9 Tips for Research Essays: The Basics

The university I attended was research-heavy. And while I remember my friend telling stories about her adventures in the lab she worked in—she worked with rats—but it never registered that my classes would be driven by research. In hindsight, I understand that it was foolish to hold such a belief since I applied to the behavioral and brain sciences department. I knew that what makes psychology interesting is the conclusions derived from experiments. Still, I naively assumed that there would be a place in that school for people interested in psychological careers without conducting research.

Again, I was wrong! While there are careers that psychology majors can pursue without doing research, research will still be part of the education process. But, I soon learned that research doesn’t always mean setting up experiments and collecting numerical data. What you do mostly in a psychology course is conduct literature research. You will find yourself doing a lot of reading on these courses. The good thing is that they are free—thanks to your tuition. In case you didn’t know, all experiments need to be recorded on paper: everything from the number of participants to potential future research questions based on the results. This is useful for others to understand why the results ended up the way they did. It also helps students like yourself learn about various studies without having to conduct the experiement yourself.

I hope this eases the writing process for you, and you began to enjoy the assignments. I know it can be tedious to have to do extensive reading on papers that use eccentric terminology, but it is worth it. Doing so will help you understand how experiments are conducted and how we get the theories that have helped improve our education system and mental institutes. There is a lot more work needed in those field, which is why we need more research and more people learning about possible solutions. You are likely far from making those attributions, but knowing appreciating writing research essays is a great start. With that, let’s get started on the writing tips:

(Note: Your professors will likely give you guidelines of things expected in the paper, so make sure to keep it at hand for reference throughout your writing process.) 

1. Learn about the topic. In your essays, you want to make sure you are well informed of the subject as possible. The best way to do this is to read many peer-reviewed articles. Please take full advantage of the databases that your school provides. In them, you will be able to find any high-quality journal articles for FREE. The librarian should guide you on where and how to find sources relating to your essay. Please, I cannot stress this enough; take your time on finding useful articles. Do not only do a google search. It might be quicker, but you are more likely to find pieces that are outdated or misinformative.
2. Keep track of significant findings. As you read through the articles, keep a document with notes from the articles you find useful. Make sure to write down the proper citation, trust me, doing this early on will save you time when writing your essay. There were multiple instances when I didn’t write down where I got the information from, and it was a pain to have to reread articles to find the source it belonged to. This will prevent you from plagiarizing. *Note: copying is often condemned to suspension
3. Think about what you will write. Take a break from learning and write bullet points of what you would like your essay to be about. This should be relatively easy if your professor assigned a specific topic, which is often the case since assignments are given as the course proceeds. Here is where you could look at the assignment guideline. Write down whatever comes to mind as you try to answer the assignment question.
4. Pretend you are talking to your best friend. If you get stuck at any point, pretend you are explaining the concept(s) to a friend. Sometimes our brains shut down when we need it the most. I think of it as a defense mechanism to avoid overloads of stress. But essays do not have to be stressful. Again, write down whatever you would tell your friend if they asked about your assignment. You are writing your draft, so you have room for improper grammar and incomplete thoughts.
5. Incorporate the research. You should have a couple of sentences of your thoughts answering the essay prompt and of research findings. Start looking over both and try to incorporate them in your own words. (PLAGIARISM WARNING: do not write word for word what you find in the research papers and always cite your sources!). 
6. Fluff it up. You should now have sentences with research-based evidence as support. You will need to organize the ideas coherently in whatever way works best for your essay. Add more sentences to make your point clear. A piece of advice that helps me write is to state your claim, provide evidence, explain how the evident support or goes against your claim, and explain why your claim matters. Again, you can imagine you are reading it to a friend, and he/she needs to be able to understand what you are trying to convey. 
7. Ask yourself why you are writing. While you are likely writing for a graded assignment, it is crucial to keep in mind that your essay is meaningful. The perk of psychology assignments is that they deal with a matter that affects people. You might know someone who would benefit from hearing about the research done in the said topic; maybe it’s yourself. After I realized that writing essays for my psychology classes were valued at more than a letter grade, I began to take the time to find proper research. It made the assignments enjoyable, and I was able to complete them in shorter times. 
8. Introduction and Conclusion. I like to start writing my essays in sequence, so the introduction is the first thing I write, but I know some people prefer to write out the supporting paragraphs first and then go back to the opening. Do what feels best for you. As for the conclusion, I find it is easier to write it last since you know what you have talked about and can wrap it up more smoothly. You could talk about the limitations of the studies you looked at and suggest future research questions or talk about the take-home message you want your reader to gain. Make sure you follow the guidelines and rubric to see what your professor is expecting for the essay.
9. Edit until it makes sense. By now, you should be able to look through the essay and see where ideas could be worded better. I also like to use Grammarly.com to check for grammatical errors. Also, use a plagiarisms checker to make sure you haven’t accidentally forgotten to give credit where credit is due. 

While other things go into having a well-written paper, I hope these tips facilitated the process a little bit. Writing psychology research essays are useful for understand other courses, as well as everyday life situations. Psychological findings can be applied into many fields, so learning the details of a study and connecting it with other findings help fill in gaps that could benefit society.

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