Why research paper writing process is so stressful

When most students get an assignment for a research paper they almost always feel automatically overwhelmed. Basically for this kind of paper you have to search the research that’s already been done and published in your particular field of studies. Most of the work comes in unearthing previous relevant research. You may thing that sounds easy, but it usually isn’t. Just the thought of it causes high levels of stress for many students.

Here are some of the steps in the process of writing a research paper that pose a challenge to students.

• Problems are encountered when attempting to organize and write the paper. Some of these problems are associated with locating previous research. If you don’t research the general topic and then narrow it down to something more manageable, you have the opposite problem – there’s too much information available. You must have a narrow thesis statement and then find several main ideas that tie in with the thesis.
• Problems with correctly citing sources. This problem starts at the research stage. If you simply do a lot of reading without taking notes as to where the information came from, it could be very difficult to relocate the original source.
• Failing to take the page limit of the paper into consideration. Teachers assign a page or word count limit for a reason. They have many papers to read! So they don’t want a book from you when they asked for 3 pages. Writing the wrong kind of essay and then finding out you have to change it at the last minute. If you are assigned a research paper, make sure you know exactly what that means! Don’t write something different.
• Connect the main points in the body of the paper to the thesis in a way the reader will understand. It must be done with clarity and precision.
• The amount of effort, time and planning it takes to write a decent research paper is often a big obstacle to students. There are so many other things that have to be done as well – projects in other classes, homework assignments, as well as trying to enjoy a social life which is also important.
• Proofreading and editing. This step is essential for even the most accomplished of writers. There’s no way a writer can always produce flawless work without the need to go back and clean up a few errors.