How to Write a College Research Report

Writing guide
Posted on September 23, 2013

As a student in college, you will often be required to write a couple of research reports before completing your course. It is therefore important that you know how to write a good research report, so you can get good grades and graduate with impressive grades. The first step in writing a research report is to decide on the topic which you want to explore in the report. While lecturers always give a topic for the other kinds of academic papers, when assigning a college research report, most lecturers let the students decide for themselves the kind of topics on which they are comfortable enough to write. When selecting the topic, you should always make sure that the topic that you select is manageable, meaning that you can comfortably and fully explore the topic that you choose. Also, ensure that you find the topic interesting, as it can be very difficult to create interesting papers from a topic that you already regard as boring and dull.

Once you have your topic, the next step to take is to brainstorm the selected topic. Brainstorming basically entails thinking of as many ideas that you can about an issue, before all these ideas can be narrowed to a single line of thought. Normally, students are supposed to use the theme that they have chosen for the report to brainstorm for more ideas. The brainstorming session should enable you come up with numerous ideas, all of which you may not be able to cover in the research report. The next step is to therefore, think of the idea that interests you the most and to use this as the main idea about which you will write in the research report. It is often said that two heads are better than one and this saying is best illustrated during brainstorming because, when you work in groups, it will be much easier to generate many ideas that you find interesting. The brainstorming session should result in narrowing down the topic to an idea, on which the writer can comfortably and comprehensively elaborate, in the research report.

With the main idea already identified, the research process can now begin. Many lecturers insist that when writing academic papers assigned by them, library sources should be used, although others allow the student to use any peer review sources. The Internet, magazine articles, newspaper articles, periodicals and journals, are some of the sources commonly used to get the information used to write academic papers. In some cases students come across certain ideas that make them further narrow down the topic. While researching, it is important that students take note of every important information that they come across and after collecting the data, the student should sort the information according to the outline that they had already written, or which they can then write while organizing the information that they have collected. Writing the outline is a great way of organizing the academic paper, so it is easier to write for the student and very easy to understand on the part of the reader. Once the outline is done, the student can then begin the writing process which many lecturers recommend should start with the first draft. After completion, the student can then revise and write the final draft. If you need a custom research report – feel free to buy research paper at our service CustomWritings.com.

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