by Jennifer Searle

Created on: May 25, 2007   Last Updated: January 06, 2011

After doing countless research papers I have learned some very useful time saving techniques.

1. Pick a topic as soon as possible. If you aren't assigned a specific topic but are given the ability to choose anything of relevance to the class, then you must decide quickly what to do.

2. Once you have the topic for your research paper, you have to narrow the topic down to just a few key points. Let's say you are writing about the civil war, and the topic is the cause of the conflict, where do you start? You could read through countless accounts about why it started, or you can narrow the search down more. You could do a persuasive research paper on why slavery was the cause of the war. Narrowing down the topic will give you a place to start and less research to have to do.

3. Make an outline and write the conclusion first. I know, I know, I hate writing outlines too, but they work the best. They keep you focused on the information you need. Writing the conclusion first then doing minor revisions will give you an idea of what you want to cover to come to that conclusion, thus you can make the outline more effective.

4. Make the most of your research. Don't spend hours reading information you don't need to. If you know something specific that you need a reference for, look in the index of the books you are reading for specific topics, words, or people. If you are looking on line at a document that is countless pages long, press Ctrl F to pull up the find box, and then search for the word or person you need.

5. Taking short hand notes of things you aren't directly quoting but are paraphrasing. Write the first sentence of a paragraph, one or two out of the center and the last sentence. Or if you are using online sources, cut and past only what you need, and be sure to save each source as a separate word document with the topic of the quote in the title of the document. Keep all word docs for your research paper in a single folder, so you can find them easier. You can even break it down farther and put folders in the folder to separate quotes into groups.

6. Try to finish ahead of schedule. This will give you time to set it aside for a few days to a week. Then after a few days the paper will be fresh to you and you can find mistakes or places you could use more quotes.

Most of all don't beat yourself up if it doesn't come out perfect. More times than not over editing can lead to procrastinating and stress. Read it through but don't start tearing whole sections apart. Once you have the finished product it is not time to start redoing the whole thing. Just take the criticism that you might get on for next time. I can tell you research papers might seem like a pain, might seem practically impossible, but they aren't hard once you get used to writing them. Of all the classes I have taken the lowest grade I ever got was a C+, so trust me, you can do it.

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