How To Write A Research Paper Outline

Making an outline is very important to write any paper, assignment, project or essay. It makes organizing the paper easy for the students and helps the students to arrange their thoughts before they start writing. Writing the outline of the research paper is the most difficult task for the students, but it is also very important part of their academic life, and most of the time is spent in thinking about How to Write a Research Paper. Writing flawless research papers is very important for the students to score high marks in their results.

Therefore, to write the perfect research paper, making an outline is very important, but before making the outline, here are some planning steps that you must consider before making the outline. These steps will help you to make your research paper outlines efficiently.

Planning Steps for "How To Write A Research Paper Outline"

• Select a suitable topic: suitable topic is the main key to the success of your research paper. The topic should be interesting and have the elements to attract the reader and engage them. The topic must be flexible according to the length of your paper. If you have to write a lengthy paper, your topic should be broad that can cover the requirements of yours, but if your paper is short then try to choose a limited topic because it will be difficult for you to handle a broad topic in a short paper.
• Conduct research: Once you have selected the topic, it is essential to conduct the research because no research paper can be written without conducting research. Research is important to gather material on the topic from authentic resources. These resources are used to present the related and relevant evidence to justify your argument. To support your thesis statement you have to gather the information on the topic, and then you have to go deeper to present the evidence. The deep dive into the topic will help you to get hold of the topic and write a better thesis statement.
• Manage your information and references: the gathered data must be managed in the sequence, and along with this, you need to mention the reference of used source references are necessary to be mentioned in your research paper. Make a list of facts along with their references; this is the best way to save them and use afterward in your paper. You can arrange them according to the need of your thesis statement

When you have planned all the important things, you have just prepared yourself in the process of making an outline and writing. Now, you are all ready to understand How To Write A Research Paper Outline more efficiently.

Outline of Research Paper

An outline of the research paper is a path that is to follow to write the paper in a synchronized way. As we all know that an essay consist of three main headings, introduction, main body, conclusion, but along with them are also some other headings that are included in the research paper. How to write a research paper outline! Following is the complete outline of research paper.

1. Title

2. Abstract (main heading)

3. Introduction (main heading)

4. Main Body 

a. Literature review (sub-heading)

b. Methodology (sub-heading)

c. Analysis (sub-heading)

d. Results and findings (sub-heading)

e. Discussion (sub-heading)

5. Conclusion (main heading)

6. Bibliography (reference page)

How to write a research paper outline is not a difficult question for you, but is every heading is handled differently as they serve a specific purpose. Therefore, Top Tutor Bay has made extra effort to tell that how to handle each outline.

Detailed Outline for Research Paper

• Title page: the title page is the first page of the research paper, but it is advised by the professors to write it when your research paper is ready. The title page consists of the writer's name, professor's name, the title of your topic, and date on which you write the paper.
• Abstract: it is like the summary of your research paper, so if you know how to write a summary you can easily handle this part. You have to write a summary of about 200 words, which is more than enough. The abstract discuses the information related to the topic and a short outlook of the findings and conclusion.
• Introduction: it is the main starting point of any assignment, paper, and essay, and research paper. The introduction of your paper determines whether the reader goes all along to read it or not. So your introduction must be interesting and engaging, but do not give too much information in this section. The first line of your essay must be a hook to instantly grab the attention of the reader towards your work and develop the interest to read your complete research paper. After hooking statement, discuss the background of the topic to involve the reader, and at the end of the introduction give your thesis statement to tell the reader that what you are going to discuss in your paper.
• Main Body: the main body is the central and the length of your research paper. It has no limitations as its length is depending on the instruction that your professors have given you. The word counts will be assigned to you by your instructor. In this section, you discuss the facts and the information related to your research topic. In the literature review contains the pieces of evidence from the authentic sources to support your argument. The act is given with their references to avoid the risk of plagiarism and give the reader proof of the authenticity of the pieces of evidence you have stated.
• The methodology section discusses the research method you have used to conduct the research. State the method you used, whether it is quantitative or qualitative or the mixture of both methods. After this, you tell the population you have used in your research and the tools you used to make collect the data for your research paper. The tool could be a questioner, interview, discussion or any other means that is the source of your data. As you have given the details of the methodology, the next step is to analyze the data you have collected. For this purpose, you must have critical thinking and analytical skill to investigate your data logically to fulfill the purpose of your research. Find out the results and write them in the finding section to let the reader know what new ideas and results you have found. Moreover, at the end of the main body discuss your outputs and results to evaluate the main point. In your main body, you have to show the reader that you have done authentic and deep research on the topic. Try to discuss the new ideas in your main body that are related to your topic.
• Conclusion: At the end of the research paper, you have to wind up your argument by summarizing all the points. The conclusion should be short and precise. You can give the suggestions at the end of the conclusion for further study on the topic.
• References: The reference sheet is the last page of your research paper. The references of the sources you have used in your main body are mentioned on this page in alphabetical order. This page is necessary for proof of the sources you used in your research paper.