If you are reading this article, chances are you’re looking to speed up your academic research process. Whether you’re a beginner in academic research or an experienced writer with published works, the process can be quite challenging. So we recommend treating each research project accordingly to avoid being stuck researching your paper for hours.
We’re going to give you some great tips to speed up your research skills to put together a superb research paper without wasting precious time. Many students need these skills because they are rarely taught clearly in higher education institutions (unfortunately, many professors assume that their students can easily figure out how to research complex works).
Well, here’s what you need to know when to stop researching and finally begin writing a research paper.
1. Plan Your Research
The first step in academic research has nothing to do with actual research. “To begin looking for information for your next paper, you have to make up sufficient time to begin,” recommends Robert Hat, an academic researcher. “Both first-year students and researchers working in a paper writing service should do that if they want to write their paper on time.”
This is especially relevant for large research projects such as dissertations because they demand you to dedicate some time to research and write every day. Takeaway: admit that you have a research paper to write and make up to begin researching. Believe us, this simple time management trick will profoundly affect your research’s success.
2. Define Keyword Phrases
Google has gotten pretty good at finding good information for custom writing, but you must still ensure that you’re giving it the right keywords to work with. For example, let’s suppose that your task is to write a research paper on Nursing Informatics.
To ensure enough quality sources to work with, define at least three sets of keyword phrases featuring “Nursing Informatics.” Searching information using keywords is a popular technique used among high school students to professionals from a paper writing service. So, type the keywords “Nursing Informatics” in Google’s search bar and see what kind of suggestions it gives you.
As you can see, there are a lot of suggestions to choose from, so stick with three keyword phrases.
Here’s what we came up with after playing with suggestions on Google:
- “Nursing informatics importance for nursing.”
- “Role of nursing informatics in healthcare.”
- “Benefits of Nursing Informatics.”
Oh, and by the way, look at the image once again. Take a closer look at the two first search results under the suggestion box. They are peer-reviewed, recent scholarly articles from reputable sites. Already, we’ve found two good sources!
Takeaway: this search strategy works well for more complex topics, too. Just spend a couple of minutes playing with the keywords, and you’ll see what phrases generate the best results.
3. Make Sure You’re Finding Quality Sources
Many people with little experience in custom writing make a mistake by starting their research with Wikipedia and websites. These are unreliable sources because of the following reasons:
- People produce information without a professional degree or background on the topic.
- Anyone could change information.
That’s why anyone with experience working in an academic paper writing service will tell you that using information from sites like Wikipedia while writing a research paper is a waste of time. Be sure that you’re finding quality sources that meet the following requirements:
- Written by an author with professional expertise on the topic
- I went through a peer review
- Uses information from other scholarly sources.
Examples of sources that meet these requirements are books, articles from scholarly journals, government publications, and websites from government and educational institutions. Here’s the full list of source options that you can consider before writing a research paper:
- Materials from Google Scholar
- Academic databases such as JSTOR
- Government websites
- Websites of educational institutions
- Peer-reviewed articles published in scientific journals.
Takeaway: poor quality sources will undermine the quality of your paper, so make sure that the sources you’re planning to use in your paper meet the requirements in the last bullet list in this section.
4. Stop Researching
Although there is no universal answer to how many good sources students should find to begin writing, we recommend limiting the number to five sources. Then again, the final number depends on your paper’s requirements and the information you’ve found. Sometimes, it takes one or two sources to complete a great paper.
To ensure that the sources you’ve found have enough information for you to begin writing a research paper, browse through them. For example, if you need to write a general paper about nursing informatics, you need to find the following in your sources:
- Definition of nursing informatics
- Examples of nursing informatics technology
- Importance of nursing informatics to healthcare
- Impact of nursing informatics on the future of nursing
Start writing if you’ve found most of these points in your literature! Some of the sources you’re using likely contain all the information you need. For example, if you found a book on nursing informatics, look at the table of contents; it likely has all the information you need. You have to spend a minute or two and find it.
Signs that You’re Done with the Research
The following indicators show that you’ve completed the research:
- You found a definitive answer to the questions that you need to address in your research paper
- You found sufficient information to meet all requirements of the research paper
- The deadline for the paper is quickly approaching. In this case, spending hours looking to double-check information is pointless.
The Bottom Line
You need to take several steps before seeing the signs that you’ve completed the search and need to start writing. Make up time for research, find your resources, analyze them, and begin writing when you see that you’ve found most of the answers you need. You’ll likely know better how to look for the rest by the time you’ve done with the first piece.
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