use data in the DHS on whether war-exposed women witnessed domestic violence in their homes as children and on women’s and men’s attitudes towards wife-beating in adulthood (Huber 2023 ).

The second hypothesis we explore is reduced bargaining power in the household, which would affect women’s options outside of the marriage and in turn increase their likelihood of being victims of domestic violence (Bhattacharyya et al. 2011 ; Heath 2014 ; La Mattina 2017 ). There are a number of reasons why women exposed to war may have fewer outside options. For instance, a number of studies in a range of countries have found evidence that civil conflict results in poorer educational outcomes (Akresh and Walque 2008 ; Leon 2012 ; Shemyakina 2011 ; Chamarbagwala and Moran 2011 ; and Dabalen and Paul 2014 ), and there is some evidence that exposure to conflict negatively affects girls more than boys (Singh and Shemyakina 2016 ). Women with lower education have fewer out-of-marriage options given their weaker labour market outcomes and increased financial dependence on their husbands, raising the likelihood of domestic violence (Lundberg and Pollak 1996 ; Farmer and Tiefenthaler 1997 ; Aizer 2010 ; Bhattacharyya et al. 2011 ; Eswaran and Malhotra 2011 ; Galdo 2013 ; Heath 2014 ). Moreover, war exposure can affect marriage, reproductive and health outcomes, which would have consequences for women’s intra-household bargaining power (Verwimp and van Bavel 2005 ; Aizer 2011 ; Akresh 2012a ; Islam et al 2016 ; Cetorelli and Khawaja 2017 ; La Mattina 2017 ). To measure women’s bargaining power in adulthood, we use the information in the DHS on women’s decision-making power in the household across a number of domains (Ajefu and Casale 2021 ).

Our main findings are as follows. We find that women exposed to the Nigerian civil war during childhood are more likely to be victims of domestic violence in adulthood compared to women not exposed to the civil war. Specifically, we find that exposure to the civil war is associated with an increase in the likelihood of being a victim of domestic violence of 1.2 percentage points compared to non-exposed cohorts (or 6% given the sample mean incidence of 19.7%). These effects appear to be more pronounced the earlier on one is exposed in childhood, with particularly large effects for those exposed in utero. While it is far more difficult to identify the channels through which exposure to the civil war affects domestic violence (particularly across the cohorts), in our exploratory work, we find some evidence to support both the normalisation of violence and bargaining power hypotheses.

The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 provides background information on the Nigerian civil war. Section 3 discusses the data and the empirical identification strategy, and presents some descriptive statistics. Section 4 presents the estimation results, and Sect. 5 concludes.

Background on the Nigerian Civil War

Under British colonial rule, Nigeria comprised three regions, namely the northern, western, and eastern regions. Footnote 1 Each of these regions had a predominant ethnic group, with the Hausa in the North, the Yoruba in the West, and the Igbo in the East. Like many countries in Africa, political and social conflict in Nigeria bore both ethnic and regional dimensions (Simpson 2014 ). In less than seven years after becoming an independent nation (on 1 October 1960), some of these long-standing tensions between the different groups intensified and the country was plunged into a civil war, also known as the Biafran War.

While the underlying geo-political causes of the war are too complex to explain here, some of the immediate causes of the Nigerian Civil War were the military coup on 15 January 1966, organised by primarily Igbo army officers, the counter-coup of 28 July 1966, and the subsequent persecution and killing of the Igbos in the Northern part of the country (Kirk-Greene 1971 ; Nafziger 1972 ). In response to this, there was a massive return migration of Igbos seeking refuge (estimated to involve around 1.5 million people) to their homeland in the south-eastern region (Aall 1970 ; Akresh et al 2012a ). On 30 May 1967, the south-eastern region declared itself the Republic of Biafra and this led to a full-blown civil war that began on 6 July 1967 (see Fig.  1 ).

