A Simplified Process for Research Paper Writing

 Published in Medium.com

https://link.medium.com/HwwGgieYDjb 

Hi dear researchers, 

Every researcher will one day reach a stage when the research work need to be published for recognition. There are multiple needs and benefits for publishing your work on some recognised platforms like journals and conferences. 

I understand your dilemma regarding the publications. In this article, I’m presenting some important details that clarify the concepts of Paper Writing. 

Needs for publications: 

The major purpose of publications is to verify: 

• Authentication of the research work

• Relevance of the work in the current context

• Plagiarism 

Advantages: 

The benefits of publishing your work: 

• Provides a timestamp to your the research. When multiple researchers claim for your work,  the whole research recognition will be to the one who published first. Hence make sure to publish a soon as you feel it’s worth for publication. 

• The published claims get recognised in the research community. 

• The published claims will become benchmarks for the next researchers. They will extend your work and while doing so, they’ll cite your publication. Today, the research community values more to the citations than the number of publications. 

• Hence it makes sense to publish on popular platforms that are well recognised. 

• The review of the submitted paper will be of great help. It shows the strengths, weakness of your work as well as the paper. This helps in improving the quality of your research. Many a times, the reviewers suggest how to proceed with your research and it plays an important role in your research at halt, if any, and at the same time provides new directions to your research. 

Framework of paper: 

Let me give the best framework for your research paper. The paper must have the following sections: 

1. Abstract

2. Introduction

3. Background/ Literature survey

4. Your research work

5. Your results And discussions

6. Conclusions

7. References

The paper would contain these sections in this order. But they should not be prepared in this order. Don't get confused. I'm insisting you to   write each section separately and finally arrange them in the above-mentioned order. 

Of all the sections mentioned above, you are most confident on describing what you have done yourself. So begin your writing from section 4.

4. Your work: 

Present the problems you are addressing here. Then, continue with the claims your want to make. Show clearly and precisely how the solution is reached. Use block-diagrams, figures for easy understanding. 

Make sure just narrate the steps you have taken to convey your ideas to the reality.

5. Results and discussions: 

Now it’s time to justify your claims. Present all the results that support your claims. The results can usually be in tabular forms. These results must be supported with appropriate discussions as to why you claim your results are superior over the earlier research works. To limit the size of the paper, ensure to use appropriate visualization tools like graphs, bar charts, histograms etc. One picture is worth thousand words! 

Ensure unambiguous discussions while proving your claims. 

3. Background & Literature survey: 

Whatever was discussed in the two sections here are your work and no one else can understand the importance of the claims unless they get to know some background of the research work being discussed. Without proper literature survey, you cannot justify your claims.

Begin this section with the background  required, for any newcomer to this field of research, to understand your claims and arguments. This will help in maintaining the reader’s interest to go deep into your claims. 

The Literature survey must provide the details of the previous claims made on the topic of the paper. This will  support the superiority of your claims over others research. 

Ensure to list all the resources like articles, books, websites, blogs used to prepare the paper in the reference section. Also make sure to cite them at appropriate places in your paper. Missing this citation will lead to Plagiarism. So be careful.

6. Conclusions: 

Now you are clear about what the previous research was lacking that your work is taking care of. This conclusion section must highlight all the strengths of your research. The results your research that are superior to the past are your strengths. List them all under a subsection called strengths.

Next,  there will be some issues your current research could not solve. These are the weaknesses of the current research. Two reasons for these weaknesses

• You don't have the solutions

• You know the possible solutions but due to time constraints have not yet tried at the time of submission of this paper. 

List all the unsolved issues under the subsection weakness/ drawbacks. 

Then, the weaknesses for which you have an idea as how to solve them but not yet tried- list all the possibly solutions you’re looking for under the subsection future scope.  This will guide the next generation researchers to continue with your research. 

2. Introduction: 

Now it's time to write the introduction to your research paper. This part should be a storytelling section. The contents presented here must attract even the researchers with no domain knowledge. Just imagine that you are asked to tell your research journey to a kid. Then how do you manage? Yes, that clarity is needed in this section. No technical jargon, no complex explanations. Make it as simple as possible. 

Use the last paragraph of this section to highlight what's there in the future sections. One sentence for each section. 

7. References

This section must contain all the resources you’ve used for your research work and while preparing this document. The list must contain all the papers, books, websites, blogs etc referred in alphabetical order of the authors. 

Each reference must contain

• Authors name/ s

• Title of paper

• Journal/ conference/ book name

• Volume number

• Date of publication

• Page numbers

This list must be arranged in alphabetical order of the authors and numbered.

It's advisable to prepare this list as the rest of the document is being prepared and cite the reference numbers at the appropriate places in the document. 

1. Abstract

Now the whole paper is ready. Finally write the abstract of your research work. The journals usually charge for downloading and referring to any paper published with them. To give an idea to the researchers  what actually they get after purchasing the paper, the abstract is helpful. The abstract and the references used in your paper are made freely available to all so that if anyone interested in your work and feel confident that your paper maybe useful for their research, and hence they can buy your paper. 

The publishers do not allow longer abstracts and hence usually its expected to have a maximum of 40 words. 

Squeeze what all you want to tell about your achievements in this research into 40 words. Yes, it’s difficult but not impossible. Avoid all unnecessary issues, keep sentences short. Just talk about your work and achievements straight. 

Done?

Not yet...

Now what? 

Before printing, arrange all the sections in order.

While arranging the sections, ensure to have smooth transition from one section to the next. Simple tip is to add few sentences saying what’s there in next section at the end of each section. Then in the beginning of each section, introduce what's done in previous section. 

Please keep in mind the maximum number of pages that are allowed by the publisher for your paper and make sure to stick to it. First, look for space consuming items like tables, figures and graphs. If any of these are not essential then avoid them. That can give space for your text and equations. 

Once printed,  carefully read, read-again for any mistakes, missing information, spelling & grammatical mistakes.

Once confident, go for your mentors reviews and approval. After approval send the paper for publication. 

Now wait for the approval from the publisher

Before the approval from your mentor and the publishers, you may need to repeat all these steps for corrections multiple times. Be ready for it. 

Wow!!!

At last done it. 

Congratulations!!!