Preparing the

Outline and
Writing the
Research Paper
Develop a Main Idea or Thesis - determine
the overall focus of your research report. The
single sentence expressing your main idea is
called the thesis statement.
Outline – is a plan which can help you
organize your ideas and arrange them in
order. Is it made up of main ideas and details
that support the main ideas.
Providing Elaboration – after you write a
paragraph, review it, looking for words you did
not know before you started your report and
for facts that might seem incredible.
Title of Your Research Report
I. First main point
 A. First supporting detail
 B. Second Supporting detail
II. Second main point
First supporting detail
Second supporting detail …
 Writing the Research Paper
After gathering information, the next step is to
combine the facts you have gathered with
what you already know of your topic. As you
combine ideas in you report, you may find that
you need some words and phrases to connect
ideas together, these are the transitional
expressions:
Therefore, second ,as a result, finally,
first . so that, however, After gathering
information, the next step is to combine the
facts
synthesizing Essential Information and
Drawing Conclusions about an Issue
A research report is more than just
bringing together a collection of
information, or reviewing and
evaluating what everybody else has
said about an issue. For sure, these
are important steps for writing a
research paper, but they need to follow
two things: synthesizing essential
information and drawing conclusions.
 1. Synthesizing Essential
Information
This step requires you to sort and
organize all the information
collected and extract only those
relevant to the paper. As even the
relevant information can be big and
winding, summarizing and
synthesizing the information will
gain it into a more useful form.
 2. Drawing Conclusions
This step will become easier when
the first step is done correctly.
When the information has been
systematically ordered and distilled
into something easy to understand,
then it becomes a much more
manageable basis for drawing
conclusions and taking a stand.
 Basic Rules for Referencing using
APA format:
1. All lines after the first line of each entry in
your reference list should be indented one-half
inch form the left margin. This is call hanging
indention.
2. Author’s name are inverted (last name first);
give the last name and initials for all authors of
a particular work for up to and including seven
authors. If the work has more than seven
authors, list the first six authors and then use
ellipses after the sixth author’s name of the
work.
3. Reference list should be alphabetized
by the last name of the first author of
each work.
4. For multiple articles by the same
author, or authors listed in the same
order, list the entries in chronological
order, from earliest to most recent.
5. Present the journal title in full.
6. Maintain the punctuation and
capitalization that is used by the journal
in its title.
7. Capitalize all major words in journal titles
8. when referring to books, chapters, articles,
or Web pages, capitalize only the first letter of
the first word of a title and subtitle, the first
word after a colon or dash in the title, and
proper nouns. Do not capitalize the first letter
of the second word in a hyphenated
compound word.
9. Italicize titles of longer works such as books
and journals.
10. Do not italicize, underline, or put quotes
around the titles shorter works such as journal
articles or essays in edited collections.
9. Italicize titles of longer
works such as books and
journals.
10. Do not italicize, underline,
or put quotes around the titles
shorter works such as journal
articles or essays in edited
collections.
ONE AUTHOR
Rowling, J.K. (2001). Harry Potter and the
sorcerer’s stone. London: Bloomsburg
Children’s.
Internet - Eggers, D. (2008). The circle. [Kindle
Version]. Retrieved from
http://www.amazon.com/
 TWO AUTHORS
Eisenberger, R., & Leonard, J. M. (1980).
Effects of conceptual task difficulty on
generalized persistence.
American Journal of Psychology, 93, 285–298.
THREE TO SEVEN AUTHORS
Crumpton, E., Wine, D. B., & Drenick, E. J.
(1966). Starvation: Stress or satisfaction?
Journal of the
American Medical Association, 196, 394–396.
MORE THAN SEVEN AUTHORS
Kollar, E. J., Slater, G. R., Palmer, J. O.,
Docter, R. F., Keys, A., Brozek, J., Henschel, A.
… & Mandell, A. J. (1964). Measurement of
stress in fasting man. Archives of General
Psychology, 11, 113–125.