5 Main Ingredients of an A-Grade Research Paper

There are certain things you should always do in order to write an A-grade research paper. Essentially, there are five main ingredients to achieve perfection. Here are the things you should know:

Choose a Great Topic

The first ingredient to writing a great paper is choosing a topic that you find challenging and interesting. The attitude you take into researching and writing on your topic may determine the amount of enthusiasm and effort that comes through in your finished product. Be sure your topic isn’t too broad that you can’t fully investigate it or that it’s too narrow that you can’t find enough content. You may want to obtain approval from your professor before proceeding.

State a Clear Thesis/Argument

There are several ways to drafting a good thesis. But essentially, all ways point towards getting a statement down that is clear and concise. Remember that the thesis statement is a simple declaration of your belief or argument, so it shouldn’t be too confusing for the reader to understand. You should have a friend or a fellow student read your thesis draft statement to provide feedback as to how simple it is to understand.

Creating an Outline

Creating an outline before you get started with writing your first draft may keep your thoughts together and will generally make it easier to get through the writing process. Each of your outline topic points should clearly relate to your thesis statement, and each piece of evidence should support your overall argument. You can make your outline as detailed or as sparse as you prefer, but just make sure you create one that you will understand and can refer to as you write your first draft.

Writing Your First Draft

Academic writers agree that your first draft should be written quickly and efficiently. This means you shouldn’t worry too much about grammar, punctuation, spelling and more. You want to focus your energy on getting your ideas down as fluidly as possible. You will have plenty of opportunities to make corrections in later drafts.

Revising, Proofreading, and Editing

Now is the time to reorganize your paper to make it more effective in presenting your argument. This means editing out paragraphs or sentences that don’t make your paper any stronger, or reorganizing the order of paragraphs to create a more logical argument. When proofreading look for the tiniest of errors at three levels: the paper level, the paragraph level, and the sentence level.