How to write a great paper - Learning and Wellbeing

How to write a great paper
February 2023 | The Learning and Wellbeing Team

Most students taking courses in the Arts (e.g., history, philosophy) and Social Science (e.g., psychology, sociology, criminology) will be required to write one or more research papers at some point in their program. Papers can range from a little as 500 words (2 pages) to 5000 words (20 pages). Typically, your term paper will be worth about 30% of your grade, which means it is a big deal. In order to do well in your course, you will need to do well on the paper. It is a daunting task for any student and can be absolutely terrifying if you have never had to write an academic paper before.

Academic papers are complex, even short ones. You need to do the research, summarize what you have found, develop a thesis (or hypothesis), conduct a critical review of what you have read, and discuss the implications of what these studies say, while at the same time writing all of this in flawless English and steering clear of plagiarism.

No matter what course you are taking, how big or small your paper is, there are a number of things to have in place before your start and a number of things to keep in mind as you write your paper. After your finish reading the two sections below, don’t forget to download the writing guide and checklist. The writing guide summarizes how to write all of the important sections (e.g., the intro, thesis statement, and goal statement, as well as summary of research, critique of research, implications of research, and finally, your conclusion) and contains detailed examples that you can draw on and modify as you wish.

The checklist contains 25 of the most common mistakes and oversights that students make. Writing a paper is really complicated; it is easy to forget something while you are trying to get everything done (especially when you start late). Use the checklist as you write your paper, and make sure that you complete the checklist before you hand in your papers.

Things to keep in mind before while you write:

#1. Reasoned opinion versus personal opinion.
#2. Great papers are well structured.
#3. Demonstrating what you know and what you think.
#4. Start right away and allocate enough time.
#5. Tackle small parts every day.
#6. Write the crappy draft first.
#7. Ask for help

Things to have in place before you start:

#1. Put a team of people in place.
#2. Try to find examples of what you are being asked to write.
#3. Make sure to have a good grammar and spell checker.
#4. Print off the instructions or grading rubric for your paper.
#5. Print off our checklist of the most common mistakes students make.

#1. Reasoned opinion versus personal opinion.

Many students will be asked to write a paper about what they think about a certain topic. This is often referred to as a reflection. You are asked to write down what you think about a certain topic. This is an important activity, but it is not the goal of a research paper. When writing a research paper, you are expected to develop your own opinion about a topic, but it is an opinion that is based on facts and other research. It is a reasoned opinion.

A reasoned opinion is not just what you think. It is what you think about a body of knowledge or research that has already been published in scientific journals (e.g., Nature) or what is called a white paper from expert organizations (e.g., Health Canada, the Center for Disease Control). To develop a reasoned opinion, you start by reading research about a topic of interest and then, on the basis of what you read, develop an opinion about what that research says, what it means, what is missing and what is wrong with it.

Your reasoned opinion is also known as your thesis (if the goal of the paper is to summarize, critique and discuss a topic); it is a hypothesis (if the goal is to conduct a new piece of research that addresses one or more shortcomings of what you have read).

#2. Great papers are well structured.

When you write papers in university, especially in the first couple of years, you are not going to be able to research a topic well enough to truly be an expert. Professors know this and don’t expect you to know everything. Papers in the first few years are more about learning to summarize, critique and discuss ideas, as well as taking a stand on what you think about those ideas.

This means that papers at university are more about expressing your ideas clearly and concisely than about the research you have found. You do need to find good research, but you do not need to read all of the research. You will be graded more on the form and structure of the paper, your arguments, how you reason and what you conclude than on whether or not you have found all of the relevant research.

#3. Demonstrating what you know and what you think.

In addition to being well-structured, research papers are an opportunity to demonstrate to the professor what you know. One of the biggest shortcomings of many papers that students write is that they do not adequately demonstrate to the professor how much you actually know. To really demonstrate what you know, the best way to do this is (a) to state what you think the research says and then (b) to illustrate what you mean with an example.

Here is an example:

In a research paper on sleep, you may have found a paper that shows that poor sleep leads to poor grades.

The first part is to state what the research has found:

Hysing et al. (2016) found that late bedtimes and less than six hours of sleep were associated with poor academic grades.

Now you have to elaborate and really demonstrate what you know. You do this by providing more detail about what they found.

The second part is to elaborate on the finding:

In this study, researchers surveyed over 7700 boys and girls in high school. These students reported both the time at which they went to bed (e.g., 10 pm, 11 pm, 12 pm, etc.) and how many hours they slept (e.g., < 6 hours, 6hrs, 7hrs, etc.). Results showed the students with the highest academic averages were in bed at 11 pm and had between 7 and 9 hours of sleep. Going to bed past midnight and getting less than 7 hours of sleep was associated with lower academic grades.