Map of Nigeria indicating the south-east states. The civil war was restricted to the south-east region that declared itself the Biafra republic

Nigeria’s Federal Military Government fiercely resisted the breakaway republic for two and a half years, using both their military might and their ability to impose a blockade of the landlocked territory (preventing the inflow of food, medicine, and other essential supplies). It has been estimated that between 1 and 3 million people died from the violence and mass starvation that ensued, in what was considered one of the bloodiest wars in sub-Saharan Africa (Akresh et al. 2012a ; Simpson 2014 ). The war ended on 15 January 1970 after the Republic of Biafra surrendered to the Nigerian troops.

Two key features of this devastating conflict are salient to our empirical strategy. First, because of the military blockade (which prevented movement of both people and supplies), the war was fought in the south-eastern region with direct civilian exposure largely restricted to this area (Akresh et al. 2012a ). Second, at the time of the war, most Igbos were living in their native states in the south-east, and many of those living outside the area returned there before the war to seek refuge in the mass migration that occurred just before secession was declared (Aall 1970 ). We can therefore use ethnicity and birth cohort to identify exposure to the civil war. This identification strategy is similar to that used by Akresh et al ( 2012a ) in their study on the impact of exposure to the Nigerian civil war on women’s stature in adulthood. This strategy is preferred to using current geographical demarcation, as is the case in other studies exploring the relationship between war exposure and domestic violence, as it circumvents the problem of selective migration (ethnicity is invariant to migration).

To investigate the impact of the Nigerian civil war on women’s experience of domestic violence in adulthood, we use the 2008 Nigerian Demographic Health Survey (DHS). The DHS is a large nationally representative cross-sectional survey conducted in a number of developing countries. It provides information on women between the ages of 15 and 49 years on a large number of demographic and socio-economic factors. The 2008 Nigerian DHS covered 34,070 households and 33,385 women. Footnote 2 We use the 2008 survey in this study for two main reasons: it is the first wave of the Nigerian DHS to collect information on the incidence of domestic violence among women; and given the timing of the war, this particular survey covers the largest sample of war-exposed women, allowing us to explore the effects of exposure in utero through to exposure at 12 years of age. Footnote 3

The information on domestic violence was collected through a specially designed questionnaire that was administered to one randomly selected woman in each household. Footnote 4 Women who were (or had been) married or cohabiting were asked in private about incidents of domestic violence as follows: “(Does/did) your (last) husband ever do any of the following things to you: (a) slap you? (b) twist your arm or pull your hair? (c) push you, shake you, or throw something at you? (d) punch you with his fist or with something that could hurt you? (e) kick you, drag you or beat you up? (f) try to choke you or burn you on purpose? (g) threaten or attack you with a knife, gun, or any other weapon? (h) physically force you to have sexual intercourse with him even when you did not want to? (i) force you to perform any sexual acts you did not want to?” We measure domestic violence using a binary variable that takes the value of 1 if a woman suffered any of the above-mentioned aggressive behaviours from her husband or partner and 0 otherwise.

Empirical Identification Strategy

To estimate the causal impact of exposure to the civil war in childhood on experiences of domestic violence in adulthood, we adopt a difference-in-differences strategy. As described above, our identification strategy exploits variation in exposure to the civil war by birth cohort and ethnicity. This estimation strategy minimises the problem of selective migration associated with the use of geographical variation in conflict exposure and helps to circumvent one of the limitations of the Nigerian DHS, namely, that it only has information on the current residence of respondents but no information on their place of birth or their place of residence during the war.

We define the treatment or war-exposed group as those Igbo and other minority ethnic groups (who would have been in the south-eastern region when the war was fought) born between 1958 and October 1970. These women were between 0 and 12 years old (including in utero) when the war took place between July 1967 and January 1970, and are aged 38 to 49 years in 2008 when we observe their experiences of domestic violence.

We present two distinct control groups: i) one across time, i.e. women from the war-exposed ethnicities but born in the six-year period following the war, namely from November 1970 to December 1976 (and aged 32 to 38 years in 2008), Footnote 5 and ii) one across ethnicity, i.e. the same birth cohorts (1958–1976) but from the non-war-exposed ethnicities (predominant in the other regions of Nigeria). Table 1 summarises birth cohorts for the war-exposed and non-exposed groups, respectively.

