Writing a research paper takes time, so students should start working on their essay as soon as possible. By preparing the research and studying the topic in advance, students will reduce the amount of time they need to spend on the assignment later on. In addition to researching the topic early, students should also build an outline. By creating an outline in APA style, the student can improve the quality of their finished essay.
The main reason to use an outline is because it guides the student's writing. An outline helps the student to track the progress of their ideas and develop a logical argument. When the research paper is still in the outlining stage, students can easily move around paragraphs and research. Later on, it will be much more difficult to modify the essay.
The thesis statement is one of the most important parts of the paper. In the thesis statement, the student sums up their topic and makes an argument. For a thesis statement to be considered a good one, it must be debatable. Once the student has figured out a good thesis statement, they can begin working on the remainder of the outline.
In the body of the essay, students will need to include a topic sentence for each paragraph. The topic sentence is basically a smaller thesis statement that builds upon the overall topic of the essay. Each topic sentence should gradually build upon the previous paragraph to create a logical, cohesive argument.
Within the outline, students can actually reference some of their research. Normally, there should be two or three pieces of information that are used to support each topic sentence. While the paper is still in the outlining stage, the student should write down the data that they want to use in each paragraph. In addition to making sure that one piece of information is not used multiple times, this technique also helps students to check the quality and depth of their research.
Once the student knows exactly how their research paper will be structured, they are ready to write the introduction and the conclusion. As the student writes the essay, these paragraphs will gudie the student from their initial topic to where they want the argument to end at .