At this point, you'll have a pretty good idea on what you want to say about the topic at hand, whether your research paper is on a site, culture, theory, or person. This next step, putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, is for most people, the difficult one. It's also the part that is the most idiosyncratic, and so difficult to describe or give advice about exactly how to proceed. Each individual develops their own writing process. I, for example, start in the middle.
Last Minute Hang Ups
My problem is always that I'm never exactly sure what I'm going to say until I've said it. I must admit that this is contrary to most writing authorities, who generally tell you that it is important to know what you're going to say ahead of time in order to focus your writing. All I can tell you is what works for me. Start in the middle, by defining your topic. Lay out the facts that everyone's agreed on, be sure to cite the references where you found those facts. "Kathleen Kenyon was trained at..." "The Monte Verde site is located in..." "Stable isotope analysis was first used..." "The Multi-Regional Hypothesis is..."When you've completed that, go back to your list of topics. Pick the one you feel most strongly about, and write about it. Then go to the next. You may find that you have too many topics (usually three or four are plenty), so feel free to discard if they don't seem to fit the picture. After you have all the middle stuff written, then you can write the introduction and conclusion and have it match what's in the middle.
Things to Keep in Mind
There are several things to keep in mind as you go about this last most painful and most individual process:- Cite all of the references you collected and read in the bibliography, even if you don't specifically cite them in your text
- Write your own words, except when you are quoting directly from a text and then put it in quotation marks
- Care about what you're writing; even the best writers write flatly when they just don't care about the topic
- Check and double check your facts
- Write first, edit later
Tips for Writing Research Papers
- Picking a topic
- Finding the literature
- Reading and synthesizing the literature
- Writing a first draft
- You are here: Writing the final draft. Congratulations!