We estimate Eq. ( 1 ) below:

where \({\text{Y}}_{\text{ijt}}\) is equal to one (zero otherwise) if individual i belonging to ethnicity j and born in year t was a victim of domestic violence in adulthood. \(wa{r}_{ethnicity}\) denotes Igbo or other minority ethnic groups in the south-east region and \({Cohort}_{it}\) includes four cohorts, namely those exposed to war in utero (born between February and October 1970), those exposed between 0 and 4 years (born 1966–1970), those exposed between 5 and 8 years (born 1962–1965), and those exposed between 9 and 12 years (born 1958–1961), where the omitted category is those born between November 1970 (i.e. nine months after the war) and December 1976. The interactions of war ethnicity with each of the four cohorts are the variables of interest and capture the effect of an individual’s exposure to the civil war on the incidence of domestic violence. \({X}_{ij}\) is a vector of individual and household characteristics, which includes age at first marriage, religion, education, urban residence, and household wealth; \({\delta }_{r}\) is a state fixed effect; and \({\varepsilon }_{ijt}\) is a random, idiosyncratic error term. We estimate the regressions using ordinary least squares (OLS) (although the results are robust to using probit regressions), and standard errors are clustered at the ethnicity level to account for serial correlation (Bertrand et al. 2004 ).

Summary Statistics

Table 2 reports the summary statistics for our sample of married/cohabiting women from whom domestic violence data were collected. The average age of women in this sample was 39 years, the average age at first marriage was 19 years, around 47% of women in the sample had completed at least primary education, and 32% were resident in urban areas. Among the women who were surveyed, 20% said they had experienced at least one type of domestic violence from their partner.

To explore the normalisation of violence and bargaining power hypotheses as potential mechanisms through which exposure to conflict affects the incidence of domestic violence, we also examine data on attitudes towards domestic violence, domestic violence among parents, and decision-making in the household. The summary statistics for these variables are also shown in Table  2 . On average, 34% of the women in the sample responded that domestic violence is justified if the woman goes out without informing the husband/partner, 32% felt it was justified if a woman neglects the children, 29% felt it was justified if a woman argues with her husband/partner, 26% felt it was justified if a woman refuses to have sex with her husband/partner, and 17% justified violence if a woman burns the food. Nearly 13% percent of women reported witnessing domestic violence among their own parents. In terms of household decision-making, 12% of women reported having the final say on own health care, 7% reported having the final say on large household purchases, 20% reported having the final say on household purchases for daily needs, and 14% reported having the final say on visits to family or relatives.

Table 3 shows that are large and significant differences in these variables by war exposure. Just under 18% of the non-exposed group reported being victims of domestic violence, compared to 27% of the war-exposed group. Moreover, 11% of the non-exposed group witnessed domestic violence among their parents, compared to 19% of the war-exposed group. There are also statistically significant differences in attitudes towards domestic violence, with war-exposed women more likely to report that wife-beating was justified in certain circumstances. For example, 15% of the non-exposed group justified wife-beating if a woman refuses to have sex with her partner compared to 30% of the war-exposed group. In terms of household decision-making, statistically significant differences are observed in three out of the four domains, with war-exposed women less likely to report having the final say on own health care, purchases for daily needs and visits to family and friends.

Figure  2 presents a box plot of our main variable of interest, the incidence of domestic violence, across the cohorts. Within each birth cohort, the incidence of domestic violence is clearly higher for the war-exposed ethnic groups compared to the non-exposed ethnic groups, and the difference between the two appears larger for those exposed at younger ages. However, these are unconditional estimates, and it remains to be seen whether these effects will hold in the multivariate difference-in-differences analysis, which we present in the next section.

