How to Formulate a Research Essay for College
Writing essays in college can be very difficult, especially getting started. If the ideas for your research essay are not organized well enough, your task becomes much more daunting. Research essays need to bring together many different sources to support a certain point. This cannot be done without first organizing all aspects of the essay. Once you do that, you can formulate a research essay for college that will be detailed, informative, accurate and properly sourced.
Instructions
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Create an outline for your essay. Establish the main points you wish to cover, depending partly on how long you want your essay to be. Organize this outline with a title for each section, a topic under the title and a subtopic below that. The subtopic should consist of a few lines.
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Cover each of your main points in a separate section. Decide which resources you want to include to support each of your points. Make a note of this next to each section in your outline. To the extent that you can, prepare your footnotes and parenthetical citations before you begin writing.
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Write an introductory paragraph. If your essay is argumentative, establish your argument in the first or second sentence, then provide the most essential background information about your topic.
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Use the sections in your outline to develop the sections in your essay. Apply parenthetical citations or footnotes where applicable, making sure to cite all information that is not yours.
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Wrap up your essay with a conclusion that summarizes all of your main points. Write this conclusion with your introduction in mind. They should be similar in content so that you bring your essay and your point full circle. Create a "Works Cited" page where you list all of the sources you used in your essay. Make sure you know which of the two major academic citation formats is to be used for the research essay, either Modern Language Association or American Psychological Association.
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Edit your essay, and read it over several times. Have someone else read it too. It is often easier for someone who did not write something to catch mistakes the writer may have overlooked.
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Tips & Warnings
Failure to cite or attribute information or wording that is not yours is plagiarism, and can result in rejection of your essay and possibly other undesired consequences.
References
Resources
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