Jim Roth’s Website

Last-Minute Research Paper Rough Draft Advice

If you're struggling to begin writing the rough draft of your research paper, please consider following these steps:

First, list the names of the three or four most important points you’ve learned about your topic.

Second, for each point, free-write all you can and all you've learned about that particular point. IMPORTANT: Have NO sources open when you do this so that you can consider these free-writes as your property.

Third, clean up these free-writes and form each of them into a short essay.  You'll stack these short essays in an appropriate order to create the body of your research paper.

Fourth, for each cleaned-up summary, select information and quotes from the appropriate sources.  Most of your research paper will be YOUR words and discoveries.  Blend in information from your sources only when you need authoritative support or the source had nicely written information.

Mark where in the summaries each quotation will go.

Fifth, combine the whole thing into a rough draft.

Sixth, watch and study the Hubble Research Paper Sequence.  You’ll find a video overview and the written examples used in the video that demonstrate the above steps.

Also, please be sure to keep the Purdue Owl Citation Chart handy for help with documenting the information you borrow.

Jim