How to Write a College Research Paper

Even if you never had to write a true research paper in high school, it is almost impossible to graduate with any type of college degree without writing a few essays. If you have difficulty writing, or just difficulty getting college research papers completed, here are a few tips to make the process a little easier to bear.

The most important thing to do when writing a college research paper is to pick a topic that has sufficient information. If you must submit a topic to your professor before beginning your college research paper, take the time to do some preliminary research before beginning. This means going to the library, and not just using the internet. If you decided to use some internet sites, make sure they are a reliable source. Wikipedia may give you a brief idea on a topic, but do not ever consider using it as a source for your college research paper.

As soon as you can, do some research at the college library. If you have never used a library before, see if your library offers tours of the library for beginning students. Once you know how to use the library, make a list of key words that relate to your topic and be sure to search under each keyword. If you find a topic that seems to have enough sources for the length of your college research paper, check out those books now. Chances are some other student may do a similar topic and a library return request will not help you the night before the paper is due.

If you are not sure how much research is sufficient to write your college research paper, consider the class and the requirements set by the professor. An upper division class will require far more sources than a freshman class. The teacher sometimes specifies requirements for the number and type of sources. If you have received no requirements for your bibliography, a simple rule of thumb is to use three sources per page of required text. This amount of sources should be sufficient to yield a quality paper that contains information and not an excess of quotes. If your paper is only a page, try to find at least five sources, so your paper can show a balanced view.