Box plot showing the incidence of domestic violence across the cohorts for the exposed and non-exposed ethnicities

Exposure to Civil War and Domestic Violence

Table 4 presents the results from a series of equations which estimate the effect of exposure to the civil war in childhood (in utero to age 12) on the incidence of domestic violence in adulthood, without disaggregating by birth cohort. The coefficients on the interaction term suggest a positive and significant effect of war exposure in childhood on the incidence of domestic violence among women in adulthood. The size of the coefficient tends to fall as an increasing number of controls are added between columns 1 and 4. The regression in column 4 includes controls for individual and household characteristics and fixed effects for state, ethnicity, and cohort, and is our preferred specification. The coefficient from this regression suggests that exposure to the civil war increases the likelihood of being a victim of domestic violence by 1.2 percentage points (or 6% given the sample mean incidence of 19.7%). Footnote 6

In Table  5 , we disaggregate exposure to the civil war by birth cohort to test whether the effects of civil war exposure on domestic violence vary by the age at which the women were exposed to the war in childhood. The categories represent those exposed in utero (born between February 1970 and October 1970), those exposed between the ages of 0–4 (born 1966–1970), those exposed between the ages of 5–8 (born 1962–1965), and those exposed between the ages of 9–12 (born 1958–1961). From the estimates, we find that the effects are largest for those exposed at younger ages. Specifically, exposure to the civil war in utero increases the probability of experiencing domestic violence in adulthood by 7.4 percentage points, and exposure to the civil war between 0 and 4 years increases the probability of experiencing domestic violence by 1.7 percentage points (specification 4).

These results are consistent with the increasing evidence described earlier that there are long-run implications of early life shocks and that adverse circumstances during the sensitive early period of childhood impact later life outcomes (Case et al. 2005 ; Cunha and Heckman 2007 ; Currie 2020 ). This includes a growing body of literature showing that in utero exposure to shocks such as war, drought, and famine have long-term negative consequences.

This literature draws on the ‘fetal origins’ hypothesis, which proposes that conditions in utero, particularly nutrition, ‘program’ the foetus with particular metabolic features that can result in disease later on in life (Barker; 1990 , 1995 ). Studies have found evidence to link events or circumstances in utero to birth weight, adult height, disability, heart disease, and obesity, suggesting latent and long-lasting consequences on health outcomes (Ravelli et al 1976 ; Dunn 2007 ; Camacho 2009 ; Almond and Currie 2011 ; Comfort 2016 ). In addition, there is evidence to suggest negative effects on mental health and cognitive function as well as on education, employment, and adult earnings, implying potential neurological involvement (Hoek et al 1998 ; Almond 2006 ; Almond et al. 2018 ).

Almond et al ( 2018 ) summarise a number of ‘biological’ or direct mechanisms through which foetal-origin effects can be generated, including nutritional insults, infectious disease, maternal stress, and alcohol and tobacco use, all of which would likely be more prevalent during times of war. In addition to the direct biological mechanisms, there may be social and economic factors at play that reinforce the negative outcomes. However, as Almond and Currie ( 2011 ) and Almond et al ( 2018 ) point out in their extensive reviews of this wide-ranging literature, more work is needed to disentangle the biological from the more indirect socio-economic mechanisms. Some of examples of these during war could include lack of access to health and policing services, disruption of markets and other key institutions, disturbance of family life, established norms and social networks, and changes to parenting behaviour. We reflect on some of these issues further below when looking at the mechanisms through which exposure to war might affect domestic violence in adulthood.

