Research paper may refer to: * Academic paper (also called scholarly paper), which is published in academic journals and contains original research results or reviews existing results * Term paper, written by high school or college students * Thesis or dissertation, a document submitted in support of a candidature for a degree or professional qualification, presenting the author's research and findings
A thesis or dissertation[1] is a document submitted in support of candidature for anacademic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.[2] In some contexts, the word "thesis" or a cognate is used for part of abachelor's or master's course, while "dissertation" is normally applied to a doctorate, while in others, the reverse is true.[3] Dissertations and theses may be considered asgrey literature.
The word dissertation can at times be used to describe a treatise without relation to obtaining an academic degree. The term thesis is also used to refer to the general claim of an essay or similar work.
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Etymology[edit]
The term "thesis" comes from the Greek θέσις, meaning "something put forth", and refers to an intellectual proposition. "Dissertation" comes from the Latin dissertātiō, meaning "path".
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Structure and presentation style[edit]
Structure[edit]
A thesis (or dissertation) may be arranged as a thesis by publication or a monograph, with or without appended papers respectively. An ordinary monograph has a title page, an abstract, a table of contents, comprising the various chapters (introduction, literature review, findings, etc.), and a bibliography or (more usually) a references section. They differ in their structure in accordance with the many different areas of study (arts, humanities, social sciences, technology, sciences, etc.) and the minimal differences between them. In a thesis by publication, the chapters constitute an introductory and comprehensive gist of the appended published and unpublished article documents.
Dissertations normally report on a research project or study, or an extended analysis of a topic. The structure of the thesis or dissertation explains the purpose, the previous research literature which impinges on the topic of the study, the methods used and the findings of the project. Most world universities use a multiple chapter format : a) an introduction, which introduces the research topic, the methodology, as well as its scope and significance; b) a literature review, reviewing relevant literature and showing how this has informed the research issue; c) a methodology chapter, explaining how the research has been designed and why the research methods/population/data collection and analysis being used have been chosen; d) a findings chapter, outlining the findings of the research itself; e) an analysis and discussion chapter, analysing the findings and discussing them in the context of the literature review (this chapter is often divided into two—analysis and discussion); f) a conclusion.[4][5]
Style[edit]
Degree-awarding institutions often define their own house style that candidates have to follow when preparing a thesis document. In addition to institution-specific house styles, there exist a number of field-specific, national, and international standards and recommendations for the presentation of theses, for instance ISO 7144.[2] Other applicable international standards include ISO 2145 on section numbers, ISO 690 on bibliographic references, and ISO 31 on quantities or units.
Some older house styles specify that front matter (title page, abstract, table of content, etc.) uses a separate page-number sequence from the main text, using Roman numerals. The relevant international standard[2] and many newer style guides recognize that thisbook design practice can cause confusion where electronic document viewers number all pages of a document continuously from the first page, independent of any printed page numbers. They therefore avoid the traditional separate number sequence for front matter and require a single sequence of Arabic numerals starting with 1 for the first printed page (the recto of the title page).
Presentation requirements, including pagination, layout, type and color of paper, use of acid-free paper (where a copy of the dissertation will become a permanent part of the library collection), paper size, order of components, and citation style, will be checked page by page by the accepting officer before the thesis is accepted and a receipt is issued.
However, strict standards are not always required. Most Italian universities, for example, have only general requirements on the character size and the page formatting, and leave much freedom on the actual typographic details.[citation needed]
Literature review[edit]
Main article: Literature review
A literature review examines the existing academic literature to:
a) place the proposed or current work with the stream of academic development and history, and/or
b) to discover the strengths and weakness in the literature, uncovering gaps which may justify the significance of the current work.
A thorough review of literature provides the backdrop to, and reasons for, conducting the research. In addition, the discussion sets up the items in the methodology in a 1:1 correspondence. For example, if a researcher wants to query variable A in a particular population, their review of the literature should discuss the importance of, or other research that has studied variable A

Elements of a Research Paper
Set the stage; state the problem (introduction) * Topic: generally describe the topic and how it fits into your field of study * Set the scene
Describe the environment and its conditions
Get permission before using personal information * Introduce and describe the problem
Describe what you intend to show/argue and why
What is its significance?
Illustrate the problem with an interesting example
(Remember you are writing for an audience and want to capture their interest) * Begin to define terms, concepts, vocabulary
If possible, use one authoritative source or combine definitions and footnote your sources
Later in the development of your paper, be conscious of using new terms and their definitions * Since tasks begun well, likely have good finishes (Sophocles) review the topic, scene, and problem with your teacher or supervisor to verify if you are on the right path
Review the Literature
What research is relevant?
How is it organized? c.f.: Writing Center/University of Wisconsin's Review of literature
Develop your Hypotheses
Your hypothesis is your proposed explanation that you will test to determine whether it is true or false
It will contain measurable variables (those that change or can be manipulated) with results that can be compared with each other.
Avoid over-generalizing, and reference the research findings of others to support why you think this will work
C.F. National Health Museum's Writing Hypotheses: a student lesson
Methods
Give enough information so that others can follow your procedure, and can replicate it (and hopefully come up with the same findings and conclusions as you did!) * Describe your procedure as completely as possible so that someone can duplicate it completely * Define your sample and its characteristics
These should be consistent throughout the test * List the variables used
These are what change, or that you manipulate, throughout the test * Try to anticipate criticism that affects either your internal or external validity
These might be considered "flaws"
Findings
This is descriptive and numeric data
Discussion
Develop your argument based upon your findings.
While the data may read for itself, you will need to interpret * how it validates your hypothesis * what falls outside of validity * how it impacts the literature you cited * where further research is needed
Conclusion
Restate and summarize your findings and discussion either in order to simply complexity or to provide a summary for those who skip to it!
References
Verify with your teacher the proper format