by Jennifer E. Brown

Created on: April 07, 2009   Last Updated: February 07, 2011

My college career has been based around my goal to obtain a Bachelor of Arts in journalism. I've filtered my way through general education requirements and always succeeded when it came to writing a paper. I've bounced between English and Journalism majors, but I still don't know where I want to go this close to graduation. Right now, I can write a paper in less than an hour, and a research paper in less than a week or at the latest, two. This is if I have no distractions and no procrastinations. However, those that have strengths in writing will always be the exception to the general population. Here's some solid, core tips I have picked up in my career as a student to pass on to reader.

First, what is your topic? If it's too broad, you're going to find researching it too difficult and overwhelming. A good way to narrow down your topic is what they call a "cluster map." Put your topic in the center of the page, for example, houses. Next, have subtopics going away from this topic (make sure you give yourself enough room to write.) This may include such things as cities where houses are located, prices of houses, and features of houses. The next set of bubbles is under cities you may have such cities as San Diego, Chicago, New York, or Atlanta. For prices, you may include $150,000-$250,000 and the next bubble might be $250,000 to $350,000. Features might include such things as bedrooms, bathrooms, decks, property taxes, or location. Your page should be filling up by now, and you should have a narrowed topic for your paper. If not, pick 3 additional categories and repeat the pattern.

Once I have my topic, I usually start my research. I start at my local library and look for such things and magazines, journals, and books. Encyclopedias are not so much a resource for research paper because they're written by multiple authors. If you find a book on amazon.com that might help you, talk to your library. They'll be able to inter-library loan it for you for your paper. Further resources involve the Internet, but this is where complications often occur. For example, for a website to be credible, it must have: a) publication information such as author, date, contact phone number & email address; b) most end in .org, .edu, .gov and so on; c) if the website has a padlock or copyright information. If the website is missing any of these, be on caution that the information may not be credible. Also, never cite Wikipedia on your research paper. Teachers despise this website

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