Robustness Checks

To test the robustness of our difference-in-differences strategy which assumes parallel trends, we estimate two placebo regressions (using similar methods to for e.g. Akresh et al. 2012a ; Gutierrez and Gallegos 2016 and Weldeegzie 2017 ). In the first test (column 1 of Table  6 ), we exclude the main war-exposed ethnicities (Igbo and other ethnic minorities) and placebo-treat the ethnic groups in the northern part of the country (Kanuri, Hausa, and Fulani), with the remaining ethnicities used as the control group. We choose the northern part of the country given the geographical distance from the area where the war was fought. In the second test (column 2), we placebo-treat the cohort born immediately after the civil war (from 1971 to 1976), with the cohort born from 1977 to 1980 used as the control group. Footnote 7 We would not expect an effect for women born after the civil war. Neither of the coefficients on the placebo-treated interaction term in Table  6 is statistically significant, providing support in favour of our identification strategy. Footnote 8

Although we chose to use the DHS 2008 for this study, as it provides the largest sample of women exposed to the war in childhood (from in utero to age 12), we also check whether our main results hold using the later round of the DHS from 2013. Column 1 of Table  7 shows the estimated effect of war exposure in childhood (without disaggregating across the cohorts) when only the 2013 sample is used, and column 2 of Table  7 shows the estimated effect when the 2008 and 2013 samples are pooled. The results remain robust, with the effect even larger at 5.4 percentage points in column 1 and 4.7 percentage points in column 2 (compared to the 1.2 percentage points estimated in column 4, Table  4 , using the same specification).

In column 3 of Table  7 , we disaggregate the war-exposed women into the four birth cohorts using the pooled sample from 2008 and 2013. Footnote 9 Again, we find the strongest effect from exposure in utero of 5.1 percentage points (compared to 7.4 percentage points in column 4 of Table  5 , using the same specification). However, in the pooled sample, we also find a significant effect of exposure by those exposed between 8 and 12 years. On the whole, though, our robustness checks support our main findings, namely that war exposure in childhood results in a higher incidence of domestic violence among women in adulthood, and that exposure in utero appears to have the strongest effect.

Potential Mechanisms Through Which Civil War Affects Domestic Violence

Normalisation of violence.

This section explores two potential mechanisms through which exposure to civil war during childhood may affect the incidence of domestic violence in adulthood. The first is the normalisation of violence hypothesis, which has also been referred to as the intergenerational transmission of violence hypothesis or the model of social learning. Exposure to violence at home during a child’s formative years is known to result in a greater likelihood of being a victim or perpetrator of domestic violence in adulthood (Schwab-Stone et al. 1995 ; Gage 2005 ; Mihalic and Elliott 2007; Yount and Li 2009 ; Cesur and Sabia 2016 ; Jin et al. 2017 ). Along the same lines, one might expect that children exposed to community-level violence during war might also be more likely to view violence as a justifiable response to certain problems (Barnett et al. 2005 ; Fowler et al. 2009 ). In Table  8 , we estimate the effect of women’s exposure to the civil war on the justification of domestic violence to test whether women who were exposed to the conflict in childhood have different attitudes towards domestic violence in adulthood.

Most of the coefficients are positive, many are statistically significant, and some are quite large. In general, the results suggest that, across the birth cohorts, women exposed to the war in childhood are more likely to justify the use of wife-beating than non-exposed women, particularly if the woman argues with her husband, refuses to have sex with him, or burns the food. For example (from row 1), women exposed to war in utero were 2.4 percentage points more likely to justify wife-beating if the woman argues with her husband and 6 percentage points more likely to justify wife-beating if she burns the food, compared to the non-exposed group. The effects are similarly large (and in some cases larger) among those exposed between the ages of 0–4, 5–8, and 9–12, depending on the question asked.

In Table  9 , we use the matched couple’s recode data from the DHS Footnote 10 to investigate the effect of husbands’ exposure to the civil war on the justification of domestic violence in adulthood. This recognises that domestic violence involves both a perpetrator and a victim. Given the high degree of assortative mating by ethnicity in Nigeria, the majority of women who were exposed to the civil war are married to men who were also exposed to the civil war. Indeed, the DHS data indicate that 93.4% of war-exposed women were married to war-exposed men (with only 6.3% of non-exposed women married to war-exposed men). Footnote 11 Because the DHS interviews men aged 15–59, we can disaggregate exposure into in utero, between the ages of 0–4 (born 1966–1970), between the ages of 5–8 (born 1962–1965), between the ages of 9–12 (born 1958–1961), and between the ages of 13–22 (born 1948–1957). The results suggest that compared to non-exposed men, war-exposed men are more likely to justify the use of wife-beating. Although the pattern is not entirely consistent across the five columns, the effect is largest for cohorts of men exposed in utero and between the ages of 9–12 and 13–22.

