How to Write Research Paper The purpose of writing a research paper can be many as there are several types of research papers that can be created. However when you are creating a paper for your class, it is better to follow some standard procedures. And always remember, the paper you draft should be informative and legitimate. This how to write research paper guide will help you plan the work and also get it done efficiently. How to write research paper Bibliographies First you should start off by doing some serious studying. For this, you need to collect both online and offline materials. Go through some books, periodicals and articles – visit the local or school library to access them. And when you are reading them keep some paper beside you so that you can take notes of important data. Not only that, you need also to note down the page numbers, and the chapters from which you are using data as you will need to acknowledge later in your research paper. You will come across people who do it like the old days – they put each source in a separate index card. And there are those who take note directly into a computer. All systems are OK as long as you are taking down the bibliographical information such as author, title,  place and date of publication, page and chapters etc. How to write research paper Outlines Before you start writing, the teacher in many cases wants to take a look at an outline. So you might have to do this. Here you have to decide how you want to plan your research paper – the path you want it to take – the topics you want to cover. You can think of a person, a concept, or an event. Think of all the possible angles. You can either be observant or analytical. But if you ask me, always try to analyze the subject a bit, just to make your paper more interesting. This can be done by considering cause and effect or problem and solution. A good way to approach the issue is by setting up an argument and then coming up with the reasoning. For each section, create a header and a sub header and give a context. Educational websites can help you learn how to write research paper If you have to lift from somewhere, go ahead and do it. That is usually not a problem if you are giving the parent source credit for this. Use parenthetical citation if you paraphrasing. This style is used in MLA, APA and other documentation styles. And here are a few sources that can come to your aid - Purdue University’s OWL or Online Writing Lab and Dartmouth’s Writing Center. Plus there are many more that will offer you vital help and show you how to write research paper. And keep your patience because writing a research paper may take hours of hard labor.