Summary of the Research Process

Writing a research paper or research assignment begins with understanding the research process. The entire research writing process can be divided into easily manageable and clear steps.

Before you begin to actually write your paper, you must first

• Select a topic
• Understand the role of notes in the research process
• Understand how you will build your paper — or the outline format you will use
• Understand what is meant by source material and what types of source material you will need to find to support your topic
• Understand how to avoid plagiarism

After you have mastered these topics, you are ready to move on to the next step in the research process: searching for source material.