In addition to being exposed to more community-level violence growing up during war, and marrying men similarly exposed as children, the women exposed to war in childhood may also have been witness to more domestic violence in their own childhood homes or more violent forms of parenting. This could be the case if the stresses and violence of war and the disruption to social norms and family life in turn led to more violence among the parents. The literature summarised in the introduction certainly suggests that intimate partner violence rises during times of war and conflict among married or partnered couples (La Mattina 2017 ; Kelly et al. 2018 ; Østby et al 2019 ; Svallfors 2023 ). The questionnaire asks women if they were aware of domestic violence among their parents, specifically whether the father ever ‘beat’ the mother. We find that 11 percent of women not exposed to the war in childhood were aware of domestic violence among their parents, compared to 19 percent of war-exposed women. This is a substantial and significant difference.

We include this variable as an explanatory variable in the regression and we also interact this variable with the war exposure variables to test whether the effect is stronger for those growing up in the midst of the war. Indeed, in Table  10 , we find a strong positive effect of witnessing domestic violence among one’s parents on the likelihood of becoming a victim oneself in adulthood, and particularly for those exposed to the war in utero. This is a striking result and could suggest that the levels of violence in those war-exposed families where the mother was pregnant were particularly severe, as the combined stresses of war and having another child on the way took their toll. It is also possible that the final months of the war (when these exposed women would have been in utero) were particularly intense, and so the effect on family life more substantial. Finally, disruptions during war to the resources that would ordinarily help mitigate the negative effects of intimate partner violence, such as health and policing services and established social networks, might have exacerbated the experiences of pregnant mothers in particular.

Bargaining Power Hypothesis

The second mechanism we explore is the intra-household bargaining power hypothesis. Women with limited resources tend to have fewer outside options which can result in an increased likelihood that they will be victims of domestic violence (Gelles 1976 ; Aizer 2010 ). The literature on the effects of conflict provides a number of reasons why women exposed to war may have fewer outside options. Civil conflict results in poorer educational outcomes (Akresh and Walque 2008 ; Leon 2012 ; Shemyakina 2011 ; Chamarbagwala and Moran 2011 ; and Dabalen and Paul 2014 ), and there is evidence that exposure to conflict negatively affects girls more than boys in terms of educational outcomes (Singh and Shemyakina 2016 ). Women with lower education have fewer out-of-marriage options given their weaker labour market outcomes and increased financial dependence on their husbands (Lundberg and Pollak 1996 ; Farmer and Tiefenthaler 1997 ; Aizer 2010 ; Bhattacharyya et al. 2011 ; Eswaran and Malhotra 2011 ; Galdo 2013 ; Heath 2014 ). Furthermore, war exposure can affect marriage, reproductive and health outcomes, which would have consequences for women’s intra-household bargaining power and experiences of domestic violence (Verwimp and van Bavel 2005 ; Akresh 2012a; Grimard and Laszlo 2014 ; Islam et al 2016 ; Cetorelli and Khawaja 2017 ; La Mattina 2017 ).

We test whether war-exposed women have lower bargaining power compared to non-exposed women using the information on decision-making in the household as a proxy. Specifically, we examine whether war-exposed women are less likely to have the final say on certain key decisions in the household compared to non-exposed women. The results in Table  11 show that while most of the coefficients are negative, as predicted, not all are significant. The strongest results are for those exposed in utero; exposure to the civil war decreases the probability of these women having a final say on their own health care by 5.4 percentage points, and on household purchases of daily needs by 8 percentage points. There are also some significant effects, ranging between 3.6 and 5.6 percentage points, for those exposed to the war between the ages of 5–8 and 9–12 for a number of the outcomes.

