How to Research- Get Started

What is a Research Paper?

A research paper is technical writing which will showcase your work and result. When you publish a paper, you are publishing your results for the scientific community and, they can use those results to further advance the research. There are three types of it: Research paper, survey paper or review paper, and educational paper. The paper contains different sections titles, abstract, introduction, methods, result conclusion, and references. Students as beginners should select conferences to submit work. If you have written many papers already, you can go for journals. Some journals allow online submission others prefer a hard copy. There are different journals where you can publish your articles. There are options to publish in free or in paid journals.

Want to write a research paper?

There is no particular educational qualification to write and publish a paper, even high school students too can do it. You need a mentor who can guide you in the process. The research process takes a lot of hard work, if you do it right it will pay off. And it will work for you to get into a better place. People generally do it at the graduate level because a lot of understanding, reading, and research is required.

How to research

Research is such an amazing activity for a student’s development and, it looks outstanding on a college application. When your application has a research paper, it will showcase your potential and will get you research and teaching assistantship. Students need to do background research, reading, and experiments related to their it. And just because your work is publishing, it will not make much impact if there is no quality in your work. Getting published will show that you have maturity, intelligence, and critical thinking.

To do research, you need to contact a mentor. Sometimes students need to work in a lab. You have to contact professors at a university that you’re interested in working at and, who are working on topics that you are interested in. Send a professional email with an introduction of yourself expressing your interest to work on that topic. Also, it’s very important to mention or write what you would add to their research. Many times professors and mentors don’t feel that a high school student can be an asset to their work and they are just a burden. So for students, it’s really important to show that how you improve their lab and work.

How to start a research paper

There is a lot of reading you need to do. A student should be able to choose their topic of interest. Choose a topic, look for a couple of articles, scientific journals in that field, read the acknowledgment and conclusion part of the article.

After completing the paper, student needs to find out opportunities for that research. You can look into science research competitions and local science fairs and see if you can share your work. Many of these include the international science and engineering fair and science challenge search. Students can also compete or look for a regional science fair if any local high school is hosting.

What makes a good research paper topic?

Finding a good topic to write about is a tough part. There are different categories in which you can find a topic to write a paper. You can write related to art and culture, current events, education, ethics, government, health, history, religion, science, environment, technology, etc.
Factors to make sure you choose a good research topic:

• Don’t make it a topic if you are not interested in it.
• You won’t be able to produce a good paper if there is not enough research or information about writing a paper.
• Follow your teacher’s guidelines and get your paper topic approved by your teacher first before you begin writing.

Tips and ideas

• Send an email and write I am interested in researching in Xyz and explain the gap of knowledge in the field. Your idea is not going to be the end idea. Therefore do not worry about the cost of implementing the project.
• In starting, a student reaches out to mentors or people who are in the research field and do not start independent research.
• Start for research with an actual professor and, if not possible consider Zooniverse as the second option.
• Figure out steps ahead before writing your research paper.
• Instead of one, choose a couple of topics that seem interesting to you.
• Read a lot and research to produce a strong paper. Because a research paper is not normal text, you need facts, citations, statics, and reference.
• For publishing your work, there are platforms like IEEE, ACM, Springer, Elsevier. These are considered prestigious platforms.

:By- Priya Panwar

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