Composing A Brilliant Research Paper In Journalism: The Essentials

• The first rule of composing a brilliant research paper is: do your research! Lots of it! The more time you can spend studying your subject from a vast array of resources, the more you will know and the more you'll then be able to apply your understanding.


• Choosing a specific topic within journalism means you'll be able to refine your subject so it can be explored in more depth. If you pick a journalistic area that you already know a good deal about, this will not only help your ability to write about it, it will also be a lot easier to find the resources you need.


• Select a topic that you're interested in as well, and you can't fail to go wrong. Any examiner will always be impressed by a paper written with passion.


• Once you know your topic and you have found all the necessary books and references, get yourself organized. Make a study plan so that you can devote the right amount of time on it. With other homework and course work to think about as well, it's crucial that you plan your time. The more hours you can spend on your essay, the better.

If you have everything you need in place before you start writing, it will save you wasting any valuable time. Make sure you've thought your essay through and are aware of the objectives you want to achieve. Make plenty of notes and write out a loose structure for your essay before you begin.

• With those things in place, it should be pretty easy to write a first draft- but don't run out of time so that you're unable to write the second or third drafts! The more you can edit and polish, the more successful your paper will be.


• Remember to get the structure just as right as the content- you can always study other research essays to make sure you're going about it in the right way.


• Don't forget to include plenty of references and reliable sources. This is a particularly crucial thing with this type of essay because a research paper is asking you to research a subject well!


• Ascertain that your introduction (which is always best written last) and your conclusion are just as good as the rest of the paper's content. Don't underestimate the need for a well thought out, concise, well reasoned summary of a conclusion.