Conclusions and Policy Implications

In this paper, we examine the impact of exposure to war during childhood on women’s experience of domestic violence in adulthood. Unlike other studies that use current geography-based variables to identify exposure to conflict, we are able to use ethnicity and birth cohort given the nature of the Nigerian civil war, thereby mitigating concerns of selective migration. Our results indicate that exposure to the Nigerian civil war during childhood increases the likelihood of women being victims of domestic violence in adulthood, with larger effects for those exposed at younger ages, and particularly large effects for those exposed in utero. This is consistent with evidence to suggest that the early childhood period, including the time in utero, is particularly important for later life outcomes and that shocks during this period can have long-lasting effects.

Understanding the mechanisms through which civil war affects domestic violence is equally as important as identifying the effect itself, especially if effective post-war policies are to be designed to mitigate the deleterious consequences of conflict in developing countries. However, identifying the mechanisms is a much more difficult task with the data available, and therefore, our results can only be interpreted as suggestive.

First, we find that both the women in our sample and their husbands who were exposed to the war during childhood are more likely to perceive domestic violence to be an acceptable behaviour in adulthood than those not exposed to the war. This is in line with the normalisation of violence hypothesis that predicts that those exposed to violence in childhood are more likely to become either perpetrators or victims of domestic violence in adulthood. In addition, we find war-exposed women were more likely to witness domestic violence in their own childhood homes than non-exposed women, and that witnessing domestic violence among their parents is positively correlated with experiencing domestic violence themselves in adulthood particularly among those exposed in utero. It is possible that the combined stresses of war and having another child on the way led to more violent behaviour in the home, or that the final months of war (when these exposed women would have been in utero) were particularly intense, and so the effect on family life more marked. Footnote 12

Second, our findings suggest that women who were exposed to the war in childhood also have lower intra-household bargaining power compared to non-exposed women, which would make them more vulnerable to incidents of domestic violence. Relative to the non-exposed group, we found women who were exposed to the conflict in childhood have less decision-making power in their households in adulthood, and again the effect appears stronger among those in utero (although there is evidence also for the other cohorts). This might be the case if war exposure affected women’s educational, health, and reproductive outcomes in ways that placed them in a more precarious position relative to men in the marriage market.

However, this is a subject for further study given the complexity of the potential pathways and mechanisms. The large effects measured for children who were exposed to the war in utero in particular warrant further investigation. These results are consistent with the evidence from a large literature showing that conditions and events in utero can have long-lasting consequences for the individual’s physical and mental health as well as their education, employment, and earnings outcomes (Ravelli et al 1976 ; Hoek et al 1998 ; Almond 2006 ; Dunn 2007 ; Camacho 2009 ; Almond and Currie 2011 ; Comfort 2016 ). However, much more work is needed to disentangle the biological from the social mechanisms in order to better understand both the direct and more indirect channels through which foetal-origin effects are generated (Almond and Currie 2011 ; Almond et al. 2018 ).

The relevance of our study and the need for further work in this area is underscored by the pervasiveness of domestic violence. A recent study estimated the global prevalence of intimate partner violence to be around 30%, and for the sub-Saharan African region specifically, closer to 37% (WHO 2017 ). Moreover, the consequences of domestic violence, both human and economic, are substantial. Domestic violence results in direct physical and mental harm to women, with research pointing to poorer health outcomes and a greater likelihood of depressive symptoms and substance abuse among victims (Coker et al. 2002 ; Silverman et al. 2006 ; Ackerson et al. 2008 ; Ellsberg et al. 2008 ; Meekers et al. 2013 ). Domestic violence can also result in substantial economic costs related to policing, health expenditure, and reduced economic productivity (Walby 2004 ). Lastly, children of women who experience domestic violence have worse outcomes, such as lower birth weight, lower IQ scores, a greater likelihood of emotional and behavioural problems, and a higher probability of acquiring HIV (Sternberg et al. 1993 ; Koenen et al. 2003 ; Aizer 2011 ; WHO 2013 ; Rawlings and Siddique 2014 , 2018 ; Currie et al 2022 ). Understanding both the causes and longer-term implications of domestic violence is imperative to designing appropriate policy responses and support mechanisms.

