Research Paper Writing Help: Providing Your Findings

It’s 11pm on a Sunday night. You’ve spent the weekend studying for different finals and completing essays for your other classes, and you sit down to put the finishing touches on what you think is a mostly-finished research paper only to realize, with a feeling of dread, that you have yet to provide the actual findings of your paper—and that’s a pretty important part. After all, what’s the point of conducting research and going through all the trouble of writing a research paper if you can’t adequately or accurately provide some findings? Never fear—here’s a quick how-to guide when it comes to providing your findings for a research paper.

Get the Basics Down

To begin with, make sure that your paper is properly formatted. This may seem like a small thing, but remember that research papers represent a rather formal venture into academia. As such, you need your work to look professional and conform to the guidelines of your field, and that includes making sure that the margins, spacing and all the usual nuts and bolts of basic APA or MLA formatting are in place. This will ensure that the findings you provide are presented in a formal, professional manner.

A Little List

One of the best ways of presenting your findings is in list format. This ensures that the data given is presented in a clean, clear, and orderly manner.

Charts and Graphs

Include charts and graphs if you’re allowed to do so. These can go a long way towards establishing the credibility of your research paper and your overall thesis by giving concrete examples and evidence for your hypothesis and the body of your paper. In addition, if you take the time to prepare them correctly, they can help make your paper look distinguished and give it a sense of polish. Furthermore, charts and graphs give the impression that you’ve put real effort into providing and presenting your findings.

The Essay Itself

When it comes to providing your findings within the body of your paragraph, you want to make sure to avoid the dreaded “dropped quote.” This is a term used to highlight quotes that are simply dropped into a paragraph without any explanation and are then never elaborated upon.

Quotes are a great way to present your findings and, in fact, are almost certainly a necessity. That being said, you want to make sure that you introduce quotes properly and take the time to talk about the findings and quotes you’re presenting in your paper.