How To Write a Research Paper QUICKLY | Advice from a PhD Student

it's final season which means that your final papers are just around the corner and i am here to help you prepare for those of you that are looking how to write a research paper in a quick 24 or 48 hours this video is for you however if you have a little bit more time and you're thinking ahead then go ahead and check out this video and skip to around two and a half minutes which is where the actual information of the video starts but i'm going to keep this video short sweet and to the point

and show you how it is that you can write a research paper in 24 to 48 hours quick disclaimer this is not something i personally recommend that you do though i am a graduate student i've been in school for many many years did college a master's degree and i'm now doing my phd i know what it takes in order to write a paper in a quick 24-48 hour turnaround we've all been there i've done it my friends have done it and i'm going to show you how to do it but still land that a whether

you've been reading for this paper the entire term but are just now starting to write or you're just now ending your cycle of procrastination and need to start from square one i've got you covered now grab a cup of coffee or tea whatever works for you and let's get to work step number one is to assess the prompt and jot down some initial ideas let's say for the sake of this paper your professor said that you could write about anything within the course material i want you to select a week or a lecture topic you

found most interesting and begin to narrow that down in order to make sense of an interesting paper topic for the purpose of this example i'm going to say that the week on slavery and the law was the most interesting in my american legal history class therefore i'm going to ask myself what i found particularly interesting and what i might want to focus more attention on for me that is enslaved women in the law of slavery this is a good starting point and while it will not be the end all be-all of your thesis it will

allow you to begin the next step which is to begin your literature review to begin for a standard research paper i typically recommend around 10 to 15 sources by scholars in your field and between 1 and 10 primary sources such as archival documents pieces of art data sets demographic data or whatever suits your subject however with the short amount of time that we have to get through these sources for this piece i recommend reading five articles or books and begin writing you'll likely need to consult other works later on but this is a good starting

point now you might be thinking but wait how the heck am i meant to read five books in less than 24 hours and write a paper well that brings us to step number three which is the art of skipping after you've identified a few sources perhaps those you read in class it's time to learn how to skim effectively to start you need to work out what it is you're looking for you've selected your general topic already so now it's time to come up with some keywords that you can use in order to begin your search

for example i selected enslaved women in the law of slavery so my initial keywords are going to be african women enslaved women enslaved women plus slave law freedom suits reproductive labor slavery plus women also one other quick comment about search terms is that if you put a term comma another term then it's going to look for things that have either or but if you say term plus sign another term then it'll specifically look for sources including articles and books that specifically have both of them in the title especially if you're using your library's online sources

and websites such as worldcat archive grid or jstor for articles that are word processed i recommend reading the introduction first and then searching for your terms using ctrl f for books you must master the art of selective skimming while we may not be able to consciously process everything on a page of text our eyes and brains are actually capable of quickly scanning for keywords read the introduction thoroughly and then identify chapters and sections which may have the information you're looking for scan your eyes quickly across each line and only stop when you come across a

key term or phrase which appears relevant from there read around the paragraph before during and after where the phrase arose and see whether there are any relevant quotes you might want to pull from after getting a sense for the primary arguments and copyings of quotes it's time to move on to step four which is outlining to begin our outline we're actually going to take a piece of scratch paper and write down your preliminary ideas and arguments as well as any ideas presented throughout your readings this is what i like to call a mind map after

getting a sense of the paper's primary argument take a blank sheet in word or pages and write out an introduction section 1 section 2 section 3 and conclusion you may need more sections or even subsections depending on your paper but this gives you a general structure go ahead and write up any information from your mind map and notes into the outline and write out your argument under the introduction and conclusion quick disclaimer here is that the argument may change as you begin writing and that is 100 okay now it's time for step number five which

is to begin writing for this step we begin with the most challenging part while everyone has their own system that works for them i personally prefer to write chronologically through my paper for the introduction i always recommend presenting a hook as a historian i prefer to dive into primary source or archival document materials in order to begin my paper of the story but you're welcome to begin however you like my only suggestion however is to have a strong hook which you can then use to connect seamlessly into your primary thesis or argument for the body

paragraphs consider how each example and discussion ties into your primary thesis include topic sentences at the beginning and or the end of each section in order to ensure the reader is following your argument and so that you do not lose sight of the primary goal additionally each statement should be supported with evidence either with a direct quote citation or general discussion which connects to current scholarship whether you're a seasoned pro or first-time essay writer it is important not to make claims or broad generalizations which are not based in fact or the work of a peer-reviewed

scholar for the conclusion summarize the primary points of the paper and how they connect your wider argument and lastly always ensure that you connect your work to current literature ask yourself what have other scholars said and how does your work build upon or perhaps discredit their statements now on for the sixth and final step revise while you may not have time to have your work reviewed by a peer or even to thoroughly reread the entire piece it is important to have a once over before you submit in order to check for any silly mistakes you

may have made while writing it to in the morning if your brain is too exhausted use the dictation feature in pages or word or even read it out loud once you're satisfied format and hit submit all right so now you've received all of my best tips you now know how to write a paper with a solid argument and with evidence within 24 to 48 hours this is ideally for a paper that is around 10 pages or less but if you are ambitious i'm sure you could probably extend this to a longer paper i don't personally

recommend it again the disclaimer in this video is that you should be taking the time to do your research and in order to collect enough evidence to really support your argument however if you are crunched for time and this is the last resort and this is what you are left with then i hope that this video was helpful best of luck with your finals may the odds be ever in your favor and i will see you all in the next video remember to hit that subscribe button and like this one so i know that you

guys are watching and you enjoy these types of videos as well as any recommendations for future videos that might be helpful to you so see you in the next one bye everyone