Data availability

The dataset used to obtain the results for this paper can be made available upon request.

These three main regions were subsequently demarcated into six geopolitical regions, namely the northeast, northwest, north-central, south-south, south-east, and south-west, the latter being the region where the civil war was fought (Alapiki 2005 ). These six regions are further divided into 36 states.

The 2008 Nigerian Demographic Health survey also interviewed men aged 15 to 59 to provide information on health and other related issues, but it did not collect information on their experiences of domestic violence.

We were unable to analyse exposure after age 12 (or among cohorts born pre-1958) because the DHS contains information only on women aged 15 to 49 years old. In the 2008 DHS wave, the oldest woman in the sample (aged 49) therefore was born in 1958. If we use later waves of the DHS, we can only analyse a smaller sample of war-exposed women. Specifically, if we used the 2013 DHS, we would only be able to estimate the effect for those exposed in utero to age 7, and if we used the 2018 DHS, we would only be able to estimate the effect for those exposed in utero to age 2.

The DHS captures information on experiences of domestic violence using the World Health Organization’s ethical and safety guidelines (Kishor and Kiersten 2004 ). Interviewers are trained to deal with the sensitive nature of the questions and there are strict protocols to ensure privacy during the interview. To try to minimise under-reporting of domestic violence, the DHS domestic violence questionnaire uses a modified version of the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS). Women are asked a number of separate questions on different types of violence which reduces confusion as to what constitutes domestic violence, and gives women multiple opportunities to reveal their experiences (Kishor 2005 ).

We limit our control group to the six-year period following the war, as too broad a window of comparison increases potential confounding effects (Akresh et al 2012a ). Moreover, our results are consistent when, following Akresh et al ( 2012a ), we use an even shorter control period, namely 1970 (Nov) to 1974.

If the immediate post-war environment in the south-eastern region did not experience a full recovery, then these impacts of war exposure would be underestimated, and our findings would represent a lower-bound effect.

To validate the placebo result, we conducted further robustness checks using equal intervals of years for the treatment and control groups (1971–1974 and 1975–1978). We find statistically insignificant effects of exposure to civil war on domestic violence in these additional checks.

Akresh et al ( 2012a ) run slightly different placebo tests on ethnic group and cohort but similarly find no significant effects. They also use estimated ethnic mortality during the war instead of ethnicity itself in their regressions to test for the validity of the identification strategy and find remarkably similar results. This leads them to conclude that the strategy to use ethnicity to identify exposure “while simple, is accurate and powerful” (Akresh et al. 2012a : 275).

Because the DHS only interviews women aged 15 to 49, the oldest women included in the 2013 survey would have been born in 1964, and therefore, we can only capture war exposure from in utero through to age 7. To estimate the exposure by birth cohort, we therefore only show the results using the pooled 2008 and 2013 datasets. We did not attempt to include the 2018 DHS in the robustness checks, as the sample of war-exposed women would have shrunk even further to those women who were exposed in utero through to 2 years of age.

The DHS couple’s recode data contain information on the husbands/partners (aged 15–59) for the sample of women who were married/cohabiting and living with their partners during the interview.

The high level of intra-ethnic marriage is consistent with low levels of migration across states, with most migration in Nigeria occurring within states from rural to urban areas (Federal Office of Statistics 1999 ; 2000).

Unfortunately, we are unable to test more formally for a relationship between the intensity of conflict and domestic violence. To do so would require data on the variation in the number of deaths caused by the civil war across districts and time, and to the best of our knowledge, no such data exist (there are only estimates of the total number of deaths caused by the war).

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Ajefu, J.B., Casale, D. Long-Term Effects of Childhood Exposure to War on Domestic Violence. Eur J Dev Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-024-00659-4

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Accepted : 14 July 2024

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-024-00659-4

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