The Importance of Research in University Essay Writing
With university essay writing, the word count of the paper can often be deceptive. You might look at a 2,500 or 3,000-word paper and feel your heart sink at the thought of undertaking something of that size. But the most important qualifying factor, and the one which will really determine how much work is going to go into the paper, is, without a doubt, the research component. Let’s face it, if you are a young person at university nowadays, you can probably already type around 100 words-per-minute. If it was just a matter of writing 2,500 words, you could satisfy the word count requirement in under half an hour.
But being able to write both a good, and a fast essay requires being able to do good research. Time constraints and competing obligations are part and parcel of university life. If you are taking a full course load, you will, inevitably, find yourself trying to determine whether you should sacrifice time on project A and devote it to project B, simply because dedicating an equal amount of attention to both isn’t workable. Below are some tips and considerations for doing good research and writing a solid, time-sensitive research paper.
The find function of “ctrl+f”
For anyone unfamiliar, the find function or keyboard shortcut “ctrl+f” will be one of the most useful research tools you have at your disposal during your university career. The find function allows you to quickly locate vital information in a text of any size so that you can extract it and make it part of your paper. A side note: the find function only works on word and pdf documents. Sometimes you will be given texts to read that are made up of photocopies of pages from a book, paper, anthology etc. When that is the case, they are most likely .jpg files and the find function won’t work. You’ll have to employ your skim reading abilities here.
Let’s say you are writing a paper about the effects of new media technologies (e.g. Facebook) on depression among high school students. You have a section in your paper dedicated to the effects on girls, and another to its effects on boys. You open a peer-reviewed journal article you found on your library’s website. It’s 25 pages of dense information. You could read the whole thing, although that would take hours. You could try to skim read it, though you might end up missing what you’re looking for a couple of times before you eventually find it. Or, you could employ the find function, search the word “girls” and then “boys” and then cycle through every instance of the word in the paper until you find something that seems useful.
Wikipedia first
Throughout your undergraduate career you will be inundated with new information, concepts, and ideas. That is, afterall, the point. Discovering all that new information can be both thrilling, and intimidating. It is humbling to be constantly finding out how limited your knowledge and understanding of the world is. You might begin to write a paper on a topic you have never encountered before and feel stuck.
A good way to help you set up a framework for subsequent research is to see what Wikipedia has to say on it. While you are often expressly forbidden to cite Wikipedia as a source in your papers (often for good reason: the review process for articles is not that rigorous, and the articles themselves are often not written by experts), you can use Wikipedia to help structure your paper. As an aside, Wikipedia is often over-eagerly dismissed by academics on principle alone, despite a 2005 study in the journal of nature finding Wikipedia nearly as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Wikipedia is a great starting point for research because it provides you with easy-to-digest background information, as well as breaks down topics into their constituent parts. If you are trying to write the standard five-paragraph paper, Wikipedia can provide subheading ideas, as well as keywords that you can then search in more trustworthy research and library search engines.
Knowing how to find information is important in and out of school
Knowing how and where to look for information is a skill that is acquired and sharpened over time. There is a reason so many courses, especially first year courses, have an entire introductory assignment whose purpose is to familiarize you with basic research methods and resources. If you pay attention to anything during the first couple weeks of your course, it should be this. Knowing how to search out and find information is half the battle when it comes to research (extracting and utilizing the information is the other). Additionally, knowing how to do your own, independent research will provide you with skills that your future employers will find valuable — such as the ability to find creative solutions to problems.
If you know where information is to be found, and how to quickly sort through available resources, you will cut hours off the essay-writing process. Some professional essay writers and essay writing services are so adept at conducting research, that they are able to complete relatively large last minute research essays for students (i.e. essays that are due within six hours of being requested).
Why University Essay Writing Matters
Conducting research is an essential part of university essay writing, and one of the most important skills you will be given an opportunity to work on and sharpen throughout your undergraduate degree. These are skills that will not only help you write a coherent, well-planned, and often much quicker paper, but that will serve you well when you eventually make your way out into the real world and start living your adult life.
Keep the above research tips and considerations in mind when writing essays at university, and if you still feel that your assignment or term paper is lacking, reach out to Homework Help Global and let one of our professional essay writers get you the mark you deserve.
References:
Hsu, J. (2009). “Wikipedia: how accurate is it?” Live Science. Retrieved from: https://www.livescience.com/7946-wikipedia-accurate.html
Randal, D. (2013). “Independent research cultivates skills employers value.” The Huffington Post. Retrieved from: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/donna-randall/independent-research-cult_b_2914807.html
Originally published at https://www.homeworkhelpglobal.com on July 22, 2019.