#4. Start right away and allocate enough time.

In every class, there will be students who write their papers a couple of days before the deadline. These students get them done and will feel a real sense of relief and accomplishment. More often than not, these are really awful papers.

Writing takes time, and papers are worth a lot. Any paper that is worth 30% of your grade should get more than three days of your attention. As a rule of thumb, you should allocate as much time to the paper as it is worth. So, for a paper that is worth 30%, you should spend about 30% of your time on it. In terms of weeks, that’s going to be about four weeks out of your semester. In terms of hours, it will be about 20 hours¹.

Twenty hours for a paper is not a lot of time. That’s the minimum for a good but average grade (e.g., B/B+). For a very good paper (e.g., A-/A/A+), you will need to spend more time. If you think 20 hours is not that bad, after all, it is just two really long days; then you are fooling yourself. That 20 hours (more for a good grade) of focused work on specific elements of your paper.

The best way to judge how much time you will actually need is to make a backwards schedule in which you set deadlines for every single part of the paper. Using a backwards schedule will keep you on track, reduce your stress and lead to a better grade.

#5. Tackle small parts every day.

Once you have set deadlines for each section of your paper, the next part is to decide what you will work on during the days during the week that you work on your paper. The most efficient way to work on a paper is to do a little bit every day. And to do that little bit first if you find yourself putting it off.

Add a specific task (e.g., find 15 papers on my topic, or summarize five papers, or writhe the goal and thesis statement) to your daily to-do list. Put your writing task at the top of your list if you are dragging your feet).

#6. Write the crappy draft first.

When you first start writing a section of your paper, it is easy to start wondering if what you have written is any good, whether or not you have used the appropriate words, or whether or not it will be good enough and earn the grade you are hoping for. If you are a perfectionist, this can get even worse and out of hand. You can get paralyzed and find it difficult to get anything written down.

One way to keep things moving along is to focus on just getting your ideas written down, no matter how good, bad or half-baked they might seem. Once it is on paper it is easier to fix, and easier to see what you might do differently. For a good number of people, writing it down is how they clarify their thinking (rather than in their heads).

Set yourself the goal of writing a really, really crappy first draft first. If you can’t seem to find the right word, just write down something, even just ‘XXX,’ so that you get your idea on paper. You can go back later on and fix up the wording or find the right word.

#7. Ask for help

The last thing to keep in mind before you start and while you write is that you are allowed to get help with this. Teaching assistants and professors are there to help you out. Asking for help will give the professor a chance to clarify what is expected and you a chance to make sure you are on the right track.

Not sure how to ask for help. We have got you covered. Click here. th

Things to have in place before you start:

#1. Put a team of people in place.

As soon as you have a paper to write for a course, find a few other students that you can talk to about the paper as questions come up. You are going to have a number of questions about what something means, what you are supposed to do, and what the professor meant. Being able to talk to someone else in the class about it will save you time, lower your stress and motivate you to keep going.

Most students will use discord (https://discord.com/) at some point in their studies. If the professor has not already started one, ask a few students and start your own. All you have to mention is that you have started a discord group for students. Anyone who is interested can join. You will have no difficulty finding people to join. Everyone needs a bit of help with this stuff.

#2. Try to find examples of what you are being asked to do.

Writing a paper is a lot easier if you know what you are trying to write. Usually, the professor or instructor will hand out a detailed guideline or rubric on how the paper is being graded. This doesn’t always happen, but even when it does, there is still nothing like having an example of a good paper before you start. If you haven’t been provided with one, then ask. If the professor is reluctant to provide one, then politely ask, badger and beg if you need to. There is no shame in being pushy so long as you are really polite and make your request always about ‘wanting to do your very best.’

If you don’t get one, then start talking to students in different years who may have already written the paper for this course. If you are really lucky, someone will have already posted a copy of their paper online. Just keep in mind that you are looking for a good paper (i.e., 85+) from an earlier, not just any paper that could be really good or really bad.

#3. Make sure to have and use a grammar and spell checker.

This sounds like an obvious thing to do, and it is. However, it is one of those things that routinely gets forgotten by a large number of students. Countless papers are submitted every year, with atrocious spelling, and sentences that have no verbs. Verbs that don’t agree with the subject of the sentence. Sentences that go on and on, and on, and on. You can convince yourself that it is no big deal, and in the grand scheme of things, it really isn’t.

