Writing a Research Paper - Content

Dear Friends

In my earlier post on the topic "Writing a research paper - Style", I had narrated the style which can be adopted when your writing a research article. Apart from the style, content of the research article plays a crucial role and that forms the base of that paper.

Before sharing my ideas on the content, I would like make a strong statement to the readers and research scholars is, "You cannot write a single page of research paper without reading at least some N number of papers". To have rich content in your paper, you need to have a strong reading habit.

A well structured paper without a proper content is of no use. So it is very essential that "Content" has to given highest priority among all the aspects of research paper writing. The content of the research article should have certain features, which are

1. The content should be Standard. It should consider both the extreme people. The content should teach the beginner, and It should irritate the experts.

2. The content should be in a simple language. Put yourself in that situation and write the research article. And let your simplicity do no deviate your core research idea.

3. Do not use complicated vocabularies while writing a technical research papers. Don't make readers to refer dictionary all the time.

4. Follow certain flow in the content. Let the ideas grow gradually. Do not dump your ideas. Let your paper grow in the following manner

1. Title
2. Abstract ( describe your work in 10-15 lines)
3. Keywords
4. Introduction ( Basic idea about your research and your proposal in simple terms)
5. Concept headings (include statistical methodology, if any)
6. Discussion
7. Conclusion
8. References

In concept heading you can have

1.  Domain Analysis ( Description about your domain)
2.  Problems in the domain ( Highlight the problem you have taken)
3.  Existing System ( Literature survey on early research work)
4.  Proposed System ( A Simple arch diagram, explanation)
5.  Advantages of Proposed System comparing to existing

5. In the reference section of your paper, properly cite the articles which you have referred to grow your idea. Do not copy paste the content of the cited paper in your paper. This can be accepted for some definition and formulas. Always cite and refer papers from standard Journals.

6. Do not write stories in research paper. Make sure your research paper is not too lengthy and too short. 

7. Let your diagrams, tables, charts and graph be very clear with proper units and axis. Have some description on your diagrams, table charts and graphs. Kindly number them properly and include that inside the text.

8. Do not use abbreviations. Because it may cause confusion. For example Do not use IT Sector. IT indicates Information Technology as well as Income Tax Department. To avoid such kind of confusion do not use abbreviations.

9. Do not mislead the future research scholars by providing false information in your paper.

10. Let your figure,tabular column, graph, etc be very clear and readable. 

If you follow the above 10 points while writing a research paper, you will end with a quality research article.

Hope this article might be useful..:)

Have a great day..:)

Regards

Praveen Kumar Rajendran

Member, International Association of Engineers

Chennai.

General Research Updates April 18, 2015