How to Write a Really Shitty Research Paper

Course objectives met: 5,6,7,8

This photo “I program in my sleep” can be found here. 

“Research paper” is one of the worst things to ever hear come out of your professors mouth. Your mind starts going in a million directions about how much work it’s going to be; how long it’s going to take, and how boring it’s going to be. There must be a way to write a research paper that isn’t incredibly painful to write and read. The best way to approach writing a beneficial research paper is to think about all the things that make a research paper shitty. Forget about boring introductions and conclusions; boring topics, redundant paragraphs, bad information and unplanned papers. Research papers don’t need to cause us so much anxiety; we are capable of writing amazing ones.

“Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.” Judge a book by the first paragraph. When I was looking at books at the store my mom would always tell me to read the back of the book and then read the first page to see if I would like it. When you read a research paper that starts off with dry, boring statistics you’re definitely not thinking “I need to read this.” In fact you probably have already thrown up in your mouth a little bit or fallen asleep. If you want to be put to sleep take a look at this awful article that beings “Over the past 3 decades, fast-food retail sales in the United States have soared 900%, from $16.1 billion in 1975 to a projected $153.1 billion in 2004.” Research can be extremely factual and dry so in order to write a paper that will get your point across you’ll need to get creative. Try to relate your research to an anecdote that will get your audience’s attention and keep it. Incorporating research into a story will not take away from the hard facts but enhance them and make the paper more readable.

Let’s consider the title: “Clustering of Fast-Food Restaurants Around Schools: A Novel Application of Spatial Statistics to the Study of Food Environments.” What the hell does that even mean? No one wants to read an article about a boring or confusing topic. If you’re going to write a well thought out, useful research paper, make sure it’s on something that you are interested in. Writing your paper will come much easier if you are passionate about the subject because you will believe what you are saying. I can promise you this: if you don’t want to write the paper, people won’t want to read it.

Need to get to sleep quick? Read a paper that says the same thing over and over. Redundant papers are the worst. No one wants to read the same information, written in a million different ways, for three pages. When papers have length requirements it is easy to make the mistake of repeating yourself. The best way to prevent this is to use multiple outside sources; that way you have more to talk about and relate back to. You can also use personal anecdotes like I discussed in the first paragraph in order to get your point across without having to directly repeat it. In the article “A New Vision for Dreams of the Dying” the author uses many different stories that grab the audience’s attention in order to relay their message. Sometimes being concise and to the point is much more effective.

A research paper is called a “research” paper for a reason. When you begin to read a research paper you expect to be given evidence. Controversial topics will spark a lot of feelings in your audience and if you do not back up your opinion you will not get nice comments. When you do provide evidence make sure you are using a reliable, unbiased source. If you write a paper on your opinion and only use sources that support that, you are not making yourself look very good. You want people to listen to you and the only way that will happen is if they trust that you are credible. Look at both sides of the story and then make your arguement as to why your side is the better side.

Would you go on a road trip with no plan or even a map? Probably not. If you’re one of those people reading this thinking “heck yeah I would,” then I’ll explain why you may want to rethink that. Being spontaneous is amazing, but it definitely causes otherwise avoidable issues. If you write a paper that is not planned out, it will likely become very messy. Your structure will be noticeably inadequate and hard to understand. You should start with an outline for your paper; much like a map, so that you do not get lost. A rough draft can also be extremely useful to make sure there isn’t anything you could have done better. Not only do outlines and rough drafts make your writing better, they make it so much easier to write the paper. A full outline is almost a written paper; there are only a few things that need to be added and your ideas will flow much quicker. Don’t start your road trip without a map or you may get lost with no gas.

Beginning and ending a paper may be just as important, if not more important, than everything in between. The way you begin your paper is going to influence your audience as soon as they read the first sentence so make sure it’s not shitty. Start your paper with a quote; a question, or an anecdote. Don’t start your paper with a sentence that will put your audience to sleep. Although you may have already given all your key points and evidence, your conclusion is extremely important. In order for your audience to want to share your work it must be solid until the very last line. The conclusion should not be a repetition of everything you just told the audience. The conclusion should draw the reader back in and make them think about why what they just read was important.  You want to go out on a high note. Make your conclusion count; not just an extra paragraph.

Well the pressures on; I’ve got to make this conclusion count. Sometimes taking a different outlook on a paper can help you to get your ideas flowing. If you think more about what you hate about research papers, you’ll be able to decide what you need to improve. If you want to improve your writing, look at it from a different perspective. Focus more on what you can do well in order to help you write the best paper you can and less on the work load. Take the time to think about your work before you start and it will make all the difference. Don’t fall into the traps of making a generic, shitty research paper.