But you are being graded on what you are writing. Some papers allocate marks for the quality of writing, and even if there are no dedicated marks just for writing if your paper is full of mistakes, those mistakes will detract from what you are trying to say. Keep in mind who is reading this — professors, instructors, and teaching assistants who have spent years studying, reading and writing. These kinds of mistakes are offensive — likely leaving your house with your pants on backwards. Sure, it works, but it is visually offensive.

One of the most advanced grammar and spell-check programs is Grammarly. There are free and paid versions. Both are extremely helpful. And yes, it is a cost but only about 1% of what you will spend on your studies each year.

#4. Print off the instructions or grading rubric for your paper.

Again, this sounds like an obvious thing to do, and it is. But, again, it is one of those things that is often forgotten. In trying to get everything done, many students, for a variety of reasons, will forget to do an element of the paper or do something a little different. So, print out the instructions, read them carefully, and make sure you are completely clear on what is being expected. If not, this is one of those things to ask the prof or teaching assistant about right away or ask other students in the class.

#5. Print off our checklist of the most common mistakes students make.

We created this list of errors, mistakes and oversites on the basis of 25 years of grading papers. For the most part, these are easy things to do, which just seem to get forgotten.

Why do universities ask you to write papers?

Writing a paper is really hard. It is a lot of work to write and a lot of work to grade and mark. Why on earth do universities bother with asking students to write papers? The answer is simple — it is about helping you to find your voice and express what you think, in a way that is clear, concise and compelling.

Words matter. They can motivate people to do better. They can incite people to rise up. They can provide comfort. They can right wrongs.

Learning to express yourself in a compelling way is a life-changing skill that you will need throughout your life.

That means learning how to write well.

Keeping track of all of the details

There are so many details to keep track of when writting a paper. On top of what you are being asked to write about, you typically need to follow a certain writing style that determines how your references should be formatted, you need to make sure that your paper is free of spelling and grammatical mistakes before you send it in, and you need to make sure that your paper is easy to read and sounds like an academic paper.

There is too much to keep track of in your head. When it comes down to the deadline, it is easy to miss a step. We have gathered together a checklist of the 25 things that students most frequently forget to do when submitting their papers. The best way to avoid these mistakes is to download the checklist now and consult the checklist as you write your paper. Ideally, you should have (a) the instructions or grading rubric, (b) an example of a paper that you are trying to write and (c) our checklist.

How to avoid plagarism

There are a few simple steps to avoid plagarism. The easiest way is to acknowledge where the idea came from by adding in a citation (e.g., Hysing et al., 2016) and to put anything that you take directly from a paper in quotes.

If you don’t want to quote everything word for word, then you need to re-write what the author is saying. That means changing the order of the ideas and using different words. This is important because even if you don’t quote everything word for word, the ideas and sequence of ideas may be exactly the same, which still makes this considered plagiarism, even if you provide a citation or reference.

That’s why you need to re-write it.

Using computer applications like ChatGPT to write your papers

In November 2022, OpenAI launched ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer), could-based application designed to answer questions in a conversational manner. By January 2023, there were an estamated 100 million users, worldwide.

ChatGPT has the ability to answer questions on any topic. Universities and colleges have already recognized how ChatGPT could be used to answer take-home exam questions and even write course papers. They have already taken steps to limit the extent to which students can benefit from these and other similar applications.

As helpful, as these programs might be when it comes to summarizing information, there are a number of limitations to using AI-based programs. First, although the answers that the program provides are reasonably good, they are not perfect. They will frequently miss important information and do not provide references or citations. As good as you might think the answer is, it not going to merit a top grade. Moreover, the more specialized the course and the more specific the top you need to wrtie about, the less helpful an AI-based summary will be.

Second, these programs are going to provide you with general knowledge about a topic. The information is not going to be new or innovative in any way and may not address the specific requirements of the paper you are expected to write.

Third, if even just a few students from the same class use the program, there is nonetheless the risk of what you submit looking very, very similar to what others submit, which means it could be considered as plagiarizing, which would result in a failed grade and potential expulsion from your program.

Writing a paper is hard. There’s no real shortcut. It’s about finding and learning to express your own voice.

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Notes:
Here’s the math. School is a fulltime job, namely 40 hours a week. Let’s subtract the time you spend in your class which is about 15 hours a week. That leaves 25 hours for papers, exams, etc. for your five courses. That’s five hours for each course. 30% of those five hours is 1.5 hours every week – or 18 hours (about 20 if you include the study break).

Sources:
Hysing M, Harvey AG, Linton SJ, Askeland KG, Sivertsen B. Sleep and academic performance in later adolescence: results from a large population-based study. J Sleep Res. 2016;25:318–24.

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