Now that midterms are well underway and will be over soon, many students are beginning to turn their attention to their research paper assignments. In courses and seminars that I teach, the research paper is often worth at least 30% of the final grade, and so it is imperative that research and preparation starts early. Over the past year, I have blogged on a number of topic areas related to planning and executing a well organized research paper, and so I thought it might be useful to collect some of those posts here for the fall semester:

First, it is useful to plan how you will manage writing your papers using an assignment calculator.
Second, you will want to review how to begin researching a topic (Part One and Part Two)
Third, you need to make sure that you know how to create a strong thesis statement
Fourth, plan an outline for your essay
Fifth, make sure you learn the art of paraphrasing
Finally, give yourself time before handing in your paper and review the "Top 10 Mistakes" students make when completing a research paper (Part One and Part Two).

For an even more detailed approach to writing a research paper (especially if you are new to university), see my previous post "Research Paper Season: Are You Prepared?" that breaks down the steps above to an even greater degree. Good luck and remember that the best research papers are ones that set out a clearly established argument (thesis) and make direct references to your sources. We don't necessarily expect original research from undergraduates, but we do expect to see a framework for how you arrived at your final conclusions.